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Comment by awithrow | Hacker News Reader

Using alexa as a timer is about 99% of what I do with mine. Occasionally I'll ask it the weather. The push for engagement is what is killing it for me. Just about everytime I ask it for something, it follows up with suggestions for other commands. Most of my commands now end with me having to tell alexa to shut up. I've toggled the flag in the settings to reduce this behavior but I guess the setting is all but ignored. Very frustrating when there is a lot of potential

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> Very frustrating when there is a lot of potential

this is my experience as well. Often my Alexa gets told to F-off.

ME: "Alexa play music"

Alexa : Playing Spotify...

Nothing..no music.. repeat asking it to play music.. nothing.

> The push for engagement is what is killing it for me.

It had potential, but instead of getting the basics working they keep focusing on everything else?

I dont care about Alexa telling me about all the new things it can do when it cant do the core reason i bought for reliably.

Now it is relegated to telling me the weather, being a kitchen timer, and adding items to my shopping list.

In addition, and not considering privacy concerns, I've found relegating them to kids entertainment to be a pretty good use case. Conversations go into all sorts of random directions, it misunderstand most of the intent which can be very funny at time, answers incorrectly, but the kids don't mind at bit and simply keep on going.

Hopefully they are discerning enough that this kind of thing isn't a concern?

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/28/22856832/amazon-alexa-ch...

Would this open-source alternative "mycroft" be capable of replacing the functions Alexa is currently relegated to?

I've looked at a few alternatives and they all face the same core issue :

The Alexa's hardware is really good, it is the software that is the issue.

If i install Mycroft, what will it run on? I guess a Pi? Does this look anywhere near as refined as an Alexa device?

How much time will i need to spend to get it working vs simply plugging an Alexa in?

Telegram chat bots are pretty useful, because you're supposed to tell them commands, not natural language. Alexa wouldn't need sophisticated software if you interacted with it with a series of limited commands instead of natural language.

> If I install Mycroft, what will it run on?

How about Mycroft's own device? https://mycroft.ai/product/mark-ii/

Last I checked, the mycroft timer could set simple timers, (set a 5 minute timer, etc.) but things like repeating timers weren't working yet.

It's getting better, but in many cases it's not there yet.

I'm not complaining because as much as I want to help, I simply can't spend enough time to get into the code.

I want to use mycroft, since their privacy concerns are a real thing.

This is why I stopped using my Google home devices. No matter what I did, any time I tried to use it, I had to endure an extra minute of dialog telling me how to use the thing. Every. Single. Time. No exceptions, no matter what command or what settings, I got these "hints" every time.

Sure, it makes sense to help your customers understand the abilities of the device, but trying to annoy them into using it more is just never going to work.

Did you replace them with something else?

Every single time? Mine don't do that. I get the occasional suggestion, that's it. Maybe the suggestions were more frequent when my Google home devices were new and I needed to be "trained." How long did you use yours before giving up?

Never had that, must be a thing they do in the US.

I'm 60% weather and 39% timer. Sometimes I'll try asking for a song, and it will get it wrong and then I'll yell at it.

Asking for specific albums, songs, and playlists seems to be somewhere on the edge of Alexa's (and Siri's) capabilities and can easily get into the frustration zone.

This is pretty much the same around my house only we also use it to make shopping list for things we don't buy from Amazon.

I cannot think of a single time I've bought something through alexa. I also can't imagine why someone would.

Why do you keep a spying agent in your home for so little value?

I understand your point, but I have heard this discussed many times in person and there's seemingly a big fraction of people who just don't care what Alexa/etc listen to...the nothing to hide motif.

Not exactly wise to swear at it. You don't want it to start holding grudges. It can easily start withholding information. You never know.

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