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At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, what exactly is the utility of these devices? I find voice input still to be very cumbersome. Except for obvious applica

At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, what exactly is the utility of these devices? I find voice input still to be very cumbersome. Except for obvious applications such as driving in a car, I see no viable usage scenario where I have to utter my interactions out loud. Which scenarios am I missing/forgetting here?

luma 9y ago
In our home the Echo devices are used throughout the day for home control tasks. "Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights", "Alexa, close the east garage door", "Alexa, is the front door locked?" etc. The kitchen Echo sees a lot of action around dinner time for things like timers ("Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes"), conversions ("Alexa, how many cups in a quart"), and grocery lists. The hands-free nature of these interactions are particularly helpful when you may have your hands full while preparing a meal. I have a fair amount of home automation kit deployed which I find fun to monkey around with but the rest of the family never really cared to interact with until the Echo came into play.
- Topolomancer 9y ago
  These are good scenarios, thank you. I still have some reluctance because I am not sure how dependent Alexa (or the home automation system, for that manner) is on services that are outside my control. I recall that a lot of these products went belly up, leaving their customers stranded.
  - luma 9y ago
    I strongly recommend checking out Home Assistant, which is fully self-hosted and open-source. The Alexa integration requires the cloud (because that's where Alexa lives), but nearly everything else my system does is under my roof and under my control.
deleted 9y ago
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vidarh 9y ago
Alexa, set a timer for [five minutes before I'm to pick up my son]. Alex, play [some music/some [genre]/[specific album]]. Alexa, turn on the FireTV. As I am about to leave: Alexa, turn off the TV. (the latter two thanks to the Yonomi app + a Logitech Harmony Hub; everything you can make a Harmony Hub remote control (IR, bluetooth), you can start/stop via Echo + Yonomi) [Alexa, self destruct (yes, it knows that one; and responds with a number of alternatives - "Command code not recognized, self-destruct not initiated", "Auto-destruction in 5,4,3,2,1,boom, hmm that did not go as planned" and more)] These are not big things, but there are lots of little things where before I might have to take my phone out (or find it), or realize with my hands full I forgot to turn the TV off, have to put stuff down and go back into the living room to turn it back off, then pick my stuff up. I agree: Voice input is cumbersome for anything complex, and I also read fast enough and have a visual enough memory to not want it to read to me. So I only use a fraction of what it's useful for. But the ones I use it for have quickly become very ingrained little conveniences. Turns out you can do a lot with just turn on/off [device/group].
- Topolomancer 9y ago
  Thanks for clarifying :-) While these are simple scenarios, I now realize their utility.

luma 9y ago

In our home the Echo devices are used throughout the day for home control tasks. "Alexa, turn on the kitchen lights", "Alexa, close the east garage door", "Alexa, is the front door locked?" etc. The kitchen Echo sees a lot of action around dinner time for things like timers ("Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes"), conversions ("Alexa, how many cups in a quart"), and grocery lists. The hands-free nature of these interactions are particularly helpful when you may have your hands full while preparing a meal. I have a fair amount of home automation kit deployed which I find fun to monkey around with but the rest of the family never really cared to interact with until the Echo came into play.

Topolomancer 9y ago
These are good scenarios, thank you. I still have some reluctance because I am not sure how dependent Alexa (or the home automation system, for that manner) is on services that are outside my control. I recall that a lot of these products went belly up, leaving their customers stranded.
- luma 9y ago
  I strongly recommend checking out Home Assistant, which is fully self-hosted and open-source. The Alexa integration requires the cloud (because that's where Alexa lives), but nearly everything else my system does is under my roof and under my control.

deleted 9y ago

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vidarh 9y ago

Alexa, set a timer for [five minutes before I'm to pick up my son]. Alex, play [some music/some [genre]/[specific album]]. Alexa, turn on the FireTV. As I am about to leave: Alexa, turn off the TV. (the latter two thanks to the Yonomi app + a Logitech Harmony Hub; everything you can make a Harmony Hub remote control (IR, bluetooth), you can start/stop via Echo + Yonomi) [Alexa, self destruct (yes, it knows that one; and responds with a number of alternatives - "Command code not recognized, self-destruct not initiated", "Auto-destruction in 5,4,3,2,1,boom, hmm that did not go as planned" and more)] These are not big things, but there are lots of little things where before I might have to take my phone out (or find it), or realize with my hands full I forgot to turn the TV off, have to put stuff down and go back into the living room to turn it back off, then pick my stuff up. I agree: Voice input is cumbersome for anything complex, and I also read fast enough and have a visual enough memory to not want it to read to me. So I only use a fraction of what it's useful for. But the ones I use it for have quickly become very ingrained little conveniences. Turns out you can do a lot with just turn on/off [device/group].

Topolomancer 9y ago
Thanks for clarifying :-) While these are simple scenarios, I now realize their utility.