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Are these home speakers the new smartwatch? A product that every company has to make because it's "the big new thing" but the actual functionality is questionab

by tapoxi 9y ago

Are these home speakers the new smartwatch? A product that every company has to make because it's "the big new thing" but the actual functionality is questionable? I don't understand why I'd want a tiny speaker sitting in my house listening for commands, when I already have that on my phone and it can provide a display of the results, along with voice.

blakesterz 9y ago
There was a great "Ask HN" thread a while ago on this and I read everything thinking "oh good, power users will tell me what I'm missing here" and when I was done I was left thinking "I am not missing anything here". In their current form, they just didn't seem to do all that much that would make any measurable difference in my life. I have an echo, it was plugged in a for a week and everyone forgot about it.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  I have a Google Home, rather than an Echo, but the biggest changes are the fact that I listen to a lot more music and I have it hooked up to a Logitech Harmony Hub so that I rarely need to hunt down the TV remote. "Hey Google, Turn on the TV // Pause Roku // Volume down" are pretty useful shortcuts I have configured.
drewrv 9y ago
I was skeptical but bought a cheap one because I thought it would be fun to hack on. Turns out it was more useful than I imagined. We listen to more music in our living room now that it's become frictionless to play something (I'm not an audiophile but I can't listen to music on cell phone speakers). When I tell the kids it's bedtime in ten minutes and set an echo timer, they actually go upstairs when the timer goes off (probably some weird psychology going on there, but the living room telling them it's bedtime carries more authority than dads phone). The killer app for my wife and I has been OneBusAway. Being told when the next bus is coming while getting ready in the morning is awesome, much better that fumbling around with their app. Obviously your use cases may vary, but with my echo I was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. I was given a smartwatch for free and was nevertheless disappointed at how useless it was. I can pull my phone out and do stuff with one hand, whereas on a watch you need to hold one hand in place while the other hand operates the device, meaning it's harder to use and less convenient.

by tapoxi 9y ago

blakesterz 9y ago

There was a great "Ask HN" thread a while ago on this and I read everything thinking "oh good, power users will tell me what I'm missing here" and when I was done I was left thinking "I am not missing anything here". In their current form, they just didn't seem to do all that much that would make any measurable difference in my life. I have an echo, it was plugged in a for a week and everyone forgot about it.

Eridrus 9y ago
I have a Google Home, rather than an Echo, but the biggest changes are the fact that I listen to a lot more music and I have it hooked up to a Logitech Harmony Hub so that I rarely need to hunt down the TV remote. "Hey Google, Turn on the TV // Pause Roku // Volume down" are pretty useful shortcuts I have configured.

drewrv 9y ago

I was skeptical but bought a cheap one because I thought it would be fun to hack on. Turns out it was more useful than I imagined. We listen to more music in our living room now that it's become frictionless to play something (I'm not an audiophile but I can't listen to music on cell phone speakers). When I tell the kids it's bedtime in ten minutes and set an echo timer, they actually go upstairs when the timer goes off (probably some weird psychology going on there, but the living room telling them it's bedtime carries more authority than dads phone). The killer app for my wife and I has been OneBusAway. Being told when the next bus is coming while getting ready in the morning is awesome, much better that fumbling around with their app. Obviously your use cases may vary, but with my echo I was pleasantly surprised at how useful it was. I was given a smartwatch for free and was nevertheless disappointed at how useless it was. I can pull my phone out and do stuff with one hand, whereas on a watch you need to hold one hand in place while the other hand operates the device, meaning it's harder to use and less convenient.