Why We May Soon Be Living in Alexa’s World
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
It's just so pointless. You have to speak to it in some weird specific way to get it to integrate with other stuff and it feels so completely invasive.
My wife is the other end of the scale of target market. Complete non-techie, absolute ease of use consumer. She used it as a glorified egg timer, bluetooth speaker and occasionally to play some radio (when it didn't cut out). IT did nothing else for her and adding skills herself was a PITA step too far.
I'm a 'millennial' (if that matters) but this just doesn't have a place in my home. Even my kids, who loved shouting at it to play music, got bored of it and went back to selecting music on their devices.
Maybe I'm getting old but it just feels like Alexa and other voice assistants are just getting shoved into stuff because it is a 'tech spec' and they hope that will sell their device.
It's 3D all over again.
A couple weeks ago my perception changed when I got a Fire TV Stick, and paired it with Alexa. It feels really futuristic to be able to say "Alexa, play Psych" and see the TV change and start where we left off. I can control Netflix and Amazon streaming with only my voice. Now I'm looking for ways to be able to turn on/off the TV, and volume with Alexa.
I think integrating with real world items is where Alexa shines. And as far as your comment on syntax, I've found it very intuitive, and it's only getting better every day.
Maybe if I had a full smart home with lights and whatever. But then I always think 'please, no more bloody cables, power bricks or extension cords'.
Maybe I really am just getting old.
Even though I love my Echos - I've never gotten the appeal of the current "smart home". Sure, controlling some lights that aren't convenient to reach is helpful, but not a major selling feature. Turning on the TV is great, but rarely can you change the volume, and if you could, you're talking over the show. As I jokingly called it in another thread, "a fancy expensive Clapper". Otherwise...you get what, ability to turn them off and on remotely? Again, not useless, but also not a big deal.
When they are SMARTER I'm all aboard. Recognize who I am, the volume level I like, and adjust for whatever volume is coming out of the TV. Give me 'mood lighting' on command. The ability to get answers to even marginally complex questions. Read my email and tell me when her flight is coming in. Know to remind me to clean the place up a day in advance without me explicitly setting it to do that. Generate playlists dynamically based off of more than one term, and build up further definitions based on my reactions. ("No, that was too mellow. Something calming, but still with a beat" results in it adjusting what I meant by 'easy-listening' compared to what others might mean).
I can be excited about the potential, but not about the reality of this aspect.
I don't know how many times before getting it that I was about to doze off and then had to fully ransack the bedroom just to find the tv remote to turn off the TV.
We also use it as an intra house intercom and just today when I was out shopping, I needed to ask my spouse about an item and she didn't answer her phone. But I just piped in directly to the living room and got the answer I needed.
I definitely am getting my $35 worth. Although I never buy things with it, so I'm not sure Amazon is making out too well.
Which is a shame. If there's another HA device out there that in convenient form factor that communicates with my LAN and gives me greater granular control over what it talks to, I'd be buying three right now.
That's a hint to anyone who may be working on a product, or know of a product that fits the niche of the perpetually paranoid :P
It has features that will use the internet, but I don't think it's required to be given internet access.
...and they even sell a 3-pack ;)
I'm going to take a close look at this, cheers!
As a side note, people tend to dismiss stereoscopic 3D as an example of a recent gimmick - and yet this is the technology that has had its largest peak in the 1800's, and has been consistently gaining grounds and advances since.
It has been coming and going in waves, but it has persisted for over a century, and has never been abandoned by enthusiasts - such as the astrophysicist Brian May (widely known for his other work), who has documented the life of a musical collective he has been a part of in 3D[1], and continues the push for adoption and appreciation of 3D tech[2].
Resilience of 3D at home is something tech like Alexa can only hope for.
I am talking about tens of millions of sterescopic photographs and viewing devices[1] made in the late 1800's, with stereoscopes being about as prevalent and accessible as radio sets and TV's before the transistor era.
You can still buy a 3D card more than a century old for under $5 in vintage stores around the US.
And yes, you can slide your cell phone into a stereoscope and enjoy your 3D/VR apps 1880-style. (Today's VR headsets for cellphones are just 1800-s stereoscopes with a rubber band).
https://phys.org/news/2008-07-brian-guitarist-band-queen-phd...
...if you forget him being the guitarist of Queen who also wrote about half of their songs.
So I'd say glorified egg timer AND fancy expensive Clapper.
BUT...I have 4 and expect to get one more. I like being able to do those tasks without interrupting whatever I'm doing physically. Interaction sucks when other people are around and talking, but that leaves plenty of times it is useful.
I'm listening to Pandora on one right now in my office - should I get a call or have an online meeting or whatever I can stop her without having to move or bounce between physical interfaces (far more convenient for me than playing the music on my computer and having to find where to control the music). I have a truly terrible memory, so being able to verbally request a reminder in most any room is faster and easier than even pulling out my phone much less navigating to the right app.
The rest of the options are quite weak (and arguably getting worse - when they first came out you could ask an Echo which was bigger, lake washington or lake union, and she answered really helpfully. Now she doesn't seem to understand anything, and when she does she gives crap answers so often we've largely stopped trying.) For those weaker options either you happen to have them convenient for you, or more likely they are just trying to grab the concept space first, and worry about being truly useful in that space second.
But even without those other features, there is definitely a POINT. Perhaps not a point you need yourself, almost certainly not a point worth the price, but there is a point.
I live and breathe in the tech world, and this is exactly how my family and I use Alexa. Almost entirely for timers and alarms (kids use it every day to set a timer for when they practice piano). I use it as an alarm to help me wakeup in the AM.
And we'll use it to turn lights on/off while on vacation. That's about it.
The rest of our interactions are generally, "Alexa, STOP!"
My brother's Alexa will say stuff like "Sorry, I don't understand 'turn living room light off'" even though the "turn living room light on" command worked five minutes prior. Repeating back exactly what Alexa didn't understand works the second or third time. "Unpolished" doesn't do the platform justice.
My Google Home is accurate, even though open doors and with the TV on. The Pixel 2 seems to yield control to Home just fine (which was a problem with my Pixel 1). The voice itself sounds slightly more natural and friendly - I sometimes find myself holding back a "thank you."
Has anyone had any contradictory experiences to my own?
Either way, until that happens, I will not be having such a pervasive data collecting device in my home.
I'm excited about the possibilities of the big 3 competing on a more level playing field.
Am I being naive here, or not? It feels like a new marketplace is opening up.
Using Home Assistant and jumping through some hoops, I've been able to force onto the same system some devices that really put up a massive fight to play nicely together; and I have even more manual work before I'll be able to use Google Assistant to control it all with my voice.
The competition, though... it's really, really bad for most users.
Went round a friend on Friday who has one, people started throwing songs at it. It's slow and only roughly 20% of the time it managed to understand us. We figured out some trick of song then artist (or maybe artist than song) which made it work a little better.
Worse still when it did understand us most of the time it was only able to play a sample. "prime".
Do not buy.
You can even go grab a docker image to try it out before buying the hardware.
I'd love to buy one as I love the idea of a device like this that serves me, not the manufacturer. The main thing stopping me is in line with other comments in general: After a few days, when the novelty wears off, I'll have no use for it.