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Comment by rsj_hn | Hacker News Reader

The only thing I have ever wanted from phone assistants is to tell me whether a coffee shop was open or not, or what the closing time is. I still can't get this info, nor is this question understood. I still have to stop, launch a browser, navigate to the site, and dig around their website for opening hours, or in the worst case find a phone number and call to ask them.

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The one thing that I can consistently get google assistant to do is to set timers: "Ok google set timer for 5 minutes". I want more of that. Could they please just implement and document simple recipes like this? Setting a timer hands-free is already incredibly convenient, and I can only imagine making something similar for a wide host of tasks isn't /that/ hard. I really don't mind if I have to formulate it in a rather specific way, as long as it works and I can find out what that way is.

What phone assistants are you using? I’ve never had this problem.

Siri

Same here, Siri solves this problem.

Me: “Hey Siri, how late is x open?”

Siri: One possibility is on x street, does that sound good?

Me: Yes

Siri:

“X is open from y-z.”

I just tried it and you're right, it works. Well, it didn't used to work so I stopped using Siri. I regret the error.

I wonder if people assume Siri failed to understand the query when they hear its request for clarification. I think it should include some context, eg: “Which x do you want opening hours for?”

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