I totally buy the story from a personal perspective, but it does seem like the general cloud marketshare case across Google, Azure, and AWS is starting to normalize.
I'm excited about the possibilities of the big 3 competing on a more level playing field.
Am I being naive here, or not? It feels like a new marketplace is opening up.
I've just moved into a new house and have spent quite a few hours smartifying it. What I'll say is that, though there will be competition, once a user chooses an ecosystem, they are locking themselves into one side of a 1990's Mac vs PC-esque death race.
Using Home Assistant and jumping through some hoops, I've been able to force onto the same system some devices that really put up a massive fight to play nicely together; and I have even more manual work before I'll be able to use Google Assistant to control it all with my voice.
The competition, though... it's really, really bad for most users.
Went round a friend on Friday who has one, people started throwing songs at it. It's slow and only roughly 20% of the time it managed to understand us. We figured out some trick of song then artist (or maybe artist than song) which made it work a little better.
Worse still when it did understand us most of the time it was only able to play a sample. "prime".
Pretty sure I should be the target market for this, and I bought one. But I don't use it and it sits unplugged on the shelf. I'm going to sell it while the going is good.
It's just so pointless. You have to speak to it in some weird specific way to get it to integrate with other stuff and it feels so completely invasive.
My wife is the other end of the scale of target market. Complete non-techie, absolute ease of use consumer. She used it as a glorified egg timer, bluetooth speaker and occasionally to play some radio (when it didn't cut out). IT did nothing else for her and adding skills herself was a PITA step too far.
I'm a 'millennial' (if that matters) but this just doesn't have a place in my home. Even my kids, who loved shouting at it to play music, got bored of it and went back to selecting music on their devices.
Maybe I'm getting old but it just feels like Alexa and other voice assistants are just getting shoved into stuff because it is a 'tech spec' and they hope that will sell their device.
Maybe it's not for everyone. We were given an Echo Dot for Christmas. By itself, it's at best a toy, I agree. I didn't use it after the first couple days.
A couple weeks ago my perception changed when I got a Fire TV Stick, and paired it with Alexa. It feels really futuristic to be able to say "Alexa, play Psych" and see the TV change and start where we left off. I can control Netflix and Amazon streaming with only my voice. Now I'm looking for ways to be able to turn on/off the TV, and volume with Alexa.
I think integrating with real world items is where Alexa shines. And as far as your comment on syntax, I've found it very intuitive, and it's only getting better every day.
I've got two Fire TV devices. The novelty wears off, especially for browsing content (you can't) and the remotes have the voice function built in anyway.
Maybe if I had a full smart home with lights and whatever. But then I always think 'please, no more bloody cables, power bricks or extension cords'.
> Maybe if I had a full smart home with lights and whatever.
Even though I love my Echos - I've never gotten the appeal of the current "smart home". Sure, controlling some lights that aren't convenient to reach is helpful, but not a major selling feature. Turning on the TV is great, but rarely can you change the volume, and if you could, you're talking over the show. As I jokingly called it in another thread, "a fancy expensive Clapper".
Otherwise...you get what, ability to turn them off and on remotely? Again, not useless, but also not a big deal.
When they are SMARTER I'm all aboard. Recognize who I am, the volume level I like, and adjust for whatever volume is coming out of the TV. Give me 'mood lighting' on command. The ability to get answers to even marginally complex questions. Read my email and tell me when her flight is coming in. Know to remind me to clean the place up a day in advance without me explicitly setting it to do that. Generate playlists dynamically based off of more than one term, and build up further definitions based on my reactions. ("No, that was too mellow. Something calming, but still with a beat" results in it adjusting what I meant by 'easy-listening' compared to what others might mean).
I can be excited about the potential, but not about the reality of this aspect.
I have most of my lights and TV's hooked up and although I wasn't sure we would use it often, we use it all the time. The biggest thing is being able to turn of lights after I am in bed. Or on the way out, turning everything off without hunting for remotes. And adjusting the thermostat by voice is something we do on a regular basis. We also use it to play music in whatever room, ask it the time, weather and set timers, the usual stuff.
I don't know how many times before getting it that I was about to doze off and then had to fully ransack the bedroom just to find the tv remote to turn off the TV.
We also use it as an intra house intercom and just today when I was out shopping, I needed to ask my spouse about an item and she didn't answer her phone. But I just piped in directly to the living room and got the answer I needed.
I definitely am getting my $35 worth. Although I never buy things with it, so I'm not sure Amazon is making out too well.
I would love all of that, but I don't want it connecting back to the cloud. And understanding some of the inherent necessities these things have with the cloud, I understand I am not the target market.
Which is a shame. If there's another HA device out there that in convenient form factor that communicates with my LAN and gives me greater granular control over what it talks to, I'd be buying three right now.
That's a hint to anyone who may be working on a product, or know of a product that fits the niche of the perpetually paranoid :P
This looks great! I’ve been interested in playing with a voice assistant but prefer not to give my data to amazon. Will definitely be giving this a try.
Google Home + Chromecast can turn the TV on and off. If you're Chromecasting, you can say "set the volume to 60%" or "rewind 35 seconds". When you use the trigger word, it even turns down the volume automatically so it can hear you better.
The great thing about Google Home + Chromecast is that it provides playback controls even for sources that don't have direct Google Assistant integration (so even if you have to start the stream manually, you can control playback with your voice.)
Infrared? No. It uses HDMI-CEC for power commands, so your TV has to support that (most do). Volume control and seeking is done directly through the Chromecast.
As a side note, people tend to dismiss stereoscopic 3D as an example of a recent gimmick - and yet this is the technology that has had its largest peak in the 1800's, and has been consistently gaining grounds and advances since.
It has been coming and going in waves, but it has persisted for over a century, and has never been abandoned by enthusiasts - such as the astrophysicist Brian May (widely known for his other work), who has documented the life of a musical collective he has been a part of in 3D[1], and continues the push for adoption and appreciation of 3D tech[2].
Resilience of 3D at home is something tech like Alexa can only hope for.
I am talking about tens of millions of sterescopic photographs and viewing devices[1] made in the late 1800's, with stereoscopes being about as prevalent and accessible as radio sets and TV's before the transistor era.
You can still buy a 3D card more than a century old for under $5 in vintage stores around the US.
And yes, you can slide your cell phone into a stereoscope and enjoy your 3D/VR apps 1880-style. (Today's VR headsets for cellphones are just 1800-s stereoscopes with a rubber band).
First time I hear about Brian May being an astrophysicist. Very surprising (to me at least). He was awarded his PhD in 2007, for his study on the formation of zodiacal dust clouds.
FWIW, I'm much like your wife - I use it to set timers, alarms, and to play music. Occasionally to poke my wife when she's in her studio so I don't have to run down a flight of stairs just to see if she's even there. I've added in a "smart" controller to a hard-to-reach outlet for our george foreman grill (no off switch), and have a set to do so with a pair of lights that are inconvenient to turn off.
So I'd say glorified egg timer AND fancy expensive Clapper.
BUT...I have 4 and expect to get one more. I like being able to do those tasks without interrupting whatever I'm doing physically. Interaction sucks when other people are around and talking, but that leaves plenty of times it is useful.
I'm listening to Pandora on one right now in my office - should I get a call or have an online meeting or whatever I can stop her without having to move or bounce between physical interfaces (far more convenient for me than playing the music on my computer and having to find where to control the music). I have a truly terrible memory, so being able to verbally request a reminder in most any room is faster and easier than even pulling out my phone much less navigating to the right app.
The rest of the options are quite weak (and arguably getting worse - when they first came out you could ask an Echo which was bigger, lake washington or lake union, and she answered really helpfully. Now she doesn't seem to understand anything, and when she does she gives crap answers so often we've largely stopped trying.) For those weaker options either you happen to have them convenient for you, or more likely they are just trying to grab the concept space first, and worry about being truly useful in that space second.
But even without those other features, there is definitely a POINT. Perhaps not a point you need yourself, almost certainly not a point worth the price, but there is a point.
> My wife is the other end of the scale of target market. Complete non-techie, absolute ease of use consumer. She used it as a glorified egg timer, bluetooth speaker and occasionally to play some radio (when it didn't cut out). IT did nothing else for her and adding skills herself was a PITA step too far.
I live and breathe in the tech world, and this is exactly how my family and I use Alexa. Almost entirely for timers and alarms (kids use it every day to set a timer for when they practice piano). I use it as an alarm to help me wakeup in the AM.
And we'll use it to turn lights on/off while on vacation. That's about it.
The rest of our interactions are generally, "Alexa, STOP!"
2D touchscreens and classic keyboard/mouse are the ideal way to display interactive data. Trying to make interaction more "natural" is just the wrong approach.
My prediction is these devises will start becoming worthwhile when Alexa et al reach actual human intelligence. Voice interfaces does nothing for anyone unless you are handicapped in some way.
While I rarely use my Home, Android Auto is incredible. (Although it's still infuriating 5% of the time, it seems to like to make best guesses more than asking for clarification which is super annoying)
The Alexa App shows every interaction, including the recorded sound that triggered it, and how "Alexa" interpreted it, so it would be possible for the author to investigate it.
I've longed for this as well. In theory it can be done. The individual ingredients are all available in the universe of FOSS software... speech to text (CMU Sphinx, etc), language parsing (NTLK, etc), IoT integration, etc.
But assembling all these components and frameworks into an integrated, reliably-working system takes a great deal of time and effort, even if you're a skilled programmer (which I'm not).
I haven't kept up with their progress, but looking today I see they're on the 2nd rev of the hardware now, which I take as a positive sign that they're still plugging away.
You can even go grab a docker image to try it out before buying the hardware.
I'd love to buy one as I love the idea of a device like this that serves me, not the manufacturer. The main thing stopping me is in line with other comments in general: After a few days, when the novelty wears off, I'll have no use for it.
These kinds of devices are things I will never own. If they start coming as built-in non-optional features on televisions or other home electronics, I won't buy those either.
I'm only interested in owning one of these devices when I actually own it. That is when the device is actually working for me, not the corporation who sold it to me. I'd be very interested in a personal assistant/ daemon that wasn't part of some walled-garden ecosystem and would actually put the benefit of its user ahead of the profits of corporation. If I ask my daemon to find me a product, I want it to compare prices across all online vendors to find the best deal for me, not just default to purchasing from Amazon. I also want complete control over the information it shares with third-parties, and I want to directly benefit from any information sharing as my data is valuable and if folks want it they're going to have to provide me some benefit in exchange.
My brother's Alexa will say stuff like "Sorry, I don't understand 'turn living room light off'" even though the "turn living room light on" command worked five minutes prior. Repeating back exactly what Alexa didn't understand works the second or third time. "Unpolished" doesn't do the platform justice.
My Google Home is accurate, even though open doors and with the TV on. The Pixel 2 seems to yield control to Home just fine (which was a problem with my Pixel 1). The voice itself sounds slightly more natural and friendly - I sometimes find myself holding back a "thank you."
Has anyone had any contradictory experiences to my own?
So do I! I'm always disappointed that my Google Home isn't capable of acknowledging a "thank you". I feel like it should be possible for it to achieve something like this (with a "no problem" response) without requiring additional communication with the cloud.
I have both. Honestly they both have strengths and weaknesses. There are devices on my smart home that Google Home has trouble with with voice commands and there are devices that Alexa is not good with. I personally like the Google cast functionality with the Google devices vs Alexa which can control music, but has no tone controls and no way to readily get digital audio out of it, but the failures of the Google devices are frequent enough to need to the Alexa as a backup.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 94.5 ms ] threadI'm excited about the possibilities of the big 3 competing on a more level playing field.
Am I being naive here, or not? It feels like a new marketplace is opening up.
Using Home Assistant and jumping through some hoops, I've been able to force onto the same system some devices that really put up a massive fight to play nicely together; and I have even more manual work before I'll be able to use Google Assistant to control it all with my voice.
The competition, though... it's really, really bad for most users.
Went round a friend on Friday who has one, people started throwing songs at it. It's slow and only roughly 20% of the time it managed to understand us. We figured out some trick of song then artist (or maybe artist than song) which made it work a little better.
Worse still when it did understand us most of the time it was only able to play a sample. "prime".
Do not buy.
It's just so pointless. You have to speak to it in some weird specific way to get it to integrate with other stuff and it feels so completely invasive.
My wife is the other end of the scale of target market. Complete non-techie, absolute ease of use consumer. She used it as a glorified egg timer, bluetooth speaker and occasionally to play some radio (when it didn't cut out). IT did nothing else for her and adding skills herself was a PITA step too far.
I'm a 'millennial' (if that matters) but this just doesn't have a place in my home. Even my kids, who loved shouting at it to play music, got bored of it and went back to selecting music on their devices.
Maybe I'm getting old but it just feels like Alexa and other voice assistants are just getting shoved into stuff because it is a 'tech spec' and they hope that will sell their device.
It's 3D all over again.
A couple weeks ago my perception changed when I got a Fire TV Stick, and paired it with Alexa. It feels really futuristic to be able to say "Alexa, play Psych" and see the TV change and start where we left off. I can control Netflix and Amazon streaming with only my voice. Now I'm looking for ways to be able to turn on/off the TV, and volume with Alexa.
I think integrating with real world items is where Alexa shines. And as far as your comment on syntax, I've found it very intuitive, and it's only getting better every day.
Maybe if I had a full smart home with lights and whatever. But then I always think 'please, no more bloody cables, power bricks or extension cords'.
Maybe I really am just getting old.
Even though I love my Echos - I've never gotten the appeal of the current "smart home". Sure, controlling some lights that aren't convenient to reach is helpful, but not a major selling feature. Turning on the TV is great, but rarely can you change the volume, and if you could, you're talking over the show. As I jokingly called it in another thread, "a fancy expensive Clapper". Otherwise...you get what, ability to turn them off and on remotely? Again, not useless, but also not a big deal.
When they are SMARTER I'm all aboard. Recognize who I am, the volume level I like, and adjust for whatever volume is coming out of the TV. Give me 'mood lighting' on command. The ability to get answers to even marginally complex questions. Read my email and tell me when her flight is coming in. Know to remind me to clean the place up a day in advance without me explicitly setting it to do that. Generate playlists dynamically based off of more than one term, and build up further definitions based on my reactions. ("No, that was too mellow. Something calming, but still with a beat" results in it adjusting what I meant by 'easy-listening' compared to what others might mean).
I can be excited about the potential, but not about the reality of this aspect.
I don't know how many times before getting it that I was about to doze off and then had to fully ransack the bedroom just to find the tv remote to turn off the TV.
We also use it as an intra house intercom and just today when I was out shopping, I needed to ask my spouse about an item and she didn't answer her phone. But I just piped in directly to the living room and got the answer I needed.
I definitely am getting my $35 worth. Although I never buy things with it, so I'm not sure Amazon is making out too well.
Which is a shame. If there's another HA device out there that in convenient form factor that communicates with my LAN and gives me greater granular control over what it talks to, I'd be buying three right now.
That's a hint to anyone who may be working on a product, or know of a product that fits the niche of the perpetually paranoid :P
It has features that will use the internet, but I don't think it's required to be given internet access.
...and they even sell a 3-pack ;)
I'm going to take a close look at this, cheers!
As a side note, people tend to dismiss stereoscopic 3D as an example of a recent gimmick - and yet this is the technology that has had its largest peak in the 1800's, and has been consistently gaining grounds and advances since.
It has been coming and going in waves, but it has persisted for over a century, and has never been abandoned by enthusiasts - such as the astrophysicist Brian May (widely known for his other work), who has documented the life of a musical collective he has been a part of in 3D[1], and continues the push for adoption and appreciation of 3D tech[2].
Resilience of 3D at home is something tech like Alexa can only hope for.
[1]https://www.amazon.com/Queen-3D-Brian-May/dp/095742468X
[2] http://www.londonstereo.com/
I am talking about tens of millions of sterescopic photographs and viewing devices[1] made in the late 1800's, with stereoscopes being about as prevalent and accessible as radio sets and TV's before the transistor era.
You can still buy a 3D card more than a century old for under $5 in vintage stores around the US.
And yes, you can slide your cell phone into a stereoscope and enjoy your 3D/VR apps 1880-style. (Today's VR headsets for cellphones are just 1800-s stereoscopes with a rubber band).
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscope
https://phys.org/news/2008-07-brian-guitarist-band-queen-phd...
...if you forget him being the guitarist of Queen who also wrote about half of their songs.
So I'd say glorified egg timer AND fancy expensive Clapper.
BUT...I have 4 and expect to get one more. I like being able to do those tasks without interrupting whatever I'm doing physically. Interaction sucks when other people are around and talking, but that leaves plenty of times it is useful.
I'm listening to Pandora on one right now in my office - should I get a call or have an online meeting or whatever I can stop her without having to move or bounce between physical interfaces (far more convenient for me than playing the music on my computer and having to find where to control the music). I have a truly terrible memory, so being able to verbally request a reminder in most any room is faster and easier than even pulling out my phone much less navigating to the right app.
The rest of the options are quite weak (and arguably getting worse - when they first came out you could ask an Echo which was bigger, lake washington or lake union, and she answered really helpfully. Now she doesn't seem to understand anything, and when she does she gives crap answers so often we've largely stopped trying.) For those weaker options either you happen to have them convenient for you, or more likely they are just trying to grab the concept space first, and worry about being truly useful in that space second.
But even without those other features, there is definitely a POINT. Perhaps not a point you need yourself, almost certainly not a point worth the price, but there is a point.
I live and breathe in the tech world, and this is exactly how my family and I use Alexa. Almost entirely for timers and alarms (kids use it every day to set a timer for when they practice piano). I use it as an alarm to help me wakeup in the AM.
And we'll use it to turn lights on/off while on vacation. That's about it.
The rest of our interactions are generally, "Alexa, STOP!"
https://mycroft.ai/
You can even go grab a docker image to try it out before buying the hardware.
I'd love to buy one as I love the idea of a device like this that serves me, not the manufacturer. The main thing stopping me is in line with other comments in general: After a few days, when the novelty wears off, I'll have no use for it.
Either way, until that happens, I will not be having such a pervasive data collecting device in my home.
My brother's Alexa will say stuff like "Sorry, I don't understand 'turn living room light off'" even though the "turn living room light on" command worked five minutes prior. Repeating back exactly what Alexa didn't understand works the second or third time. "Unpolished" doesn't do the platform justice.
My Google Home is accurate, even though open doors and with the TV on. The Pixel 2 seems to yield control to Home just fine (which was a problem with my Pixel 1). The voice itself sounds slightly more natural and friendly - I sometimes find myself holding back a "thank you."
Has anyone had any contradictory experiences to my own?