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Comment by king_magic | Hacker News Reader

Alexa is a glorified lighting management system for me. Given it’s current capabilities, that’s all it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Oh, I’ll ask it the weather sometimes, but come on - what can Alexa really do that’s all that compelling, that already isn’t a capability of Siri/Google?

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  "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes." (She's a cooking timer)
  "Alexa what time is it" (She's a clock)
  "Alexa switch the tv off" (She can't switch it on)
  "Alexa, meow meow/Pika/fart" (Novelty nonsense)
  "Alexa, turn the heating up in the living room" (Nest integration)

Yeah that's about it. The only really useful thing she does for us is music control on our sonos system - "Alexa, play the album X by Y in the kitchen". That's quite neat.

Calling between rooms has been the main reason I got a second device (first one for tinkering). Got a young baby so being able to wake up the partner across the other side of the house without needing hands when there's been an ... explosion is useful.

Adding things to a shopping list is the other one that works nicely.

That music integration with sonos sounds really nice.

Nothing groundbreaking though.

Try customizing your daily briefing. Really nice for a curated news briefing while you’re getting ready in the morning, or making dinner.

Two timers at once. Great in the kitchen. But you’re right... Why can’t Siri do that?

A device with multiple microphones is more useful from the couch, especially when I need to yell into the kitchen. I don’t want to feel the need to keep my phone within earshot at all times.

I wish Apple had such a $30 device for Siri but it’s unlikely.

Yeah they instead have a $349 speaker with Siri. I rather just buy two Mycroft Mark 1's for that chunk of change.

As of iOS 12 HomePod can set multiple timers too.

edit Also, I completely agree. I wish there was a HomePod Dot type offering. I've been sprinkling HomePods throughout the home, but it's expensive and also obtrusive in places where you don't want something that bulky.

I don't have an Alexa myself, I'm a Google Home user. One thing that's always impressed me is the ability of Alexa to order things from Amazon just by issuing voice commands. Although, I'm sure that comes with its own host of problems, especially if you're not just ordering a generic product.

Ordering via Alexa is something I would definitely, never do, in any scenario.

You can order things from Amazon using Alexa but you can’t delete items from your cart using Alexa. For me this makes it useless. Not being able to delete items makes it user unfriendly. Unless Amazon changes this I’m not going to use Alexa.

Nor add to wish lists, or move to saved items, or move from saved items to cart, etc. The UI interaction model is in early days for sure.

> comes with its own host of problems

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/african-grey-parrot-rocco-wa...

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