7 ms·

Fascinating. Don't take my comment the wrong way -- I'm not begrudging anyone on their spending habits or how they use their disposable income, but I genuinely

by niftich 10y ago

Fascinating. Don't take my comment the wrong way -- I'm not begrudging anyone on their spending habits or how they use their disposable income, but I genuinely have several items or activities that I'd rather spend that $140 current sale price on. Or, to rephrase, the idea of voice controlling music in my house appeals to me, but not at this price point? For what it's worth, the sibling products are also awkwardly priced for me: the cheapest Tap (edit/correction: Dot) has a terrible speaker while the mid-range Tap isn't hands-free. I'd be truly curious how people actually use the Echo: how much of it is music playing, how much of it is checking the weather, or witty banter, or re-ordering a household item. Is it more of a utility device? Is it more of an entertainment device? Is it some clever hybrid thereof?

daveFNbuck 10y ago
If the price point is the only issue, I'm pretty sure the Echo Dot does the same thing for $40. My concern is that voice controlling the music might not be worth sending out recordings of everything said in my house.
- eclipxe 10y ago
  It doesn't record everything said in your house. It only listens to the wake word, and then records. Source: I worked on some of the low level audio functionality.
  - Eridrus 10y ago
    These comments about the NSA listening to you through these get annoying enough to me, I hate to think how annoying they must be to you when you built the damn thing.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Is there any reason an Echo couldn't be updated to add 24/7 listening? Just because someone built a part of it doesn't mean they know how it works now
      - tekromancr 10y ago
        It would be pretty trivial to detect the network transit of the thing sending audio 24/7.
        CaptSpify 10y ago
        Sure, if you were watching. But most people don't watch their network 24/7. Even if you watched it for one week, the next week they could turn it on 24/7, then turn it back of a couple of days later. It's only trivial to detect if everyone is watching all the time.
      - Eridrus 10y ago
        They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker you have; why are we freaking out about this except for the fact that it's being sold as a microphone? Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio? I guess you could make an argument that far-field mics make it different, but I have a lot of conversations near my laptop and phone. As tekromancr mentioned; it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a wide-ranging basis, so that only really leaves this potential capability being used in a targeted manner, at which point Mossad is after you specifically and you're gonna get Mosadded. (https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf) Having said that, I would be interested in a 3rd party maintained registry of updates for all software so that it would at the very least be noticeable if updates were being abused for this purpose, similar to the way certificate transparency works for SSL/TLS certs.
        CaptSpify 10y ago
        > They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker you have... Absolutely. That's why I don't really let stuff auto-update, use as much FOSS stuff as I can, etc. Just because someone can push a malicious update to $product_a doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that they can do it to $product_b. I fail to see the logic here. > Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio? I do. And that's why I don't use Chrome. Just because you don't seem to be worried doesn't mean other people don't worry about it. > ...it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a wide-ranging basis... Maybe, but I'm not worried just about wide-ranging basis, but a narrow-ranging basis as well.
cookiecaper 10y ago
I felt the same way and held off on getting an Echo for a long time. I thought it was too expensive at the $99 price point that it was originally sold under, in fact. I broke down and got one on sale for $129-ish because it seemed to be the cheapest it was ever going to get. It's nice to play with but I don't think it was worth the money for us. It is certainly a powerful speaker and if you're in the market for a good Bluetooth speaker, many of which are $200+, it's probably worthwhile. If you're just using it as a voice assistant, I think the Android/iOS VAs are probably better and I don't think they're really much less accessible -- everyone's phone is near them all the time and you can program Androids at least to unlock and execute your query upon hearing "OK Google". The microphones do not work as well as advertised. We often have to repeat the hotword several times after turning our heads toward the device to get it to activate. After activation, it has bad noise filtering, doesn't work well in noisy environments. I have a Dot in my office (much quieter than the main area where there are 5 little tykes running around screeching all the time) and even it will struggle if my oscillating fan is blowing in its direction. It will also misunderstand and start answering totally different questions or performing totally different tasks somewhat frequently. We tried one or two times to use the voice ordering functionality, but it's just plain unwieldy and we've never executed an order from it. I don't know if anyone actually uses that or not. It's hard to buy something without the visual confirmation and Alexa reads out the whole title. You'll say "Buy Ziploc bags" and it will say "I found Ziploc Plastic Bag 24 Count 1-gallon size Ziploc bags for $5.19, do you want buy it?" and then you say no and it says "I found Ziploc Plastic Bag Plastic 12 Count 1-gallon size Ziploc bags for $3.19, do you want to buy it?". Who wants to shop/browse like that when they could reach into their phone and buy it on the Amazon app with quick visual review of the available options and easy price comparison (don't have to remember "Oh yeah, was the 12 count $5 or $3")? The Alexa backend service is not very good at answering random questions, which diminishes the device's utility. If you're not asking one of its canned tasks, it usually says "I can't understand the question I heard" or "Hmm, I don't know the answer to that question". The "OK Google" on Android is much more versatile and I've never used Siri myself, but it appears to be much more versatile as well. My 3 year old daughter loves to ask it "Alexa, where do jumping monkeys live?" and get back "Hmm, I can't understand the question I heard". She laughs for a long time at this response and sometimes says "You're dumb Alexa". We mainly use it as a voice-controlled timer ("set a timer for x minutes"), checking the weather, checking the news ("play my flash briefing", which, ugh), and doing quick math ("what's 341 minus 114?"). We also play songs on it, my kids think it's hilarious to run up to it and say "Play Bananaphone!!". They then dance around to Bananaphone. All of these things work nearly-identically (usually slightly better) with my phone's voice assistant. So yeah, Echos are fun, but in terms of unique value proposition, they are pretty soft. Your phone's built-in voice assistant does everything Alexa does and more. The Echo can sometimes be more convenient if you're in the right spot in the right room and it's hard to reach your phone at that particular moment, but otherwise I don't think it brings a lot to the table. Honestly it's biggest value is as a powerful and vibrant Bluetooth speaker.
ukyrgf 10y ago
I got a Dot for $40 a few months ago and liked it so much I got a second one at amazon.com/alexadeals for $20. Already had two alarm clocks with Bluetooth speakers built-in, so very quickly I gained a full-coverage voice assistant for home automation. It's totally a utility for me... turning on lights when I'm heading up the staircase, setting timers while in the middle of cooking, checking the weather/forecast, making sure there are no surprises on my commute. I use it to play music occasionally. I would have never started down this path if the device was over $100, though, so I agree with you there. $40 was just a good enough entry point for me.

by niftich 10y ago

daveFNbuck 10y ago

If the price point is the only issue, I'm pretty sure the Echo Dot does the same thing for $40. My concern is that voice controlling the music might not be worth sending out recordings of everything said in my house.

eclipxe 10y ago
It doesn't record everything said in your house. It only listens to the wake word, and then records. Source: I worked on some of the low level audio functionality.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  These comments about the NSA listening to you through these get annoying enough to me, I hate to think how annoying they must be to you when you built the damn thing.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    Is there any reason an Echo couldn't be updated to add 24/7 listening? Just because someone built a part of it doesn't mean they know how it works now
    - tekromancr 10y ago
      It would be pretty trivial to detect the network transit of the thing sending audio 24/7.
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        Sure, if you were watching. But most people don't watch their network 24/7. Even if you watched it for one week, the next week they could turn it on 24/7, then turn it back of a couple of days later. It's only trivial to detect if everyone is watching all the time.
    - Eridrus 10y ago
      They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker you have; why are we freaking out about this except for the fact that it's being sold as a microphone? Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio? I guess you could make an argument that far-field mics make it different, but I have a lot of conversations near my laptop and phone. As tekromancr mentioned; it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a wide-ranging basis, so that only really leaves this potential capability being used in a targeted manner, at which point Mossad is after you specifically and you're gonna get Mosadded. (https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf) Having said that, I would be interested in a 3rd party maintained registry of updates for all software so that it would at the very least be noticeable if updates were being abused for this purpose, similar to the way certificate transparency works for SSL/TLS certs.
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        > They could do the same thing to your computer or phone or even any speaker you have... Absolutely. That's why I don't really let stuff auto-update, use as much FOSS stuff as I can, etc. Just because someone can push a malicious update to $product_a doesn't mean we should ignore the fact that they can do it to $product_b. I fail to see the logic here. > Why don't we freak out that Chrome could be listening to all our audio? I do. And that's why I don't use Chrome. Just because you don't seem to be worried doesn't mean other people don't worry about it. > ...it would be pretty obvious if these changes were made, especially on a wide-ranging basis... Maybe, but I'm not worried just about wide-ranging basis, but a narrow-ranging basis as well.

cookiecaper 10y ago

I felt the same way and held off on getting an Echo for a long time. I thought it was too expensive at the $99 price point that it was originally sold under, in fact. I broke down and got one on sale for $129-ish because it seemed to be the cheapest it was ever going to get. It's nice to play with but I don't think it was worth the money for us. It is certainly a powerful speaker and if you're in the market for a good Bluetooth speaker, many of which are $200+, it's probably worthwhile. If you're just using it as a voice assistant, I think the Android/iOS VAs are probably better and I don't think they're really much less accessible -- everyone's phone is near them all the time and you can program Androids at least to unlock and execute your query upon hearing "OK Google". The microphones do not work as well as advertised. We often have to repeat the hotword several times after turning our heads toward the device to get it to activate. After activation, it has bad noise filtering, doesn't work well in noisy environments. I have a Dot in my office (much quieter than the main area where there are 5 little tykes running around screeching all the time) and even it will struggle if my oscillating fan is blowing in its direction. It will also misunderstand and start answering totally different questions or performing totally different tasks somewhat frequently. We tried one or two times to use the voice ordering functionality, but it's just plain unwieldy and we've never executed an order from it. I don't know if anyone actually uses that or not. It's hard to buy something without the visual confirmation and Alexa reads out the whole title. You'll say "Buy Ziploc bags" and it will say "I found Ziploc Plastic Bag 24 Count 1-gallon size Ziploc bags for $5.19, do you want buy it?" and then you say no and it says "I found Ziploc Plastic Bag Plastic 12 Count 1-gallon size Ziploc bags for $3.19, do you want to buy it?". Who wants to shop/browse like that when they could reach into their phone and buy it on the Amazon app with quick visual review of the available options and easy price comparison (don't have to remember "Oh yeah, was the 12 count $5 or $3")? The Alexa backend service is not very good at answering random questions, which diminishes the device's utility. If you're not asking one of its canned tasks, it usually says "I can't understand the question I heard" or "Hmm, I don't know the answer to that question". The "OK Google" on Android is much more versatile and I've never used Siri myself, but it appears to be much more versatile as well. My 3 year old daughter loves to ask it "Alexa, where do jumping monkeys live?" and get back "Hmm, I can't understand the question I heard". She laughs for a long time at this response and sometimes says "You're dumb Alexa". We mainly use it as a voice-controlled timer ("set a timer for x minutes"), checking the weather, checking the news ("play my flash briefing", which, ugh), and doing quick math ("what's 341 minus 114?"). We also play songs on it, my kids think it's hilarious to run up to it and say "Play Bananaphone!!". They then dance around to Bananaphone. All of these things work nearly-identically (usually slightly better) with my phone's voice assistant. So yeah, Echos are fun, but in terms of unique value proposition, they are pretty soft. Your phone's built-in voice assistant does everything Alexa does and more. The Echo can sometimes be more convenient if you're in the right spot in the right room and it's hard to reach your phone at that particular moment, but otherwise I don't think it brings a lot to the table. Honestly it's biggest value is as a powerful and vibrant Bluetooth speaker.

ukyrgf 10y ago

I got a Dot for $40 a few months ago and liked it so much I got a second one at amazon.com/alexadeals for $20. Already had two alarm clocks with Bluetooth speakers built-in, so very quickly I gained a full-coverage voice assistant for home automation. It's totally a utility for me... turning on lights when I'm heading up the staircase, setting timers while in the middle of cooking, checking the weather/forecast, making sure there are no surprises on my commute. I use it to play music occasionally. I would have never started down this path if the device was over $100, though, so I agree with you there. $40 was just a good enough entry point for me.