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reaperducer

It keeps playing a song called "My Likes"

Meanwhile, here in Siri Land...

Me: Hey, Siri, add "tomatoes" to my Groceries list.

Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?

Me: Groceries.

Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?

Me: Groceries.

Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?

Me: Groceries.

Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?

Me: Groceries.

Siri: OK, Reapreducer. Which list should I add it to?

Me: Cancel.

I've gone back to paper grocery lists. They Just Work™.

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I can't understand why I should talk to any of my devices as long as they are as idiotic as they are now and like you describe above doesn't have the slightest idea about how to handle context.

That said Siri feels at least 100 times smarter than Google assistant to me, the below are actual (if somewhat anonymized) examples:

- Google suggestions when I look at the phone at 5am in the morning: "text random friend of a friend that I answered a question for over Telegram" or "call customers project manager". See https://erik.itland.no/tag:aifails for screenshots and more examples. In the years I had access to the future it maybe helped me twice by pointing out it was time to leave for an appointment.

- Siri suggestions are mostly mundane (more or less predictably tells me when to leave for appointments, kids soccer and hockey training etc, suggests picking up kids at kindergarden - although not consistently, suggests sending messages to my wife over our preferred messaging solution, tweeting, or if I drive 5 minutes down to the shopping center: that I should drive home the way I always do etc) but I have never caught it suggesting outright idiotic things like Google, and once this weekend it even suggested something semi-smart (a text message to my wife that was surprisingly close to one I could have written myself to tell her I was on my way home, including one of my rather unusual abbreviations and with good timing :-)

I agree. Google is collecting all of this data, but every time I'm going to Wegmans, "hey google, navigate to wegmans", its always, "I FOUND SEVERAL OPTIONS, WHICH WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO TO?". And in what is apparently always a surprise, I always want to go to closest Wegmans.

If you've been to Wegmans multiple times, why do you need to keep asking Google how to get there?

Didn't Google spend billions to buy Waze in order to route people around traffic problems?

I know how to get to work, and yet I enter it into my satnav every day because it then avoids traffic.

TomTom had this solved eons ago - my TomTom 5000 from 2014 automatically sets destination as work when I get in the car in the morning, and home when I'm done with work. And it learns my schedule per day, so it doesn't do that on the weekends, or if I need to pop out somewhere at lunch. Such a simple feature from 6 years ago works better than anything that Google can seemingly come up with.

That's what Android Auto does in my car as well-- as soon as I turn the on the car on a weekday morning, it gives me directions & traffic to work. Ditto for the commute home.

I use navigation primarily for the ETA.

Try "hey google, navigate to the nearest Wegmans"

I remember back in ~93, my dad told me that the Mac we had just bought had voice recognition. He warned me -- quite jokingly -- that he had to be careful not to say something like, "mynameisash, please empty the trash" because the computer might hear it and mistakenly delete items in the trash.

Almost 30 years later, how many orders of magnitude faster silicon and countless person-hours of research and I can't get my damn phone (which, yes, _is_ a marvel that way-back-when-me wouldn't believe) to recognize, "call mrs_mynameisash" when I'm using my hands-free while driving. I don't know how many times Google's voice assistant has called some (possibly local?) T-Mobile instead. And my wife's name sounds nothing like "T-Mobile".

> I remember back in ~93

I remember, when I was a wee little lad back in '96, playing on an old Mac Plus with a black and white screen. Even then we had software installed that would let us control the old Mac Plus with our voice. It was the first time I'd ever used a boom microphone.

Here, go reminisce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlainTalk

My dad insisted that a boom microphone was required -- not just any microphone but a "boom" microphone specifically. It was interesting when I showed him some smaller microphones years later that worked better with less noise.

Oh man have I grown since. Hardware and processing power have both grown so much. But speech recognition is still as dumb (or even dumber) as it was 30 years ago. It certainly didn't need the internet to work back then!

Since half this thread gives workarounds, and since I had the same problem, I'll share my workaround: you can tell Google that a particular contact is your wife. There's a "relationship" field in contacts. Now I can say "call my wife" and it mostly works, although saying her name is still hopeless.

One of the funniest video on YouTube in my opinion is this 2007 demonstration of voice recognition on Windows Vista for Perl programming. The lad spends the first 4.5 minutes trying to enter „open (INFO“ before typing it out. Absolute classic.

„Thank you... delete thank you“

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzJ0CytAsec

Google is terrific at answering random questions compared to Siri, though. And I use my Alexa products for shopping lists. Not too long ago they added a feature where it tries to figure out what section of the grocery store things are in, and then it groups items on your shopping list into those grocery store sections. It's pretty nice and a simple "alexa, add <whatever> to my shopping list" is pretty bulletproof.

I tried the same and got frustrated. So I said “Siri shut up you piece of garbage” and she added “shut up you piece of garbage” to my grocery list for me. Very helpful.

Also Siri is constantly having problems knowing if I’m talking to my watch or my iPhone, even if my phone is in my pocket.

> I said “Siri shut up you piece of garbage” and she added “shut up you piece of garbage” to my grocery list for me.

Perhaps it was just being passive-aggressive?

Perhaps an artist released an album called “shut up you piece of garbage”

> Siri is constantly having problems knowing if I’m talking to my watch or my iPhone...

Funnily enough, this is one issue I don’t have: between my phone, watch and iPad I’m consistently impressed at how well it manages to choose the best one - does anyone know if Apple devices actively co-ordinate which one responds to Siri commands?

Maybe it’s because your devices are all newer? I’m using the series 6 watch and an iPhone 6s, it’d probably work better if I upgraded.

Similarly on Android...

Me: Ok, Google. Remind me to leave at 1 O'Clock.

Google: Ok. Do you want to save this? <shows preview of reminder, dings to indicate it's listening>

Me: Yes.

Google: Shows Google search results for "yes" and tosses the reminder.

Google: Tales From Topographics Oceans, got it.

I don’t use Siri for much, and I certainly don’t have it always listening. But I did hack out a useful Shortcut to record my blood pressure and heart rate to Apple Health.

I say, “Add blood pressure <pause> 120 over 80 plus 60.” Then I use the shortcut to parse the string on the / and +, and record it to Health.

The hard part was finding delimiters that Siri would consistently record as a single character. That and realizing I needed a manual review step to make sure Siri didn’t happily pump garbage into my logs.

That sounds useful. What’s the third number, BPM?

Right. My blood pressure cuff records systolic, diastolic, and beats per minute. Apple health lets you record all three of those measures.

Siri is hit and miss, but setting timers (for cooking) always works.

> Hey Siri, set a timer for 8 minutes.

> Ok. 8 minutes and counting.

Siri is the world's most powerful AI-timer-setter.

Setting timers is apparently surprisingly hard! Google Assistant frequently just tells me to set the timer in the app.

Use it all the time for cooking with multiple timers. No issue here.

when i was a working chef, i used this NON-STOP. it is actually the first real “tech” i’ve ever brought into a (real working) kitchen that provided real value instead of gimmick

You worked as a chef and used a single timer in Siri and were happy with that? How?! (Siri doesn't support more than one concurrent timer)

Siri doesn't support more than one concurrent timer

I can't speak for the chef, but it does on HomePod. Each gets its own name and that name is announced when the alarm goes off.

"bleep bloop bleepity boop! Eggs timer. bleep bloop bleepity boop!

So multiple timers only work if I get a HomePod and talk to Siri on that?

I miss the days of instruction manuals. Alexa has always (?) supported concurrent timers but it wasn't until recently that it started asking me if I want to name my timers. But it tries to be "smart" and only ask me when it thinks I need to name them.

I only figured out through trial and error that I can name my Alexa timers without waiting for it to prompt me:

  > Alexa, set a pasta timer for 10 minutes
  > - Pasta timer, 10 minutes, starting now.
  > Alexa, cancel pasta timer
  > - Pasta timer canceled

Alexa, let pastaTimer equal 600. While pastaTimer greater than zero, pastaTimer minus minus. Sleep 1. End while. Play alarm dot mp3.

> (Siri doesn't support more than one concurrent timer)

It has for at least the past couple years now.

I just tried it. It doesn't:

Hey Siri, set a timer for 5 minutes. "OK."

Hey Siri, set another timer for 10 minutes. "A timer is already running, do you want to replace it?"

Alexa is mostly good with timers/alarms, but occasionally will swap 15/50 or 8/80.

If you miss hearing the distinction in the confirmation, you'll miss the scheduled event

Edit: They also have distinct classification of alarm/timers. You can use either word to create one but checking what you've set or trying to cancel will result in 'no timers/alarms' set if your request doesn't match their system design.

Siri does that too. For some reason its always 14/40 for me. The number of times I've gotten shockingly early timers for the drier...

Better than shockingly late timers for the cookies?

This is literally the only useful thing voice assistance does in my life.

For you maybe.

> Hey Siri, set a timer for 13 minutes

> 30 minutes and counting.

> Hey Siri, set a timer for thirteen minutes.

> oh you already have a timer running, do you want me to change it?

> yes

Also I have set timers and lock the phone ‘too early’ and the timer was lost

I have the opposite problem where Siri always starts a timer for 13 minutes when I want 30. I've adjusted to setting the timer for 31 minutes.

I just tried "a half hour" and "half an hour" and it does understand that. So that might be an option if you don't want to wait an extra minute.

I also use 20/40/50/70/80/90 so the half hour trick gets more complicated.

4 minute timers are hard. I normally drop the ‘for’ and it gets super confused. “Set a four minute timer”

You can also say "Set a timer for four minutes".

Fine, you can also say "Set a timer", pause for a hot take, and then say "four minutes" and it's fine. I just tried it and it worked without any issue.

Thank you. I’ll try to add a beat.

It used to be like this for me too. Recently I can‘t use siri anymore when the ventilation is already running. After I said my sentence it keeps listening to the noise forever until it gives up, even though it understood my first sentence perfectly.

It's 2020 and that's still everything virtual assistants are good for. It's kind of sad, really.

I've had great success with the Google smart speaker with "Hey Google, turn off the Living Room TV".

I do have to specify "Living Room TV", even though the speaker and chromecast are configured to be in the same room, it still just turns off a bedroom tv if I'm not specific about which tv.

Also "Hey Google, turn off the Xbox" works, because I linked that at some point.

So not just timers! ;)

There's a setting in Google Home where you can alias which TV a given speaker is paired to as its default so you don't have to name the TV. If you have a device _named_ TV, that goes out the window, though.

It's 2020 and that's still everything virtual assistants are good for. It's kind of sad, really.

The thing I use Siri most for is "Hey, Siri. Tell me a joke."

My dream job is to work at Apple compiling jokes for Siri to belch out on demand.

The short version works well too. “Timer 8 minutes”

No joke, this is the one thing I use my Echo for: as stuff is cooking I set timers for each of them and it works perfectly. It does virtually nothing else well but it's a fantastic keeper of timers.

Also: Wake me up at 7.

Google Assistant on my phone just got better at handling timers.

It used to do a cheesy "Starting your timer.... Now", which would have been okay if a bit tedious repeatedly, apart from the fact that actually you could see that the timer started immediately, so the whole delayed "now" thing was completely misleading. It was like that for well over a year until I noticed it was fixed just recently.

Me: Hey Siri, add tomatoes and grapes to the shopping list in Pap-

Siri: I couldn’t find a shopping list, do you want me to create one?

Me: no. Hey Siri, add tomatoes and grap-

Siri: you have to select which app you want to continue <shows 6 apps, including Paprika. I tap Paprika> Sorry, Paprika has not implemented this function yet.

Me: Hey Siri, addtomatoesandgrapestotheshoppinglistinPaprika

Siri: ok, I’ve added “tomatoesandgrapes” to the shopping list in Paprika 3

I use Google Keep for that :). Share it with my wife, we both have the widget in our phone desktops (or whatever the home screen is called). Works very nice.

It's called a home screen. Never heard anyone use the term "phone desktop".

Not if you're a paying google apps customer. Then OK Google is even more crippled and won't work with Keep.

Oh, God, I have a google apps account on my phone, along-side my regular one, and I once spent three days trying to debug an issue where OK Google had become super-crippled, only to find out it had somehow switched to using my other account.

Yeah, this annoys the shit out of me. We get less features because we paid?

I don't use it with OK Google, I just type the stuff. All I need to do is unlock the phone, swipe right to the next home screen, click the giant widget and type.

The ux of a magnetic Whiteboard and markers on the fridge can't be beat

In a studio apartment with no blocked lines of sight?

You bring the whiteboard to the grocery store with you? How do you keep it from getting erased?

> You bring the whiteboard to the grocery store with you?

I take a photo with my phone. It's not perfect because to mark things off you'd have to use the photo-editing on the phone which would be rather clunky for that purpose. But it works if you don't mind checking things off in your head.

> How do you keep it from getting erased?

I've got a glass whiteboard and use liquid chalk markers. It's tough to accidentally erase something with those.

And when it does work, Siri likes to split your item into two entries. (e.g. "red salsa" ends up as an entry for "red" and an entry for "salsa")

Also fun - you say something, the words you said show up on the screen, and then change into completely different words.

The local processing is more accurate than their algos run amuck, I'd reckon.

Siri likes to split your item into two entries. (e.g. "red salsa" ends up as an entry for "red" and an entry for "salsa")

Yep. When it works, I get entries for both "ginger" and "ale."

Burnistoun

Voice Recognition Elevator - ELEVEN!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNuFcIRlwdc

First aired in 2009

I built my own with a raspberry pi, touch screen, and tiny webserver (on Hetzner). It doesn't use voice. It works perfectly in the kitchen, and perfectly on my phone while shopping.

https://github.com/fredley/digital-black

I've been wondering whether I should re-enable siri and give it an other shot. I use the todos app for that and from time to time it would be convenient to do it handsfree.

I see that I still have no reason to bother, it's going to frustrate me more than anything else (especially with how downhill voiceover has gone in 12).

Basically the main use of Siri for me is lighting---it isn't so bad at setting HomeKit lights scenes---and, with recent shortcuts capability increases, hitting external APIs.

The latter point is a bit broader: now that Siri can hit an arbitrary URL via shortcuts, you can really just set your own trigger phrase to do anything that can be automated. You better believe I have a raspberry pi on order which will be running a local webserver...

May as well just give it a try for yourself and see how you get on. I use Siri all the time to build shopping lists, set reminders (including reminders with alerts), etc. I have no problems with it. I also have no problem issuing the exact command parent poster is having trouble with.

Point is, YMMV; just try it for yourself.

We have a HomePod in the kitchen and its (in my experience) pretty flawless. I empty the milk and I just say 'Hey Siri add milk to the groceries list' and she says 'Ok, added to your groceries list'. If I mumble or stutter things can go off the rails. Also inline editing of my statements causes problems (like where you start saying one word and realizing its the wrong word and swapping it mid-sentence)

I also never have issues and, based on the replies, I'm wondering if the Homepod is the difference. It seems like people using the Homepod as a hub have better luck than those just using their phones.

I was with you until the end. I use Reminders lists that are shared with my wife, we have many many lists for different things. They sync to all my other devices so they're always within 2 seconds of reach. But yes, Siri really can't handle all this, I have to manage it "manually."

I wonder what the difference is. I not only am able to add stuff to my Groceries list 100% of the time but I also have multiple shopping lists so I can say "Add x to my Amazon list" or "Add x to my Costco list" and never have an issue.

Dialect? Maybe it understands your dialect better than other peoples'

I suspect the difference is "Is your accent common in the bay area?"

I definitely use my "AI Command Voice" to talk to the machines.

Tim Cook must hate Siri.

Tim Cook likely has a human Siri.

I had a similar problem where I wanted a reminder to add something to a grocery list outside Apple's ecosystem.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25280410

My wife and I use Google Keep + assistants and they work fabulously. We have different lists: Costco, Amazon, Home Depot, Grocery, Alcohol, and the only time we ever have issues is when one of use says the wrong thing.

Maybe ask her “What did I say?” At least on iPhone, she’ll show you the textual version (and let you type to modify it). Because it sure sounds like she isn’t understanding the word “Groceries”.

My wife and I have been using an app called Todoist(no affiliation) and have been loving it. Groceries is a shared list either of us can contribute to or check off of at any time.

AnyList is very good and I believe a fellow HN'er: https://www.anylist.com/

I take a photo of the fridge and pantry and use it to not rebuy anything, and otherwise just improvise when I'm at the store.

I use “hey Siri remind me to get tomatoes today” and then manually move it all to the shopping list later.

They Just Work™ if you Think Different™.

I don't use any of these "assistants", but curious if you responded with "Groceries List"? Knowing they work on keywords, to Siri, you may not be actually answering her question.

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