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Comment by neves | Hacker News Reader

Ok, it is cheap. It is also cool. But does the techies here find it really useful? If so, why?

When I'm grilling steaks, cooking vegetables on the stove, and baking garlic bread in the oven all at the same time... Alexa is the ultimate kitchen timer, letting me set separate reminders for handling all three or more at once. She's great for managing my To Do list and shopping list. She's a nice DJ, or podcast player when I'm getting ready in the mornings.

I have two young kids, and they love peppering the Google Home with a million zany questions that otherwise I'd have to stumble through (e.g. "Is a T-Rex bigger than a Spinosaurus?"). Occasionally random queries will pop into my head too, and it saves me the trouble of pulling up my laptop or tapping a search string out on my phone.

They're both mostly toys, I suppose. But I've spent much larger sums of money on much sillier and less worthwhile toys (it's astounding that Apple hasn't made one of these yet).

Apple is making one (the HomePod), although they couldn’t ship in time for the holiday season.

It gets OK use I've found from people who are between 28-40 adopting new technology like voice commands.

I have two kids. You should see how they use Alexa. A ton.

Like we adopted technology in ways the generation before us could never imagine, so will the next. Never forget that we have decades of bias cooked into our souls; the mouse and keyboard being the primary instruments of UI and email being the main method of communication.

The next generation has no guarantee of using the same tools we did... and in fact is very likely to be using something entirely different that seems unproductive to us.

Must be a small window of people. I’m over 50 and have no problem wanting to use voice.

I started with computers as a teenager before the Mac was released. Growing up watching the original Star Trek in reruns, I thought we’d all be talking to computers by now.

> Growing up watching the original Star Trek in reruns, I thought we’d all be talking to computers by now.

I thought the same, but I also thought the computer would be a massive box somewhere on site like the Enterprise's computer

> I have two kids. You should see how they use Alexa. A ton.

Amazon thanks you for the data points they've been collecting on your children, and for teaching your children to tell Amazon all about themselves before they're even old enough to realize the possible implications of doing so.

I remember when I used to think such aggregations of data were avoidable, too. Better times.

You think installing these products in your home and teaching your children to use them is "unavoidable"?

I do find it useful for the one very niche purpose of telling it to play music and control the room temperature while I'm taking a shower. I also fully acknowledge the privacy risks of having an always listening device in the bathroom.

I mainly use it as a home automation "hub", works well if you have multiple systems (I use it w/ Insteon, Hue, Sonos) working together and don't want to run something complicated like Homeseer. My wife uses it mostly to control lights/music, especially when she literally has her hands full with our twins. I also like that I can re-order common stuff like diapers, wipes, etc. without having to find/take out my phone.

Sometimes I wish it had a GUI though so I could interact with it even faster..

I use it primarily to control lights and my thermostat. In theory I can use it to control my entertainment system, but that seems less convenient than an app on my phone.

The lighting control is great. I see a lot of people saying a physical button or switch is better, but voice control is a button that is always exactly where you are.

I live in an older house which with the exception of the kitchen and bathroom is lit entirely with tabletop lamps. Adding modern recessed lighting with convenient switches would be a major undertaking. Installing a bunch of Insteon lamp controllers took 15 minutes and pairing with Alexa was pretty simple.

Bottom line, Alexa is an I/O device just like a keyboard is. It's only useful when connected to other devices. If you find home automation worthwhile, you'll probably like the voice control Alexa provides. If you think home automation is more trouble than it's worth, Alexa probably won't change your mind.

>I live in an older house which with the exception of the kitchen and bathroom is lit entirely with tabletop lamps. Adding modern recessed lighting with convenient switches would be a major undertaking. Installing a bunch of Insteon lamp controllers took 15 minutes and pairing with Alexa was pretty simple.

This is one use case for lighting IoT that seems genuinely useful to me. Most of my house lighting has been upgraded over the years as part of bigger renovation projects but I had a bunch of X-10 gear at one point to handle the various lights that weren't controlled by wall switches. If current smarthome gear had been available then it would have been very useful.

1. Always on and ready to go. Don't have to pull out a phone or other device

2. In my experience, understands me and responds way better and quicker than Siri on my iPhone

3. My wife and I love the Spotify integration and other little useful things like timers, alarms, etc.

Overall, it's the simply ease-of-use that keeps us using the Dot everyday.

I got the original echo free at a conference, I really don’t find it that useful. For me, I could accomplish all the same things with a Bluetooth speaker. Although my kids get a kick out of the farting skill. Outside of playing music that is the most used feature.

I don't find it useful at all. The things it's good at (timer, lights, playing music, etc) are not hard to do to begin with.

They aren't that hard if you have an interface nearby to do it - my phone usually sits upstairs in my bedroom after I come home from work, so the Echo is a convenient voice interface to do exactly that set of things (timer, lights, playing music, etc). One thing it's super convenient for is when I'm upstairs and going to bed and I realize that I left the lights on downstairs, I can just call down "Alexa, turn off downstairs lights" -- it beats getting my glasses and opening up the app that controls my lights.

One thing I don't find it useful for is what Amazon most want me to use it for -- to buy things. I rarely buy the same thing twice from Amazon, so I can't just say "Alexa, buy more toilet paper" -- when I shop, I generally want to look at other options, compare different retailers, read reviews, etc... which is hard to do with a pure voice interface.

>my phone usually sits upstairs in my bedroom after I come home from work

Why is it ever not in your pocket?

Because I'm at home, I don't need my phone at my fingertips.

I like that it integrates well with spotify. I can have it play real american by rick derringer while I'm flexing in front of the mirror without having to break my sweet poses.

Again, it is useful to setting reminders. Very useful. Other functionality for me is just occasionally useful. Also asking the wether and stuff. Would really love to see Alexa begin to picking up traffic or maybe something like calling a Uber.

I think current Echo's interface is still limited, that is why Amazon is adding screen to the Echo Spot. Shopping with voice is just plainly awfully awful.

The ultimate Alexa is going to be the one with a screen + a projector enhanced by AR. That will really cool, though years maybe decades before we reach there.

I mostly use it to control Philips Hue bulbs.

At my previous company we used it to verbally query key performance metrics, user statistics, etc.

I use it to play songs when guests come in and want to party. It's a huge pain to search for songs on Apple music and play them, when 10 guys are yelling their preferences. I also use the timer function quite a bit - for indoor exercises and cooking.

setting timers (multiple at once!), adding things to the grocery list (see X is running low? just shout to alexa to add to shopping list), and playing music are the 3 killer features for me.

being able to turn the lights on and off is fun, too.

Hooked it up to my ESP8266 and now my IoT devices are voice activated. Nice!

Nope, I don't see the point in voice controlled gadgets, except maybe for use in cars. Otherwise: Just give me something with buttons to push.

I use it:

* to turn on/off the TV (for my nintendo switch)

* timers

* netflix

* music

* weather

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