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Comment by filchermcurr | Hacker News Reader

On the bright side, smart speakers aren't even a little bit essential, so it's easy enough to just not buy them if this starts happening. I don't think the value proposition of an always-on device connected to a vast advertising network is very high to begin with. Throw in subliminal advertising and you'd have to be very... dedicated... to want such a device.

If it succeeds even a little, though, they'll bake it into our TVs and phones that are plugged in at night. Those are much harder for people to give up.

Maybe somebody will jump in with pod beds that hide us from our devices at night. Like a giant active noise cancelling headphone cup to sleep in. Smart enough to let us hear little things like fire alarms or panicked screams, of course.

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You underestimate what people will sacrifice in order to be able to say "Alexa, what's the weather like today" rather than pull out their phone and open the weather app which is probably faster to do anyway.

"But what if I have my hands full with stuff" they'll say. Well, will you really be able to remember what Alexa says about the weather if you're busy doing other stuff anyway?

All everyone can ever point out as advantages of smart speakers are these tiny, minuscule, increases in convenience. Is it really worth building a gargantuan ad-serving data hoarding surveillance network to gain those small conveniences?

Screw that stuff. My minor convenience is more important than the consequences of the surveillance economy!

I think this is 99% caused by advertising in itself. One of the oft-forgotten facts about ads is that they can not only influence you to choose between competitors for irrational reasons, but they can very often influence you into buying something that you didn't need at all. In fact, this is often the primary purpose, as Amazon for example profits more from you owning a Siri speaker than they do from you not owning a smart speaker at all (since part of their stock price will be influenced by the size of the overall smart speaker market, not just their slice of it).

You underestimate what people will sacrifice in order to be able to ask their phone about the weather instead of taking a look through the window.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I really hate this argument. You can't reliably determine the exact temperature or future weather conditions by looking out of the window.

Serious question since I've never owned a smart phone. Do they not come with a browser? If they do, you can look up your zip code on weather.gov [1] and then expand it to show more details, then bookmark the result. The URL will remain the same for that zip code. At least for the U.S. that is quite accurate. Does the E.U. have a similar site? If you want to hear the weather, then you could bookmark ATIS [2] for your area. Can you launch an app or a bookmarked page using built-in support for voice commands on smart phones?

[1] - https://www.weather.gov/

[2] - https://www.liveatc.net/

Or use HomePod and Siri and you don’t have to worry about your trading privacy for convinience.

Really when people talk about nefarious smart speakers, they are really saying “Google, Amazon, Facebook.”

It is possible to have a smart speaker that isn’t spying on you or trying to sell you stuff.

Alternatively you could buy Apples homepod, I can't imagine they want to torpedo their brand so completely that your homepod won't be broken by then anyway.

> I don't think the value proposition of an always-on device connected to a vast advertising network is very high to begin with

This is more of a hacker perspective though. All my non technical friends have been seduced by offers of either Alexa or Google Home. Because in my region, they are commonly sold at a huge price discount with almost any medium to large purchase. EX: Buy a laptop - Google Home at 50% off

> If it succeeds even a little, though, they'll bake it into our TVs

My mom LOVES being able to search for content using Alexa on the Firestick remote, so this is the most terrifying and likely possibility by far

They would literally give the devices away for free if they thought people would trust it as much as if they paid for it.

That comment has applied to TV's for generations, too.

The propaganda must get through.

> If it succeeds even a little, though, they'll bake it into our TVs and phones that are plugged in at night. Those are much harder for people to give up.

Well, yeah, but having a TV in your bedroom isn't necessarily the best idea for quality sleep anyway so get rid of that.

Then you can always plug your phone in to charge somewhere else in the house, or stick it inside a Faraday box[0] with just enough of a hole to fit the charger cable in.

I've recently switched to a dumb AF clock radio alarm because I got tired of my iPhone alarm going off silently at random (one of the most annoying and long-standing bugs in a device I've ever encountered).

It gets annoying having to do all this stuff just to avoid ads but it also becomes just part of your daily routine.

[0] Faraday boxes are pretty cheap. I recently picked up a nice looking one for about £15 from Argos, though not specifically for my phone. It'd be pretty easy to drill a slot big enough to fit a lightning cable through if I wanted to though.

Lmfao same here on that iOS bug!

The phone part assumes that you can safely sleep without the possibility of receiving alarm calls from your loved ones, which isn't true for the vast majority of people. If one of my loved ones suffers some accident over night, I want to be woken up by emergency services and be available to help.

> without the possibility

POTS

you can build a faraday box with some aluminum foil, 2-4 layers are enough (you can test it by trying to call the phone inside it, if it rings you need more layers).

inb4 companies start putting LTE/WiFi antennas inside wall chargers, if this happens buy an "usb condom"

> a giant active noise cancelling headphone cup to sleep in

This sounds like hiring big aggressive monkeys to fend off small troublesome monkeys. Edit: I mean, how do you protect from this headphone doing exactly the same thing?

Obviously, noise cancelling earbuds

> Maybe somebody will jump in with pod beds that hide us from our devices at night. (...) Smart enough to...

Smart enough to sell access to the highest bidder. I will have a normal bed in a normal bedroom with nothing plugged in while I sleep, thanks.

> Smart enough to let us hear little things like fire alarms or panicked screams, of course.

Then all ads will start with panicked screams and fire alarms.

I think for most people, myself included, the risk just isn’t very high. And ads just don’t bother me either. I’m not pro advertising, but I’m fine dealing with them in many contexts.

Once subliminal ads start then I’d probably turn the devices off. But for now this ranks so low on my list of concerns to be a non factor.

Smart speakers aren’t necessary, but they’re exceedingly popular. History tells us that advertisers can and will exploit the popularity of a convenient but optional device to push ads.

And word to the wise; don’t sleep with a phone in your bedroom. It’s really bad for your sleep hygiene.

I want to believe that, but the success of Ringo doorbells tells me people are ultimately lemmings. Advertise long enough and eventually they'll be worn down.

Business selling faraday cages for the home, anyone?

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