20 ms·

Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps and No Runaway Hit

152 points by kristianc 8y ago

king_magic 8y ago
Alexa is a glorified lighting management system for me. Given it’s current capabilities, that’s all it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Oh, I’ll ask it the weather sometimes, but come on - what can Alexa really do that’s all that compelling, that already isn’t a capability of Siri/Google?
- aqzman 8y ago
  I don't have an Alexa myself, I'm a Google Home user. One thing that's always impressed me is the ability of Alexa to order things from Amazon just by issuing voice commands. Although, I'm sure that comes with its own host of problems, especially if you're not just ordering a generic product.
  - jamisteven 8y ago
    Ordering via Alexa is something I would definitely, never do, in any scenario.
  - sykic 8y ago
    You can order things from Amazon using Alexa but you can’t delete items from your cart using Alexa. For me this makes it useless. Not being able to delete items makes it user unfriendly. Unless Amazon changes this I’m not going to use Alexa.
    - yourapostasy 8y ago
      Nor add to wish lists, or move to saved items, or move from saved items to cart, etc. The UI interaction model is in early days for sure.
  - russfink 8y ago
    > comes with its own host of problems https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/african-grey-parrot-rocco-was-caught-ordering-items-off-amazons-alexa.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/african-grey-parrot-rocco-wa...
- melling 8y ago
  Two timers at once. Great in the kitchen. But you’re right... Why can’t Siri do that? A device with multiple microphones is more useful from the couch, especially when I need to yell into the kitchen. I don’t want to feel the need to keep my phone within earshot at all times. I wish Apple had such a $30 device for Siri but it’s unlikely.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    Yeah they instead have a $349 speaker with Siri. I rather just buy two Mycroft Mark 1's for that chunk of change.
  - ldrndll 8y ago
    As of iOS 12 HomePod can set multiple timers too. edit Also, I completely agree. I wish there was a HomePod Dot type offering. I've been sprinkling HomePods throughout the home, but it's expensive and also obtrusive in places where you don't want something that bulky.
- Nursie 8y ago
  "Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes." (She's a cooking timer) "Alexa what time is it" (She's a clock) "Alexa switch the tv off" (She can't switch it on) "Alexa, meow meow/Pika/fart" (Novelty nonsense) "Alexa, turn the heating up in the living room" (Nest integration) Yeah that's about it. The only really useful thing she does for us is music control on our sonos system - "Alexa, play the album X by Y in the kitchen". That's quite neat.
  - IanCal 8y ago
    Calling between rooms has been the main reason I got a second device (first one for tinkering). Got a young baby so being able to wake up the partner across the other side of the house without needing hands when there's been an ... explosion is useful. Adding things to a shopping list is the other one that works nicely. That music integration with sonos sounds really nice. Nothing groundbreaking though.
  - xauronx 8y ago
    Try customizing your daily briefing. Really nice for a curated news briefing while you’re getting ready in the morning, or making dinner.
bemmu 8y ago
How is the discovery of Alexa apps? Other platforms often had hits because they had some viral component that helped the apps spread.
- mcny 8y ago
  Skills targeted at children are the worst. I am not a child! Why should I have to jump through hoops because other people have children?
melling 8y ago
Linking my Apple Music to Alexa was huge for me. It’s nice to be able to play my playlists or pick an album.
- barranger 8y ago
  Shame that we can't do the same in Canada
gtsteve 8y ago
I bought an Echo speaker when they first came out. The sound quality is impressive (to my untrained ear), but the development experience is not. The first thing I wanted to do was to add a feature so I could add a task to my to-do list software which is not supported by Alexa. It turns out that you cannot construct a sentence along the lines of "Tell Asana to add a task: <task>". You can't actually have a 'slot' which contains a freeform piece of text, even if it is the last piece of text in the sentence. The Alexa API differs between regions, so the North America version of the API supports this but the EU version doesn't. It was removed from the NA version for a while but placed back after a bit of an uproar. I think you could develop some more useful stuff using Alexa if only this feature was consistently available. I cannot think of a good reason why it isn't. I now just mainly have it as a Spotify speaker, and occasionally I use it as an expensive egg timer. I normally have it on mute because I find it activates and starts recording private conversations. I don't see it getting better.
- dev_north_east 8y ago
  > I normally have it on mute because I find it activates and starts recording private conversations. What?!
  - kevinmchugh 8y ago
    It can mistrigger on phrases like "take a left on" or "they got a Lexus". My parents have one and get a kick out of the misactivations.
    - dev_north_east 8y ago
      Wow. I was under the mistaken impression that the devices were more robust than that. I'm very anti these devices, now I'm even moreso!
      - aedron 8y ago
        For what it's worth, in two years our Google Home has only 'misfired' once, and that was when someone on TV said 'Hey Google'. It is in the living room and sees heavy use by a family of five.
steeve 8y ago
I have several, along with Google Home too. They all suffer from the same issue: it's awkward to use with third party skills. Unless they are the highly integrated ones (Spotify, Logitech Harmony) in which case it's great. It's the same for Siri, the API is so restrictive. The whole "tell XX to YY" isn't convenient. One workaround on Google Home is to use IFTTT, and in that case you can customize the whole phrase and response, and then it's pretty nice, even though the latency is high. "-Okay Google, open the blinds -Sure thing Commander" never gets old.
- deanclatworthy 8y ago
  Absolutely. Until the voice assistants become a bit more intelligent with the language used to activate them, it feels so rigid and un-natural communicating with them. I don't see a great future for voice assistants in the near future, until we truly solve the problem of intent (in a natural way) and accordingly can respond.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    I'm not sure if it's a question of intelligence, or a question of business. I can't imagine Amazon would hand the "Alexa, order more bread" keyword over to Instacart/Wal-Mart/whoever without a fight.
    - cglace 8y ago
      Hopefully google or apple might.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  >The whole "tell XX to YY" isn't convenient. You don't have to do that - the system can usually infer what skill you want from your utterance. [0]. And the "open the blinds" thing can be done on Alexa with a custom routine (Alexa specific IFTT). [0] https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/c870fd31-4f91-4a62-a137-8dfa70ca5e9c/hyprank-how-alexa-determines-what-skill-can-best-meet-a-customer-s-need https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/c870fd31-4f91-... Disclaimer - interned on the team that built this
sherlock_h 8y ago
It does. Skyrim for Alexa. https://youtu.be/BQl3T0uD5Aw https://youtu.be/BQl3T0uD5Aw
StevePerkins 8y ago
My Echo was an interesting novelty at first. But a couple years in now, it is essentially (in order of usefulness): 1. An alarm clock / kitchen timer 2. A thing that tells me the weather report during morning coffee, so I know what to wear 3. A DJ that my kids yell at to play pop music If it died tomorrow, I'd probably just go back to using my phone for these 3 things rather than buy a new one. I can't imagine getting into it enough to explore third-party "skills".
- sigi45 8y ago
  Novelity for sure but i use the timer/alarm clock so frequently, that i will rebuy a new one if the old one breaks. I use it for: - I have to go in 1h but i only need 30 minutes to prepare the leave so timer for 30minutes - Pizza / food - short nap - for learning And quite often.
- massivecali 8y ago
  I see the house dj speaker aspect, but why does anyone need the first 2 when their phones accommodate those functions?
  - taeric 8y ago
    Has become ubiquitous. With a speaker in every room, I don't have to find my phone to start a timer. We also user audible heavily. The kids live the boxcar children readings.
  - r3bl 8y ago
    Same thing: convenience. Find the phone, unlock the phone, find and open the app, find and click the control. That requires some effort. Saying commands, having physical buttons at the expected location in your home, NFC tags.. there's a bunch of more convenient ways to do extremely repetitive tasks that would otherwise take you more time to do.
    - Zimahl 8y ago
      Hasn't this been minimized by 'Hey Siri' and 'OK Google'?
gdne 8y ago
The problem is the interface. Voice commands and their responses are linear, one dimensional. It’s difficult to represent complex interaction within that scope. Think of all the investment that has gone into telephone based automated customer support. The best interface conceived so far is the dreaded phone tree. That’s essentially the same interface smart speakers are exposing. The opportunity is to figure out how to better utilize the voice based medium. No one has done it yet. When they do, it will also likely improve the experience around screen readers and accessibility.
- k__ 8y ago
  I think you're right, but on the other hand, a skill is faster created than a complex 2D UI. Sure, I won't use a conversational interface to build the next Photoshop. I could tell it stuff like, what I ate and it calculates my kcals or macros and tells me how much I have left to eat this day or what other stuff I should eat to hit my macros etc. I could tell it what I bought and it would categorize the bills. Some things are just too bothersome to do with my hands.
- jessriedel 8y ago
  The medium of voice is very rich and capable when talking to a human, so this is something limited by the intelligence of the system you're interacting with.
  - taeric 8y ago
    Is it? I mean, some folks do great talking. Lots of them. Most are in narrative communication. If you get much beyond that, you jump to physical interesting quickly. Even telling is benefited with gestures. Consider how vague most spoken directions are. When you can augment with pointing, things are easier.
- mcdan 8y ago
  This is right. No none has yet written “The Design of Everyday Things” for voice interaction. We just don’t know what works yet so we are redoing what was done before.
- 8y ago
dingo_bat 8y ago
Some pain points I noticed: The exposed API is extremely restrictive. No native SDK, all "apps" run on the cloud. Code - Compile - Test cycle is very slow.
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
Today we use several echos only as a time/voice activated watch/spotify. They well be thrown own if we move and replaced with non-cloud wlan speakers.
hanoz 8y ago
Despite often seeming like a thin veneer of natural language processing on top of a search engine, I'm sure most users think of their voice assistants, or are willing them to be, a general AI agent. They don't want to have to care what app/skill/web-scrape is involved in enabling a response. The whole skills ecosystem feels like an awkward stopgap on the path to AI. The language required to invoke them feels particularly clunky - "Alexa, ask ThingFinder about a thing" - and then, is the user supposed to be talking to ThingFinder now, or Alexa? She still sounds like Alexa, but she doesn't seem quite herself. As developer choosing an invocation name is fraught with difficulty. There are only so many natural sounding names for something which does a particular thing, without incongruously inserting some invented branding word onto it - "Alexa open Tidy Tide Tables". If someone's already using the most natural name you are free to use exactly the same, but then who knows whose skill will be launched? And you'd better make sure your skill's name doesn't clash with anything else in the world at large, like the entire history of music for example, "Alexa play Wicked Game". It's all a bit of a mess.
- sp332 8y ago
  Yeah, that's a good point. People are good at mentally compartmentalizing behaviors with personalities. If Alexa doesn't allow each agent to have a personality, people are going to have a hard time keeping the behaviors straight. Kinda reminds me of Neuromancer, where a superintelligent AI was broken into two pieces to avoid detection. One part was good at personality, and the other part had to mimic people in order to communicate. It was very unnerving for people to talk to an AI that was copying the personality of someone they knew.
lbacaj 8y ago
Anecdotally a developer friend of mine strongly suspects, most people, are like him and not actually using these home speakers very much. I’ve been working on a an Audio App that reads any articles to you for iOS/Android and planned to bring it to the Echo and he seems to suggest my efforts are totally wasted. Although their market reach seems to be massive, likely related to their cheap price, not surprised by this article that their actual usage is incredibly low. Most people seem to buy them and then forget about them. As a shameless self plug, if you would like to check out my app that reads articles to you using beautiful sounding AI/ML, find it here: https://articulu.com https://articulu.com
- ctruelson 8y ago
  Curious, are the articles dictated by a human or a machine?
  - ponyous 8y ago
    My question as well. I imagine it's a machine. I'm not gonna download/register just so I can listen to a sample. I find robotic voices to be annoying.
- sigi45 8y ago
  I'm using the timer, alarm, hue integration for my lights, music and weather. Those are by far my killer features why i use it and why i like it. I haven't looked at any amazon skill store as i don't see any reason for it.
  - mywacaday 8y ago
    I use the same features in google home but long for proper integration with Google Keep. I had used home to populate my shopping list but now that has disappeared from the home app and you have to go to shoppinglist.google.com I don't understand why i cant tell Home to add an item to a specific Keep list.
  - ssnistfajen 8y ago
    Playing songs/podcasts from Spotify on Echo while controlling it from my phone/computer is my favourite use of the speaker now. Ironically this action involves no voice commands whatsoever except occasionally telling the speaker to pause/resume/adjust volume when I'm away from my phone/computer.
i_am_nomad 8y ago
Maybe the problem is with the entire concept of distinct, discrete apps. Voice as an “interface” is based around conversation, not functional blocks and clickable items. A truly enjoyable and useful Alexa would have a conversation with you - even if a practical and transactional one - and the various functions and “apps” would be woven seamlessly into that, just as a human assistant might learn a new skill and work it helpfully into the conversation.
jv0010 8y ago
I think the whole voice activation hype inflated itself where people are naturally wanting to see the next big thing and of course people used this as an example - the title says it all. Furthermore we need to look at what makes voice less restrictive and that’s making it instant. They are still reliant on it being cloud / web based which creates a lag and makes it awkward and nothing like ‘talking to something or someone ‘
huffmsa 8y ago
It's a utility device, not an entertainment device. A good toolbox is filled with balanced tools. That there isn't some hyper-addictive time-suck application isn't a bad thing. However, if it's a case of no one actually using the device, then there might be cause for concern.
dalbasal 8y ago
I think we still don't have a good model for how voice UI needs to work. The equivalent of GUI for mouse-and-keyboard machines or tap-and-swipe interfaces for mobile. If we did have a UI model, I imagine we'd be controlling car stereos and driver-mode mobile phones with voice already. I wonder if any of these 80k apps have the "magic sauce" but just haven't applied it to the right problem.
- camtarn 8y ago
  Controlling a mobile phone while driving while using your voice is definitely a thing. And I suspect if you have your phone hooked up to your car stereo, or integrated using Google or Apple's in-car docks, then using your voice to play music is also possible. I think your point about not having a good model is correct, though, for anything other than basic uses (phoning, messaging, playing music, navigation, weather, etc)
snowwolf 8y ago
The most frequent use cases for us in order of use-fullness: 1. Spotify 2. TV control (with Harmony) - great for the kids so they don't break the remotes 3. Home monitoring when we are away (drop in on the echo spot). But for me home security seems to be an unexplored opportunity for Amazon (and Google). Those microphones are very sensitive - and if paired with motion sense on other devices (a Nest or something) start to give you powerful intrusion detection tools and alerting. How hard would it be for them to recognise the sound of breaking glass or the presence of someone in the room at a time they shouldn't be there? Obviously solving the pet issue is a challenge, but I think it's an interesting use case to explore.
jonplackett 8y ago
The problem is that the trigger for 3rd party skills sucks. Saying "Alexa, ask [Whatever skill name] to do something" is really unnatural and ruins the whole user experience. They need sort out the grammar to make it actually feel conversational.
- ajford 8y ago
  Yep. It's a pain to have to say "Alexa, ask Chevrolet to start my car". Why can't I just say "Alexa, start my car". Clearly it's the only car related skill...
theaccordance 8y ago
While I feel Alexa has a lot of potential from the couple POC apps I've developed, the device class itself simply isn't where I need it to be to fully capitalize on it yet.
clavalle 8y ago
Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. There's just not enough of a surface area for something so comprehensive. It's like saying 'There are 80k mouse enabled apps and no runaway hit'. What it can do is have an app for nearly anything, though, that makes sense for the form factor. It's on its way. The next step of its evolution is to look at what apps work and what conventions can be pulled from those as a general standard. Users will be much happier when they can nearly instantly download an Alexa enabled interface for an app and have it work intuitively. And this is doubly important for Alexa because there isn't deep feedback like you have with a mouse where you can see the things you aren't doing to gather hints at what's possible -- you just have to know or, at least know how to find the answer, like a command line. Which gives me an idea 'man for Alexa'. At least we can standardize a help menu.
- pintxo 8y ago
  But that is not the original (or publicly perceived) USP. If I need to learn or memorize the interface it's not what has been promised.
  - clavalle 8y ago
    That's the thing about USPs...most are idealized possibilities not yet realized. I mean, look at VR and AR and, hell, even AI. But AI is not useless even though it hasn't reached it generalized intelligence promise. It is adding tremendous value even though it has landed in the limited middle. I don't mind learning Alexa's syntax and what it expects of me. I get value from what it can do well. As long as that's true, I think it can miss its more grandiose promises and still be a huge success.
- PopeDotNinja 8y ago
  > Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. I like the way you say that. My Google Home is a remote control for my mouth. It's like licking a keyboard one key at a time in the dark. Simple queries are easy, but any non-trivial query just aint't gonna happen at the moment.
vertis 8y ago
Disclaimer: I haven't played with this since 2016, so may be out of date. Having played with the Alexa and Google home. My take on why there are no hits is that it's very clunky to invoke apps, especially for one-off queries. "Hey, Alexa/Google, Ask <keyword> to do <blah>" or some variation on that. Starting an app and then interacting with it works fine for some use cases but not all. It really needs to be a flow of install app for given type of task, say searching for a hotel, and then like Android, there are defaults. So I say "hey alexa, find me a hotel room in blah" and it just knows to hand off to whatever my favourite is. So long as all the core easy commands are only accessible to Google/Amazon, this is going to continue to be a problem.
- brentm 8y ago
  And it hasn't really changed since 2016 so that is still mostly spot on. I think the real problem though is that people aren't good at remembering voice commands, either how to invoke the command or that the command even exists. Without visual cues it's easy to forget everything. You're not going to have a runaway hit when it's predicated on everyone remembering that special thing to say. It's like trying to have a runaway hit that had to be based on a keyboard shortcut. All of those services are great for the basics, e.g. How's the weather / set a timer / remind me in N minutes / order toilet paper ... Everything else is a bit tougher in my opinion.
- jscheel 8y ago
  Agreed, there needs to be a paradigm shift in registering intents. I should not create a skill that the user needs to remember a command for. Instead, my skill should be able to hook into intents and return structured data. For example: "Me: Alexa, find me a hotel near the beach in Destin, Florida that is available next week" "Alexa: Hotels.com has a three star hotel available for $987 for six nights, and Airbnb has a four bedroom condo available for the same dates. Would you like to book one of these, or hear more options?" "Me: Book the first hotel." ...and so on... In this instance, Amazon has to define the schema for user intention, and hotels.com and Airbnb must provide interfaces to that intent, responding with normalized/standardized data that Alexa can then reconfigure into an appropriate response. Amazon has to throw their weight around to get other companies to play the game, and it's on them to organize the returned data into an appropriate response. This is probably where a discussion about the semantic web would be useful :)
ppierald 8y ago
We use it to "set a timer for 10 minutes" when cooking something and "what's the weather for tomorrow" to know whether to bring a coat or not.
- 908087 8y ago
  Either of which could be done just as quickly by setting a timer on your oven/microwave or pulling out your phone.
  - CharlesW 8y ago
    Using Alexa for tasks like this is a qualitatively different experience. Hands-free/voice control can be very useful in that your hands can be busy, and you don't need to find or walk to and manipulate a device or remote.
    - 908087 8y ago
      If you're cooking, the timer on your oven should literally be right in front of your face. Every use case I hear parroted to justify the installation of audio surveillance devices in our homes sounds like a solution desperately in search of a problem. What do you plan to do with the milliseconds of time you may have saved?
  - ajford 8y ago
    Sure, but I can ask Alexa what the weather is like while actively doing something else, like say before brushing my teeth or while in the shower. Or while in my kids closet, picking out clothes for the next day. And while I can set a single timer on my microwave/oven, or set them on my phone, being able to set a timer, hands free, while cooking is pretty damn convenient. I can set a timer while my hands are dirty from mixing meat for meatloaf or handling chicken. There's something to be said about the convenience factor, and that's what most technological innovations are about, making life easier or more convenient.
rafiki6 8y ago
I disagree...the killer app is a smart speaker (i.e. Amazon Music + voice control). That in an of itself is pretty useful, especially when you can get a reasonably good one for under a hundred bucks now. Outside of that, Alexa isn't the platform the industry thinks it is but rather the equivalent of the touch screen on a smart phone. It's another form of input. There needs to be much better and more seamless integration with 3rd party apps for it to really be useful.
- phil_folrida 8y ago
  You are right, I would say (Music + Voice Control) as you can configure other services (Spotify for instance), there are a lot of negative comments here, I wonder if it is not due to the population of Commenters on Hackernews that would tend to be younger. If you have a child it is nearly a nanny that helps your child doing his/her homework, plus you can connect several Alexa (from friends) and interact with them, if you have also several Alexa you can communicate in different rooms (speaks/broadcast)
apricot13 8y ago
I find it quicker to enter commands on my phone for most things. One skill I thought would be really useful was "Alexa, hows my commute?" but without a way to go in and 'star' specific trains it would tell me about trains leaving in the next few minutes which isn't helpful! I also cant often remember what I'm supposed to say and I sometimes forget my words as if I've been put on the spot somehow. Overall its not a pleasant user experience.
max76 8y ago
I've spent a lot of time thinking about monetization on voice-assist apps. This is a challenging problem, and I suspect it's holding AAA quality 3rd party support for the platforms behind. There is no stand alone (from a mobileapp/webapp) voice-assist app that has brought in significant revenue. I'm going to break down some of the most common attempts at revenue and describe their pitfalls. * Sell Audio (Spotify, Audible, MP3 style): If the goal is to get into this business than you'll have much better reach if you sell on smartphones. The voice-assist app will be supplementary at best. * Sell products (Amazon/Ebay style): People aren't generally comfortable buying products with voice-assist. You'll have to compete directly with Amazon. * Market products (In-line advertising style): You'll have to generate a lot of original content to plug sponsored products. The original content will have to be very compelling. It's probably more appealing to host the original content somewhere else primarily. * Sell audio advertisement: What make the voice-assist platform compelling for content consumption? How can you create a very engaging voice-assist app? Will people tolerate audio advertisements? They tend to consume more time and be less interesting than visual ads.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
> "The advent of the smartphone triggered an app gold rush. So far that hasn’t happened with Alexa." While gold rush is an accurate analogy, I'm not so sure that's a positive. I remember a couple+ years ago the NYT doing an article / series on (native) app developers and how - contrary to the hype - there were significantly more "losers" than winners. So has Alexa made it worse? Now there are no winners at all? (Editorial: Well, sans Amazon and its shareholder.)
abakker 8y ago
The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. There are no native apps because everything that it can do is just an IO to something else. If they actually get conversational, this will change, but until then, it’s just a command line with no man page.
- portmanteaufu 8y ago
  > The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. In a way, I think it's even worse than that. I've used Alexa since the Echo was a relatively new product. Back then, I experimented with new phrases and commands often, but was frequently greeted with wrong answers or "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that." Over time, I stopped trying those commands. Skip forward to today--the backend has been improving for years, and many of those commands now work, but it's too late. Their users have already been taught that they don't, so folks stop trying to use those features. Not only can you not discover new commands easily, you might mentally blacklist useful commands permanently. Perhaps more frustratingly, the "What's New" emails they send out don't help with this. They never say "Hey, we know you tried to ask your Echo to report its volume level before and it didn't work, but it does now." They always say "Ask Alexa to tell you an Arbor Day joke!" -_-
  - darksaints 8y ago
    It would be pretty cool if it could update you on things you've asked for in the past that were not possible then but are now possible. "Hey, 3 months ago you asked for the forecast according to the ECMWF weather model, and I couldn't answer you. But now I can, so go ahead and try!".
    - slg 8y ago
      I wonder if that is too far on the "creepy scale". Everyone probably knows that Amazon has a full record of everything they have asked their Alexa, but I am not sure it is smart to repeatedly remind people of this.
b_tterc_p 8y ago
“Computer Play ____” from Spotify is great. Everything else feels like tedious novelty.
jxdxbx 8y ago
Voice is mostly inconvenient and slow unless you have certain disabilities, at times when your hands are otherwise occupied (driving, doing the dishes, maybe when out-and-about via Siri or Google Assistant) and for the basic in-home stuff that people have already discovered (music, home automation, news, weather, timers, random fact from wikipedia). At this stage I'd be very surprised if there was some new amazing use case. There are always going to be niche uses that some people really like. I create notes in Drafts on iOS via Siri all the time, for instance.
mikob 8y ago
I think voice is underutilized as a 3rd, powerful complimentary interface; mouse and keyboard being the first and second. A smart speaker doesn't enable me to be more productive on the tool I use most, my computer. I'm building something that I think is much more powerful than smart speakers for the following reasons. 1. It's software and lives on the hardware that you already have... your computer. It's not a standalone hardware device silo'd from the existing tooling you use daily. 2. It provides visual feedback (live transcription, with colors indicating what's understood), because it can. Smart speakers can't. 3. It's a browser extension, so it easily integrates with all the webapps that you use daily: gmail, google docs, hacker news... any webapp you want it to. 4. Plugins are intuitive to develop and open-source so anyone can build off and improve them (https://github.com/lipsurf/plugins https://github.com/lipsurf/plugins) It's a work in progress, but in case anyone is interested: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lipsurf-voice-control-for/lnnmjmalakahagblkkcnjkoaihlfglon?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lipsurf-voice-cont...
scarejunba 8y ago
The runaway hit is probably Amazon buying. Miss that so much on my Google Home.
ravenstine 8y ago
A lot of people don't even realize the Alexa mobile app even exists, despite the fact they must have installed it at one point in order to set up their Echo device. Hence, discoverability is pretty low. I don't know why Amazon still hasn't attempted to address this issue. If all they want is for people to buy shit from Amazon through it, why bother with all these custom "skills"? Generally, however, I think we've overestimated the utility of a voice command line with no actual intelligence behind it. Unless you are using Alexa to control actual devices like lights or a Roobma vacuum, most of the apps for it are either useless or better suited for a visual interface.
- argd678 8y ago
  I think it could be incredibly useful if it wasn’t like talking to someone who is hard of hearing, comically misinterprets similarly sounding words and can’t understand basic logic in sentences (what’s the weather _and_ traffic, then find my phone and turn off the lights). I’d like to ask it the meaning of Latin phrases or other words, but it just hears the words used 99% of the time despite being clearly pronounced differently. Ask it what bus and at which time I should leave to go somewhere. It doesn’t have any transportation info and can’t do basic logic. Duolingo would be a great integration for conversations while learning another language, but it can bearly understand English.
wtmt 8y ago
* Setting a timer or an alarm * Asking for the weather * Play some (desired) music Are there other things that these devices ("smart speakers") are really useful for? A voice activated browser or computer, on the other hand, is extremely useful for those who don't know to type or to use a browser (or a computer). It could be people who are not privileged enough to learn or people who find these very difficult to learn or even small kids. These systems allow the user to accomplish what they want (like searching or opening a website or a game, for example).
- plemer 8y ago
  For me the big one is easily adding items to lists (e.g., Wunderlist) without having to stop what I'm doing.
- andrewljohnson 8y ago
  * unit conversions * controlling smart-home stuff * child/baby monitor * intercom * home telephone
- raulpegan 8y ago
  Though it's in the same vein as "Asking for the weather" I find a lot of use for finding out when my next bus is coming, how the traffic is, and other things related to my commute. And calling for Ubers. But as I said, they all fall under the category of "mildly useful" and not "ground breaking"
- gadders 8y ago
  The only other thing we really use it for is calling from room to room, as a glorified intercom.
- nothis 8y ago
  I'm very skeptical about this as well but an argument I saw on here that I found kinda convincing was a comparison to the usual job of a "secretary". Most interactions are verbal and there's a wide variety of tasks that can be solved that way. The real problem is trust in an automated system handling those correctly, which is solvable. Think, for example, sorting your email inbox by "importance", not based on some flags or fixed heuristics but an actual, intelligent scan of the contents. Think of having reasonable phone conversations that result in scheduling appointments and answering concrete questions.
giarc 8y ago
I followed and even used the tool StoryLine (which is now the enterprise tool https://www.invocable.com/ https://www.invocable.com/). They had a very active Facebook group that I watched for awhile. The problem I found was that the tool made it too easy to build apps for Alexa. People would put out really junky apps that were the equivalent of fart apps long ago. Now some may argue that all app platforms need to go through this stage but I'd argue Alexa is different. The iPhone, pre app store days, provided other utility that was the driving force behind buying the phone. Alexa is seemingly reliant on 3rd party apps (with a few very minor exceptions ex. timers, weather etc) and therefore if there is no "killer app" what is the motivation to buy one?
darrenf 8y ago
I couldn't name a "runaway hit/killer app", but my gf and I get plenty of use from our Echo(s). Nothing we couldn't or didn't do prior to getting them, but we genuinely find the voice interface often wins out over reaching for our phones. We use it: • as an alarm clock • as a radio in the morning, podcast/audiobook player in the evening • arithmetic - e.g. when planning trips we might ask "Alexa, what's 100 Malyasian Ringgit it pounds sterling?", more conveniently than flipping to xe.com or a phone app and an answer we both hear. When cooking we might ask for weight conversions, during DIY we might ask for cm to inches, etc • to control Hue lighting in two rooms • to control our TV/amp/satellite ("Alexa, pause|mute the TV/set TV to channel 503/etc"). I used to love my Harmony universal remote but found it pretty cumbersome to manage, and my gf could _never_ get the hang of it like she can "Alexa, turn on/off Sky" • to play music when I'm wfh Rather than a hit skill/application, I'd say voice is a superior interface when doing other, dextrous stuff - getting dressed, using the hair dryer, feeding the cat, cooking, washing up, gardening, DIY, etc. Asking for the lights to turn on (the switches are not near the front door) when arriving home in the dark, saying "Alexa, goodnight" rather than turning off 4 lights and 3 devices, etc. The only thing I dislike about it is how it fires up I'm watching WWE and the commentators use Alexa Bliss's name.
drsim 8y ago
Alexa needs a PageRank and an 'I'm feeling lucky' that is successful the majority of the time. I would like it to work as a room of human experts works with a moderator. Alexa, how long will it take me to cycle to Netto? Alexa sends this parsed query out to all apps it thinks can answer. They respond with a confidence level and answer / follow up question. Alexa decides which app to choose (the 'PageRank') based on a number of factors like has the query been seen before and how did each app perform for it, the app's answer success rate, has the user been given a response from this app before etc. etc. The user should not have to install apps. Alexa should know all of the apps in the room and what they're good/bad at and select one to respond. Surely discovery is the wrong way to think about this problem and Alexa needs to be elevated from a good speech parser.
- cheez 8y ago
  Oh I like this twist on things. The difficulty is how do you prevent your data/query going to a place you wouldn't want it to go to?
  - drsim 8y ago
    Very true, the privacy implications would need to be carefully considered.
- amznthrowaway2 8y ago
  The “canfulfill” API for skills is available. Alexa scientists are constantly working on improving the arbitration experience but it’s a very difficult problem, especially due to security concerns. https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/implement-canfulfillintentrequest-for-name-free-interaction.html https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/implement-ca...
mark_element 8y ago
If you have an Alexa you really need to try playing Jeopardy on it. The Jeopardy Alexa skill and Akinator skill are fairly quick casual games that are very worthwhile.
Balgair 8y ago
The Alexa's timeline is likely much longer and deeper than a lot of the commentators here are aware of. Specifically, the lives of disabled people have been greatly enhanced with the Echo-dot specifically. The vision impaired/blind community has been very receptive to voice command tech [0][1]. Though these devices are not the commercial hit that many expect them to be, any nod towards the disabled community is greatly appreciated. Personally, I think that the challenges that disabled people face are great for all people. Thinking through all the permutations that real people with disabilities face opens up tech to new ways of interaction and design. The canonical example is the little ramp on the street corner, where the side walk and street interface. It was designed for wheelchairs originally, but the elderly, bicyclists, delivery men with trolleys, and all manner of people use them as an improvement in their lives. If Amazon focused on the disabled and their use cases for the Echo-dot, I think that they would find many other applications that enhance all of our lives. It may not be an 'essential' thing for the fully-abled, at least not consciously, but the enhancements are enjoyed by all and well worth the costs. Perhaps tech that focuses on the hearing impaired (the number one disability in the world), or the voice impaired, or amputees, may help all of us lead richer and fuller lives. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcvqfwOxOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcvqfwOxOE [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/358338/why-amazons-alexa-is-life-changing-for-the-blind https://www.pcmag.com/news/358338/why-amazons-alexa-is-life-...
- amphibian87 8y ago
  Yes exactly! The handicap door opener is another great example, I used to use it because I carry 12' ladders at work, but it was so convenient I just always use it now. There's a sentiment that everyone should use them, because it normalizes it. Even it's not verboten for non-disabled people to use the door button, there seems to be a feeling that "I'm breaking a rule" when I use it and that is changing I think.
- giggles_giggles 8y ago
  But what about the privacy concerns of this technology, especially from Amazon? My fiance needs voice-to-text software for accessibility reasons -- does that mean that in order to get her the best accessibility software, we have to sacrifice our privacy by placing Amazon's always-listening microphones around the house? I know she won't let me do that; even if I'm willing to compromise on my principles for her sake, she won't compromise hers.
pnw_hazor 8y ago
I bought an echo on an Amazon sale to explore making "skills" for it. But (at least then) there was no real way to monetize anything using it. Making an interesting skill that people use will just cost you money. BigCos or VCCos can use skills for generating good will I guess. But independent developers, not so much.
zwkrt 8y ago
I was taking with a friend who said ,"people use Alexa like a toaster, we haven't found what this interface will be really good at" But what if it /is/ just a toaster? Tech people tend to have high hopes for technology but technology must serve a purpose and it will go the way of the dodo if the purpose of not strong or clear. For me, having a voice interface for music and calls is enough justification for such a device, and I assume this is true for others as well. It's a classic case of over-engineering and then shopping around for a use case for the 25-use Swiss army knife that no one asked for.
- taco_emoji 8y ago
  I don't think it's enough justification--you can get a "dumb" bluetooth- or wifi-enabled speaker to hook up with the voice-enabled smartphone you already have in your pocket. The value proposition for an Alexa or Google Home has to be over and above that functionality.
  - oarsinsync 8y ago
    The smart speaker is always fixed in place, always listening, always ready to play and independent of anything else. Your phone needs to be in range of the 'dumb' speaker, needs to be paired to it / connected to the same wireless network, can't be used for any other audio functions, and probably can't be in your pocket if you want it to be listening for voice commands. It now also can't be trained to your voice specifically if you have others in your home who want to use it, which makes it ripe for abuse whenever you leave the home.
  - zwkrt 8y ago
    I agree that the current solution is unfortunate, but most customers are seemingly blind to that or more generally demand seems inelastic to that aspect so I didn't address it.
- mrlala 8y ago
  I agree, why does it have to do a billion things? I use it for, in this order * Music * Kitchen timers while cooking * Setting simple reminders without having to go into a phone app or some crap (alexa, remind me to do X at 10am) * Kids asking random questions (alexa, how many moons does jupiter have) Other random stuff like weather maybe, when a sports game is on... But this is all just pretty basic stuff you would expect from a voice interface... to me, it has all the "killer apps" built in with the above.
agrippanux 8y ago
I've written 15-20 Alexa apps, some public, most for running parts of my life / house. A big part of the problem for a long time with developing Alexa skills is that if you needed to know where the user was, having them enable location permissions was insane. It required the user to have the Alexa app installed (which almost no one does), then navigate 3-4 fairly technical looking screens and finally flip a switch. I recently wrote a demo app for a friend's company that needed to know where the user was, and I jumped through a bunch of hoops for an otherwise simple task to avoid the app-permissions-dance. The app I wrote was demoed to the Alexa team by my friend (his company was doing a deal for the company's data to be supplied to Amazon), and the feedback he got from the Alexa execs was they know the location permissions process was a big issue. I think it's gotten better recently with the redesign of the Alexa app, but I haven't checked it out yet - I don't have any desire to release a public Alexa app. I just to keep my stuff in developer mode and customized to my needs.
- xauronx 8y ago
  The thing I’m missing is location within the house. If I’m in the bedroom I should be able to tell my bedroom Alexa “turn on the lights”, and the same for the kitchen Alexa. Having to repeat the same incantation over and over is frustrating.
CWuestefeld 8y ago
Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps... Perhaps, but by eyeball, no less than 95% of those are stupid useless trivia games.
walterbell 8y ago
Alexa is useful to visually impaired and people and seniors: - landline dial by name - radio station by name - TV channel by name - play/resume audiobook by name - microwave for duration - device power on/off - time, weather, etc It takes some setup to get all devices integrated, but once it all works, it's borderline magic to a non-technical user.
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pwthornton 8y ago
A lot of people are mentioning discoverability as an issue. That is a core issue. Same with understanding (the idea of once you discover something exists, how easy is it to understand how to fully use it?). Beyond that, we have issues with memorability. It's hard to memorize how to properly even use these voice apps once you learn for the first time. Here is a full rubric for whether or not a product is well designed: https://uxdesign.cc/the-design-critique-rubric-how-to-determine-if-something-is-well-designed-9421db59f982 https://uxdesign.cc/the-design-critique-rubric-how-to-determ... The hardest part might be that most apps for Alexa aren't privledged. You can't just ask Alexa to do the new skill. You have to first open the skill and then ask that skill to do something. "Alexa open the Food Planner app." This hitch in the process makes memorability very poor. I am an advanced Alexa user, and I almost never use any skills. They just aren't integrated very well. The one I do use is Sonos (and Spotify to power it), which is given priveldged access and allows me to attach an Echo Dot and Sonos speakers to the same room in my house, so that when I say, "Alexa, play The Beatles," Alexa plays the Beatles in the room it hears me in on my Sonos speakers with music from Spotify. When you use a combo like this, it feels pretty magical, but most of Alexa can't operate like this, so it feels really stitled, and the user experience is quite poor.
eric_b 8y ago
"Alexa, set timer for 14 minutes." Great for keeping my iPhone clean while I'm cooking. Otherwise I'd have to try and convince Siri to set a timer... (But yeah, i agree - definitely nothing very innovative about it. I don't really think voice control is ever going to be the next big thing)
jsgo 8y ago
This is looking at Alexa, most likely in smart speaker or some variant form, as the endgame which I don't think it is. My guess is that it and its competition is more or less a MVP to use audio for input and output and to understand how users interact with this "new" form of input. In a similar way to how Google Search and the various add ins they implemented for it along the way informs Google Assistant, so too I think these are stepping stones for something else. So I don't think the expectation is to have a runaway hit app, but rather to have a product that users will actively engage with. And considering they're making huge pushes into smart home product integration with Alexa, I really don't see how any of it could be viewed as cautionary... from Amazon's viewpoint anyway.
ssnistfajen 8y ago
For nearly two years since me and my family owned Amazon Echo speakers, the Android app was practically just a browser wrapper that frequently loaded slowly or wouldn't load at all (this issue is now mostly addressed wtih a redesigned native-ish Android app but I'm afraid it may be too late). Looking for new apps was an excruciating experience and navigating menus inside the app was bad. I gave up soon after and have since only used the app to reconfigure network settings for the speaker. I only use the speaker for casting music/podcasts, listening to news briefings, and timer/alarm/weather queries. Amazon Echo and Google Home do these basic functions well but I'd imagine they weren't the only actions these companies wanted us as consumers to do.
elif 8y ago
I think the proper solution is to go old-school. That is, provide a traditional desktop PC experience that is augmented and improved by Alexa. It should always be more productive to ask an AI than to Google, if this is to have a chance of success. The problem was jumping immediately to a new modality instead of bridging toward it from the present. Android assistant has the right idea.
hathawsh 8y ago
It may not be a runaway hit, but if you have kids and an Echo device, you should ask Alexa to "Open the Magic Door". It's essentially a text adventure with fun sound effects and good storytelling. I can imagine a future where Magic Door or something like it becomes a big hit. BTW, there's a web site for the game: https://www.themagicdoor.org/ https://www.themagicdoor.org/
casper345 8y ago
When I turn down the Alexa because of music but then I ask Alexa what is the weather, it is the same volume as down and I cant hear it. Then I have to say increase volume and then ask Alexa again. This is small but I think defines the missing design principle of Alexa. Yes I want the music to be low when Im doing active 1, but the introduction of new action of knowing the weather I need to hear it. These are the little "smart" features that are needed for a product that Amazon is striving for needs. Edit: I actually say Echo because I think we should stop personifying technology.
- regnerba 8y ago
  Same thing with the Google Home's. The first step in our good morning routine is set the volume low and the last step is increase the volume again at the end.
- fallous 8y ago
  How is the device or software supposed to deduce your wants without your expressing them? How does it know what you can and cannot hear, and that you chose to turn down the music (rather than explicitly turn it off) because it was distracting to some other activity rather than because that was the optimal setting for hearing the music while not waking a sleeping baby in your arms? And when it decides to shout the weather rather than voice it at the same level of the music which results in waking the baby, how "smart" is that?
irrational 8y ago
I don't know anyone that has one of these assistants in their home. If you have one, do you like it and why? What are the main benefits to having one?
grkvlt 8y ago
The problem seems to be there is no barrier to entry. Say what you like about Apple's app store, at least they have standards that are enforced, and to a certain extent Google as well. Windows, and the Microsoft app store, on the other hand, suffers the same problem of quality control and lack of curation as Alexa skills. There are some gems, and Amazon have put effort into making Alexa and the Echo devices useful out of the box with their default skills/commands. I've also never had issues with the smart home skills for various devices I have around the house. However, it's a telling statistic that there are over 50 'fart' skills, [0] half of which are rated at three stars or above. And of course, although stricter curation and quality control would fix this, it would cut the number of skills down hugely, maybe even to 1% of the current size, so the app store looks tiny and people don't bother with the platform. See also Metcalfe's law [1] and network effects... 0. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alexa+skill+fart&crid=2KFJ9DO3N51JM&sprefix=fart+alexa+%2Caps%2C207&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alexa+skill+fart&crid=2KFJ9DO3N51... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
- xauronx 8y ago
  Amazon constantly runs “hackathons” with thousands of dollars of prizes to the winners and free echos just for playing. When I did it there were probably a hundred projects that were along the lines of “hi Alexa my name is John” “hi John I like you” (or similar effort). And all of them got into the store and all of them got free echos.
ram_rar 8y ago
As a techie, I have barely used it for weather , NPR, WSJ thats about it. May timer sometimes. But thats about it. I guess, dialogue as an interface is a little ahead of its time.
Proven 8y ago
I am not surprised. I can't think of any reason or use case that could justify owning it. Out with the non-essential junk!
spectrum1234 8y ago
Alexa was pretty mediocre. I use my Google Home to play Netflix on my tv including rewind, play music, turn off my tv, and pre heat my Tesla.

152 points by kristianc 8y ago

Alexa is a glorified lighting management system for me. Given it’s current capabilities, that’s all it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. Oh, I’ll ask it the weather sometimes, but come on - what can Alexa really do that’s all that compelling, that already isn’t a capability of Siri/Google?

aqzman 8y ago
I don't have an Alexa myself, I'm a Google Home user. One thing that's always impressed me is the ability of Alexa to order things from Amazon just by issuing voice commands. Although, I'm sure that comes with its own host of problems, especially if you're not just ordering a generic product.
- jamisteven 8y ago
  Ordering via Alexa is something I would definitely, never do, in any scenario.
- sykic 8y ago
  You can order things from Amazon using Alexa but you can’t delete items from your cart using Alexa. For me this makes it useless. Not being able to delete items makes it user unfriendly. Unless Amazon changes this I’m not going to use Alexa.
  - yourapostasy 8y ago
    Nor add to wish lists, or move to saved items, or move from saved items to cart, etc. The UI interaction model is in early days for sure.
- russfink 8y ago
  > comes with its own host of problems https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/african-grey-parrot-rocco-was-caught-ordering-items-off-amazons-alexa.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/african-grey-parrot-rocco-wa...
melling 8y ago
Two timers at once. Great in the kitchen. But you’re right... Why can’t Siri do that? A device with multiple microphones is more useful from the couch, especially when I need to yell into the kitchen. I don’t want to feel the need to keep my phone within earshot at all times. I wish Apple had such a $30 device for Siri but it’s unlikely.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  Yeah they instead have a $349 speaker with Siri. I rather just buy two Mycroft Mark 1's for that chunk of change.
- ldrndll 8y ago
  As of iOS 12 HomePod can set multiple timers too. edit Also, I completely agree. I wish there was a HomePod Dot type offering. I've been sprinkling HomePods throughout the home, but it's expensive and also obtrusive in places where you don't want something that bulky.
Nursie 8y ago
"Alexa set a timer for 15 minutes." (She's a cooking timer) "Alexa what time is it" (She's a clock) "Alexa switch the tv off" (She can't switch it on) "Alexa, meow meow/Pika/fart" (Novelty nonsense) "Alexa, turn the heating up in the living room" (Nest integration) Yeah that's about it. The only really useful thing she does for us is music control on our sonos system - "Alexa, play the album X by Y in the kitchen". That's quite neat.
- IanCal 8y ago
  Calling between rooms has been the main reason I got a second device (first one for tinkering). Got a young baby so being able to wake up the partner across the other side of the house without needing hands when there's been an ... explosion is useful. Adding things to a shopping list is the other one that works nicely. That music integration with sonos sounds really nice. Nothing groundbreaking though.
- xauronx 8y ago
  Try customizing your daily briefing. Really nice for a curated news briefing while you’re getting ready in the morning, or making dinner.

bemmu 8y ago

How is the discovery of Alexa apps? Other platforms often had hits because they had some viral component that helped the apps spread.

mcny 8y ago
Skills targeted at children are the worst. I am not a child! Why should I have to jump through hoops because other people have children?

melling 8y ago

Linking my Apple Music to Alexa was huge for me. It’s nice to be able to play my playlists or pick an album.

barranger 8y ago
Shame that we can't do the same in Canada

gtsteve 8y ago

I bought an Echo speaker when they first came out. The sound quality is impressive (to my untrained ear), but the development experience is not. The first thing I wanted to do was to add a feature so I could add a task to my to-do list software which is not supported by Alexa. It turns out that you cannot construct a sentence along the lines of "Tell Asana to add a task: <task>". You can't actually have a 'slot' which contains a freeform piece of text, even if it is the last piece of text in the sentence. The Alexa API differs between regions, so the North America version of the API supports this but the EU version doesn't. It was removed from the NA version for a while but placed back after a bit of an uproar. I think you could develop some more useful stuff using Alexa if only this feature was consistently available. I cannot think of a good reason why it isn't. I now just mainly have it as a Spotify speaker, and occasionally I use it as an expensive egg timer. I normally have it on mute because I find it activates and starts recording private conversations. I don't see it getting better.

dev_north_east 8y ago
> I normally have it on mute because I find it activates and starts recording private conversations. What?!
- kevinmchugh 8y ago
  It can mistrigger on phrases like "take a left on" or "they got a Lexus". My parents have one and get a kick out of the misactivations.
  - dev_north_east 8y ago
    Wow. I was under the mistaken impression that the devices were more robust than that. I'm very anti these devices, now I'm even moreso!
    - aedron 8y ago
      For what it's worth, in two years our Google Home has only 'misfired' once, and that was when someone on TV said 'Hey Google'. It is in the living room and sees heavy use by a family of five.

steeve 8y ago

I have several, along with Google Home too. They all suffer from the same issue: it's awkward to use with third party skills. Unless they are the highly integrated ones (Spotify, Logitech Harmony) in which case it's great. It's the same for Siri, the API is so restrictive. The whole "tell XX to YY" isn't convenient. One workaround on Google Home is to use IFTTT, and in that case you can customize the whole phrase and response, and then it's pretty nice, even though the latency is high. "-Okay Google, open the blinds -Sure thing Commander" never gets old.

deanclatworthy 8y ago
Absolutely. Until the voice assistants become a bit more intelligent with the language used to activate them, it feels so rigid and un-natural communicating with them. I don't see a great future for voice assistants in the near future, until we truly solve the problem of intent (in a natural way) and accordingly can respond.
- michaelt 8y ago
  I'm not sure if it's a question of intelligence, or a question of business. I can't imagine Amazon would hand the "Alexa, order more bread" keyword over to Instacart/Wal-Mart/whoever without a fight.
  - cglace 8y ago
    Hopefully google or apple might.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
>The whole "tell XX to YY" isn't convenient. You don't have to do that - the system can usually infer what skill you want from your utterance. [0]. And the "open the blinds" thing can be done on Alexa with a custom routine (Alexa specific IFTT). [0] https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/c870fd31-4f91-4a62-a137-8dfa70ca5e9c/hyprank-how-alexa-determines-what-skill-can-best-meet-a-customer-s-need https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/c870fd31-4f91-... Disclaimer - interned on the team that built this

sherlock_h 8y ago

It does. Skyrim for Alexa. https://youtu.be/BQl3T0uD5Aw https://youtu.be/BQl3T0uD5Aw

StevePerkins 8y ago

My Echo was an interesting novelty at first. But a couple years in now, it is essentially (in order of usefulness): 1. An alarm clock / kitchen timer 2. A thing that tells me the weather report during morning coffee, so I know what to wear 3. A DJ that my kids yell at to play pop music If it died tomorrow, I'd probably just go back to using my phone for these 3 things rather than buy a new one. I can't imagine getting into it enough to explore third-party "skills".

sigi45 8y ago
Novelity for sure but i use the timer/alarm clock so frequently, that i will rebuy a new one if the old one breaks. I use it for: - I have to go in 1h but i only need 30 minutes to prepare the leave so timer for 30minutes - Pizza / food - short nap - for learning And quite often.
massivecali 8y ago
I see the house dj speaker aspect, but why does anyone need the first 2 when their phones accommodate those functions?
- taeric 8y ago
  Has become ubiquitous. With a speaker in every room, I don't have to find my phone to start a timer. We also user audible heavily. The kids live the boxcar children readings.
- r3bl 8y ago
  Same thing: convenience. Find the phone, unlock the phone, find and open the app, find and click the control. That requires some effort. Saying commands, having physical buttons at the expected location in your home, NFC tags.. there's a bunch of more convenient ways to do extremely repetitive tasks that would otherwise take you more time to do.
  - Zimahl 8y ago
    Hasn't this been minimized by 'Hey Siri' and 'OK Google'?

gdne 8y ago

The problem is the interface. Voice commands and their responses are linear, one dimensional. It’s difficult to represent complex interaction within that scope. Think of all the investment that has gone into telephone based automated customer support. The best interface conceived so far is the dreaded phone tree. That’s essentially the same interface smart speakers are exposing. The opportunity is to figure out how to better utilize the voice based medium. No one has done it yet. When they do, it will also likely improve the experience around screen readers and accessibility.

k__ 8y ago
I think you're right, but on the other hand, a skill is faster created than a complex 2D UI. Sure, I won't use a conversational interface to build the next Photoshop. I could tell it stuff like, what I ate and it calculates my kcals or macros and tells me how much I have left to eat this day or what other stuff I should eat to hit my macros etc. I could tell it what I bought and it would categorize the bills. Some things are just too bothersome to do with my hands.
jessriedel 8y ago
The medium of voice is very rich and capable when talking to a human, so this is something limited by the intelligence of the system you're interacting with.
- taeric 8y ago
  Is it? I mean, some folks do great talking. Lots of them. Most are in narrative communication. If you get much beyond that, you jump to physical interesting quickly. Even telling is benefited with gestures. Consider how vague most spoken directions are. When you can augment with pointing, things are easier.
mcdan 8y ago
This is right. No none has yet written “The Design of Everyday Things” for voice interaction. We just don’t know what works yet so we are redoing what was done before.
8y ago

dingo_bat 8y ago

Some pain points I noticed: The exposed API is extremely restrictive. No native SDK, all "apps" run on the cloud. Code - Compile - Test cycle is very slow.

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

Today we use several echos only as a time/voice activated watch/spotify. They well be thrown own if we move and replaced with non-cloud wlan speakers.

hanoz 8y ago

Despite often seeming like a thin veneer of natural language processing on top of a search engine, I'm sure most users think of their voice assistants, or are willing them to be, a general AI agent. They don't want to have to care what app/skill/web-scrape is involved in enabling a response. The whole skills ecosystem feels like an awkward stopgap on the path to AI. The language required to invoke them feels particularly clunky - "Alexa, ask ThingFinder about a thing" - and then, is the user supposed to be talking to ThingFinder now, or Alexa? She still sounds like Alexa, but she doesn't seem quite herself. As developer choosing an invocation name is fraught with difficulty. There are only so many natural sounding names for something which does a particular thing, without incongruously inserting some invented branding word onto it - "Alexa open Tidy Tide Tables". If someone's already using the most natural name you are free to use exactly the same, but then who knows whose skill will be launched? And you'd better make sure your skill's name doesn't clash with anything else in the world at large, like the entire history of music for example, "Alexa play Wicked Game". It's all a bit of a mess.

sp332 8y ago
Yeah, that's a good point. People are good at mentally compartmentalizing behaviors with personalities. If Alexa doesn't allow each agent to have a personality, people are going to have a hard time keeping the behaviors straight. Kinda reminds me of Neuromancer, where a superintelligent AI was broken into two pieces to avoid detection. One part was good at personality, and the other part had to mimic people in order to communicate. It was very unnerving for people to talk to an AI that was copying the personality of someone they knew.

lbacaj 8y ago

Anecdotally a developer friend of mine strongly suspects, most people, are like him and not actually using these home speakers very much. I’ve been working on a an Audio App that reads any articles to you for iOS/Android and planned to bring it to the Echo and he seems to suggest my efforts are totally wasted. Although their market reach seems to be massive, likely related to their cheap price, not surprised by this article that their actual usage is incredibly low. Most people seem to buy them and then forget about them. As a shameless self plug, if you would like to check out my app that reads articles to you using beautiful sounding AI/ML, find it here: https://articulu.com https://articulu.com

ctruelson 8y ago
Curious, are the articles dictated by a human or a machine?
- ponyous 8y ago
  My question as well. I imagine it's a machine. I'm not gonna download/register just so I can listen to a sample. I find robotic voices to be annoying.
sigi45 8y ago
I'm using the timer, alarm, hue integration for my lights, music and weather. Those are by far my killer features why i use it and why i like it. I haven't looked at any amazon skill store as i don't see any reason for it.
- mywacaday 8y ago
  I use the same features in google home but long for proper integration with Google Keep. I had used home to populate my shopping list but now that has disappeared from the home app and you have to go to shoppinglist.google.com I don't understand why i cant tell Home to add an item to a specific Keep list.
- ssnistfajen 8y ago
  Playing songs/podcasts from Spotify on Echo while controlling it from my phone/computer is my favourite use of the speaker now. Ironically this action involves no voice commands whatsoever except occasionally telling the speaker to pause/resume/adjust volume when I'm away from my phone/computer.

i_am_nomad 8y ago

Maybe the problem is with the entire concept of distinct, discrete apps. Voice as an “interface” is based around conversation, not functional blocks and clickable items. A truly enjoyable and useful Alexa would have a conversation with you - even if a practical and transactional one - and the various functions and “apps” would be woven seamlessly into that, just as a human assistant might learn a new skill and work it helpfully into the conversation.

jv0010 8y ago

I think the whole voice activation hype inflated itself where people are naturally wanting to see the next big thing and of course people used this as an example - the title says it all. Furthermore we need to look at what makes voice less restrictive and that’s making it instant. They are still reliant on it being cloud / web based which creates a lag and makes it awkward and nothing like ‘talking to something or someone ‘

huffmsa 8y ago

It's a utility device, not an entertainment device. A good toolbox is filled with balanced tools. That there isn't some hyper-addictive time-suck application isn't a bad thing. However, if it's a case of no one actually using the device, then there might be cause for concern.

dalbasal 8y ago

I think we still don't have a good model for how voice UI needs to work. The equivalent of GUI for mouse-and-keyboard machines or tap-and-swipe interfaces for mobile. If we did have a UI model, I imagine we'd be controlling car stereos and driver-mode mobile phones with voice already. I wonder if any of these 80k apps have the "magic sauce" but just haven't applied it to the right problem.

camtarn 8y ago
Controlling a mobile phone while driving while using your voice is definitely a thing. And I suspect if you have your phone hooked up to your car stereo, or integrated using Google or Apple's in-car docks, then using your voice to play music is also possible. I think your point about not having a good model is correct, though, for anything other than basic uses (phoning, messaging, playing music, navigation, weather, etc)

snowwolf 8y ago

The most frequent use cases for us in order of use-fullness: 1. Spotify 2. TV control (with Harmony) - great for the kids so they don't break the remotes 3. Home monitoring when we are away (drop in on the echo spot). But for me home security seems to be an unexplored opportunity for Amazon (and Google). Those microphones are very sensitive - and if paired with motion sense on other devices (a Nest or something) start to give you powerful intrusion detection tools and alerting. How hard would it be for them to recognise the sound of breaking glass or the presence of someone in the room at a time they shouldn't be there? Obviously solving the pet issue is a challenge, but I think it's an interesting use case to explore.

jonplackett 8y ago

The problem is that the trigger for 3rd party skills sucks. Saying "Alexa, ask [Whatever skill name] to do something" is really unnatural and ruins the whole user experience. They need sort out the grammar to make it actually feel conversational.

ajford 8y ago
Yep. It's a pain to have to say "Alexa, ask Chevrolet to start my car". Why can't I just say "Alexa, start my car". Clearly it's the only car related skill...

theaccordance 8y ago

While I feel Alexa has a lot of potential from the couple POC apps I've developed, the device class itself simply isn't where I need it to be to fully capitalize on it yet.

clavalle 8y ago

Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. There's just not enough of a surface area for something so comprehensive. It's like saying 'There are 80k mouse enabled apps and no runaway hit'. What it can do is have an app for nearly anything, though, that makes sense for the form factor. It's on its way. The next step of its evolution is to look at what apps work and what conventions can be pulled from those as a general standard. Users will be much happier when they can nearly instantly download an Alexa enabled interface for an app and have it work intuitively. And this is doubly important for Alexa because there isn't deep feedback like you have with a mouse where you can see the things you aren't doing to gather hints at what's possible -- you just have to know or, at least know how to find the answer, like a command line. Which gives me an idea 'man for Alexa'. At least we can standardize a help menu.

pintxo 8y ago
But that is not the original (or publicly perceived) USP. If I need to learn or memorize the interface it's not what has been promised.
- clavalle 8y ago
  That's the thing about USPs...most are idealized possibilities not yet realized. I mean, look at VR and AR and, hell, even AI. But AI is not useless even though it hasn't reached it generalized intelligence promise. It is adding tremendous value even though it has landed in the limited middle. I don't mind learning Alexa's syntax and what it expects of me. I get value from what it can do well. As long as that's true, I think it can miss its more grandiose promises and still be a huge success.
PopeDotNinja 8y ago
> Alexa is just an input/output device. It is limited, which is OK but that means there will not be a 'runaway hit'. I like the way you say that. My Google Home is a remote control for my mouth. It's like licking a keyboard one key at a time in the dark. Simple queries are easy, but any non-trivial query just aint't gonna happen at the moment.

vertis 8y ago

Disclaimer: I haven't played with this since 2016, so may be out of date. Having played with the Alexa and Google home. My take on why there are no hits is that it's very clunky to invoke apps, especially for one-off queries. "Hey, Alexa/Google, Ask <keyword> to do <blah>" or some variation on that. Starting an app and then interacting with it works fine for some use cases but not all. It really needs to be a flow of install app for given type of task, say searching for a hotel, and then like Android, there are defaults. So I say "hey alexa, find me a hotel room in blah" and it just knows to hand off to whatever my favourite is. So long as all the core easy commands are only accessible to Google/Amazon, this is going to continue to be a problem.

brentm 8y ago
And it hasn't really changed since 2016 so that is still mostly spot on. I think the real problem though is that people aren't good at remembering voice commands, either how to invoke the command or that the command even exists. Without visual cues it's easy to forget everything. You're not going to have a runaway hit when it's predicated on everyone remembering that special thing to say. It's like trying to have a runaway hit that had to be based on a keyboard shortcut. All of those services are great for the basics, e.g. How's the weather / set a timer / remind me in N minutes / order toilet paper ... Everything else is a bit tougher in my opinion.
jscheel 8y ago
Agreed, there needs to be a paradigm shift in registering intents. I should not create a skill that the user needs to remember a command for. Instead, my skill should be able to hook into intents and return structured data. For example: "Me: Alexa, find me a hotel near the beach in Destin, Florida that is available next week" "Alexa: Hotels.com has a three star hotel available for $987 for six nights, and Airbnb has a four bedroom condo available for the same dates. Would you like to book one of these, or hear more options?" "Me: Book the first hotel." ...and so on... In this instance, Amazon has to define the schema for user intention, and hotels.com and Airbnb must provide interfaces to that intent, responding with normalized/standardized data that Alexa can then reconfigure into an appropriate response. Amazon has to throw their weight around to get other companies to play the game, and it's on them to organize the returned data into an appropriate response. This is probably where a discussion about the semantic web would be useful :)

ppierald 8y ago

We use it to "set a timer for 10 minutes" when cooking something and "what's the weather for tomorrow" to know whether to bring a coat or not.

908087 8y ago
Either of which could be done just as quickly by setting a timer on your oven/microwave or pulling out your phone.
- CharlesW 8y ago
  Using Alexa for tasks like this is a qualitatively different experience. Hands-free/voice control can be very useful in that your hands can be busy, and you don't need to find or walk to and manipulate a device or remote.
  - 908087 8y ago
    If you're cooking, the timer on your oven should literally be right in front of your face. Every use case I hear parroted to justify the installation of audio surveillance devices in our homes sounds like a solution desperately in search of a problem. What do you plan to do with the milliseconds of time you may have saved?
- ajford 8y ago
  Sure, but I can ask Alexa what the weather is like while actively doing something else, like say before brushing my teeth or while in the shower. Or while in my kids closet, picking out clothes for the next day. And while I can set a single timer on my microwave/oven, or set them on my phone, being able to set a timer, hands free, while cooking is pretty damn convenient. I can set a timer while my hands are dirty from mixing meat for meatloaf or handling chicken. There's something to be said about the convenience factor, and that's what most technological innovations are about, making life easier or more convenient.

rafiki6 8y ago

I disagree...the killer app is a smart speaker (i.e. Amazon Music + voice control). That in an of itself is pretty useful, especially when you can get a reasonably good one for under a hundred bucks now. Outside of that, Alexa isn't the platform the industry thinks it is but rather the equivalent of the touch screen on a smart phone. It's another form of input. There needs to be much better and more seamless integration with 3rd party apps for it to really be useful.

phil_folrida 8y ago
You are right, I would say (Music + Voice Control) as you can configure other services (Spotify for instance), there are a lot of negative comments here, I wonder if it is not due to the population of Commenters on Hackernews that would tend to be younger. If you have a child it is nearly a nanny that helps your child doing his/her homework, plus you can connect several Alexa (from friends) and interact with them, if you have also several Alexa you can communicate in different rooms (speaks/broadcast)

apricot13 8y ago

I find it quicker to enter commands on my phone for most things. One skill I thought would be really useful was "Alexa, hows my commute?" but without a way to go in and 'star' specific trains it would tell me about trains leaving in the next few minutes which isn't helpful! I also cant often remember what I'm supposed to say and I sometimes forget my words as if I've been put on the spot somehow. Overall its not a pleasant user experience.

max76 8y ago

I've spent a lot of time thinking about monetization on voice-assist apps. This is a challenging problem, and I suspect it's holding AAA quality 3rd party support for the platforms behind. There is no stand alone (from a mobileapp/webapp) voice-assist app that has brought in significant revenue. I'm going to break down some of the most common attempts at revenue and describe their pitfalls. * Sell Audio (Spotify, Audible, MP3 style): If the goal is to get into this business than you'll have much better reach if you sell on smartphones. The voice-assist app will be supplementary at best. * Sell products (Amazon/Ebay style): People aren't generally comfortable buying products with voice-assist. You'll have to compete directly with Amazon. * Market products (In-line advertising style): You'll have to generate a lot of original content to plug sponsored products. The original content will have to be very compelling. It's probably more appealing to host the original content somewhere else primarily. * Sell audio advertisement: What make the voice-assist platform compelling for content consumption? How can you create a very engaging voice-assist app? Will people tolerate audio advertisements? They tend to consume more time and be less interesting than visual ads.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

> "The advent of the smartphone triggered an app gold rush. So far that hasn’t happened with Alexa." While gold rush is an accurate analogy, I'm not so sure that's a positive. I remember a couple+ years ago the NYT doing an article / series on (native) app developers and how - contrary to the hype - there were significantly more "losers" than winners. So has Alexa made it worse? Now there are no winners at all? (Editorial: Well, sans Amazon and its shareholder.)

abakker 8y ago

The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. There are no native apps because everything that it can do is just an IO to something else. If they actually get conversational, this will change, but until then, it’s just a command line with no man page.

portmanteaufu 8y ago
> The problem is that Alexa is just a consumer voice command line. UI discoverability is impossible, and everything that you can do is just a utility that does something else. In a way, I think it's even worse than that. I've used Alexa since the Echo was a relatively new product. Back then, I experimented with new phrases and commands often, but was frequently greeted with wrong answers or "Sorry, I don't know how to help with that." Over time, I stopped trying those commands. Skip forward to today--the backend has been improving for years, and many of those commands now work, but it's too late. Their users have already been taught that they don't, so folks stop trying to use those features. Not only can you not discover new commands easily, you might mentally blacklist useful commands permanently. Perhaps more frustratingly, the "What's New" emails they send out don't help with this. They never say "Hey, we know you tried to ask your Echo to report its volume level before and it didn't work, but it does now." They always say "Ask Alexa to tell you an Arbor Day joke!" -_-
- darksaints 8y ago
  It would be pretty cool if it could update you on things you've asked for in the past that were not possible then but are now possible. "Hey, 3 months ago you asked for the forecast according to the ECMWF weather model, and I couldn't answer you. But now I can, so go ahead and try!".
  - slg 8y ago
    I wonder if that is too far on the "creepy scale". Everyone probably knows that Amazon has a full record of everything they have asked their Alexa, but I am not sure it is smart to repeatedly remind people of this.

b_tterc_p 8y ago

“Computer Play ____” from Spotify is great. Everything else feels like tedious novelty.

jxdxbx 8y ago

Voice is mostly inconvenient and slow unless you have certain disabilities, at times when your hands are otherwise occupied (driving, doing the dishes, maybe when out-and-about via Siri or Google Assistant) and for the basic in-home stuff that people have already discovered (music, home automation, news, weather, timers, random fact from wikipedia). At this stage I'd be very surprised if there was some new amazing use case. There are always going to be niche uses that some people really like. I create notes in Drafts on iOS via Siri all the time, for instance.

mikob 8y ago

I think voice is underutilized as a 3rd, powerful complimentary interface; mouse and keyboard being the first and second. A smart speaker doesn't enable me to be more productive on the tool I use most, my computer. I'm building something that I think is much more powerful than smart speakers for the following reasons. 1. It's software and lives on the hardware that you already have... your computer. It's not a standalone hardware device silo'd from the existing tooling you use daily. 2. It provides visual feedback (live transcription, with colors indicating what's understood), because it can. Smart speakers can't. 3. It's a browser extension, so it easily integrates with all the webapps that you use daily: gmail, google docs, hacker news... any webapp you want it to. 4. Plugins are intuitive to develop and open-source so anyone can build off and improve them (https://github.com/lipsurf/plugins https://github.com/lipsurf/plugins) It's a work in progress, but in case anyone is interested: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lipsurf-voice-control-for/lnnmjmalakahagblkkcnjkoaihlfglon?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lipsurf-voice-cont...

scarejunba 8y ago

The runaway hit is probably Amazon buying. Miss that so much on my Google Home.

ravenstine 8y ago

A lot of people don't even realize the Alexa mobile app even exists, despite the fact they must have installed it at one point in order to set up their Echo device. Hence, discoverability is pretty low. I don't know why Amazon still hasn't attempted to address this issue. If all they want is for people to buy shit from Amazon through it, why bother with all these custom "skills"? Generally, however, I think we've overestimated the utility of a voice command line with no actual intelligence behind it. Unless you are using Alexa to control actual devices like lights or a Roobma vacuum, most of the apps for it are either useless or better suited for a visual interface.

argd678 8y ago
I think it could be incredibly useful if it wasn’t like talking to someone who is hard of hearing, comically misinterprets similarly sounding words and can’t understand basic logic in sentences (what’s the weather _and_ traffic, then find my phone and turn off the lights). I’d like to ask it the meaning of Latin phrases or other words, but it just hears the words used 99% of the time despite being clearly pronounced differently. Ask it what bus and at which time I should leave to go somewhere. It doesn’t have any transportation info and can’t do basic logic. Duolingo would be a great integration for conversations while learning another language, but it can bearly understand English.

wtmt 8y ago

* Setting a timer or an alarm * Asking for the weather * Play some (desired) music Are there other things that these devices ("smart speakers") are really useful for? A voice activated browser or computer, on the other hand, is extremely useful for those who don't know to type or to use a browser (or a computer). It could be people who are not privileged enough to learn or people who find these very difficult to learn or even small kids. These systems allow the user to accomplish what they want (like searching or opening a website or a game, for example).

plemer 8y ago
For me the big one is easily adding items to lists (e.g., Wunderlist) without having to stop what I'm doing.
andrewljohnson 8y ago
* unit conversions * controlling smart-home stuff * child/baby monitor * intercom * home telephone
raulpegan 8y ago
Though it's in the same vein as "Asking for the weather" I find a lot of use for finding out when my next bus is coming, how the traffic is, and other things related to my commute. And calling for Ubers. But as I said, they all fall under the category of "mildly useful" and not "ground breaking"
gadders 8y ago
The only other thing we really use it for is calling from room to room, as a glorified intercom.
nothis 8y ago
I'm very skeptical about this as well but an argument I saw on here that I found kinda convincing was a comparison to the usual job of a "secretary". Most interactions are verbal and there's a wide variety of tasks that can be solved that way. The real problem is trust in an automated system handling those correctly, which is solvable. Think, for example, sorting your email inbox by "importance", not based on some flags or fixed heuristics but an actual, intelligent scan of the contents. Think of having reasonable phone conversations that result in scheduling appointments and answering concrete questions.

giarc 8y ago

I followed and even used the tool StoryLine (which is now the enterprise tool https://www.invocable.com/ https://www.invocable.com/). They had a very active Facebook group that I watched for awhile. The problem I found was that the tool made it too easy to build apps for Alexa. People would put out really junky apps that were the equivalent of fart apps long ago. Now some may argue that all app platforms need to go through this stage but I'd argue Alexa is different. The iPhone, pre app store days, provided other utility that was the driving force behind buying the phone. Alexa is seemingly reliant on 3rd party apps (with a few very minor exceptions ex. timers, weather etc) and therefore if there is no "killer app" what is the motivation to buy one?

darrenf 8y ago

I couldn't name a "runaway hit/killer app", but my gf and I get plenty of use from our Echo(s). Nothing we couldn't or didn't do prior to getting them, but we genuinely find the voice interface often wins out over reaching for our phones. We use it: • as an alarm clock • as a radio in the morning, podcast/audiobook player in the evening • arithmetic - e.g. when planning trips we might ask "Alexa, what's 100 Malyasian Ringgit it pounds sterling?", more conveniently than flipping to xe.com or a phone app and an answer we both hear. When cooking we might ask for weight conversions, during DIY we might ask for cm to inches, etc • to control Hue lighting in two rooms • to control our TV/amp/satellite ("Alexa, pause|mute the TV/set TV to channel 503/etc"). I used to love my Harmony universal remote but found it pretty cumbersome to manage, and my gf could _never_ get the hang of it like she can "Alexa, turn on/off Sky" • to play music when I'm wfh Rather than a hit skill/application, I'd say voice is a superior interface when doing other, dextrous stuff - getting dressed, using the hair dryer, feeding the cat, cooking, washing up, gardening, DIY, etc. Asking for the lights to turn on (the switches are not near the front door) when arriving home in the dark, saying "Alexa, goodnight" rather than turning off 4 lights and 3 devices, etc. The only thing I dislike about it is how it fires up I'm watching WWE and the commentators use Alexa Bliss's name.

drsim 8y ago

Alexa needs a PageRank and an 'I'm feeling lucky' that is successful the majority of the time. I would like it to work as a room of human experts works with a moderator. Alexa, how long will it take me to cycle to Netto? Alexa sends this parsed query out to all apps it thinks can answer. They respond with a confidence level and answer / follow up question. Alexa decides which app to choose (the 'PageRank') based on a number of factors like has the query been seen before and how did each app perform for it, the app's answer success rate, has the user been given a response from this app before etc. etc. The user should not have to install apps. Alexa should know all of the apps in the room and what they're good/bad at and select one to respond. Surely discovery is the wrong way to think about this problem and Alexa needs to be elevated from a good speech parser.

cheez 8y ago
Oh I like this twist on things. The difficulty is how do you prevent your data/query going to a place you wouldn't want it to go to?
- drsim 8y ago
  Very true, the privacy implications would need to be carefully considered.
amznthrowaway2 8y ago
The “canfulfill” API for skills is available. Alexa scientists are constantly working on improving the arbitration experience but it’s a very difficult problem, especially due to security concerns. https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/implement-canfulfillintentrequest-for-name-free-interaction.html https://developer.amazon.com/docs/custom-skills/implement-ca...

mark_element 8y ago

If you have an Alexa you really need to try playing Jeopardy on it. The Jeopardy Alexa skill and Akinator skill are fairly quick casual games that are very worthwhile.

Balgair 8y ago

The Alexa's timeline is likely much longer and deeper than a lot of the commentators here are aware of. Specifically, the lives of disabled people have been greatly enhanced with the Echo-dot specifically. The vision impaired/blind community has been very receptive to voice command tech [0][1]. Though these devices are not the commercial hit that many expect them to be, any nod towards the disabled community is greatly appreciated. Personally, I think that the challenges that disabled people face are great for all people. Thinking through all the permutations that real people with disabilities face opens up tech to new ways of interaction and design. The canonical example is the little ramp on the street corner, where the side walk and street interface. It was designed for wheelchairs originally, but the elderly, bicyclists, delivery men with trolleys, and all manner of people use them as an improvement in their lives. If Amazon focused on the disabled and their use cases for the Echo-dot, I think that they would find many other applications that enhance all of our lives. It may not be an 'essential' thing for the fully-abled, at least not consciously, but the enhancements are enjoyed by all and well worth the costs. Perhaps tech that focuses on the hearing impaired (the number one disability in the world), or the voice impaired, or amputees, may help all of us lead richer and fuller lives. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcvqfwOxOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDcvqfwOxOE [1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/358338/why-amazons-alexa-is-life-changing-for-the-blind https://www.pcmag.com/news/358338/why-amazons-alexa-is-life-...

amphibian87 8y ago
Yes exactly! The handicap door opener is another great example, I used to use it because I carry 12' ladders at work, but it was so convenient I just always use it now. There's a sentiment that everyone should use them, because it normalizes it. Even it's not verboten for non-disabled people to use the door button, there seems to be a feeling that "I'm breaking a rule" when I use it and that is changing I think.
giggles_giggles 8y ago
But what about the privacy concerns of this technology, especially from Amazon? My fiance needs voice-to-text software for accessibility reasons -- does that mean that in order to get her the best accessibility software, we have to sacrifice our privacy by placing Amazon's always-listening microphones around the house? I know she won't let me do that; even if I'm willing to compromise on my principles for her sake, she won't compromise hers.

pnw_hazor 8y ago

I bought an echo on an Amazon sale to explore making "skills" for it. But (at least then) there was no real way to monetize anything using it. Making an interesting skill that people use will just cost you money. BigCos or VCCos can use skills for generating good will I guess. But independent developers, not so much.

zwkrt 8y ago

I was taking with a friend who said ,"people use Alexa like a toaster, we haven't found what this interface will be really good at" But what if it /is/ just a toaster? Tech people tend to have high hopes for technology but technology must serve a purpose and it will go the way of the dodo if the purpose of not strong or clear. For me, having a voice interface for music and calls is enough justification for such a device, and I assume this is true for others as well. It's a classic case of over-engineering and then shopping around for a use case for the 25-use Swiss army knife that no one asked for.

taco_emoji 8y ago
I don't think it's enough justification--you can get a "dumb" bluetooth- or wifi-enabled speaker to hook up with the voice-enabled smartphone you already have in your pocket. The value proposition for an Alexa or Google Home has to be over and above that functionality.
- oarsinsync 8y ago
  The smart speaker is always fixed in place, always listening, always ready to play and independent of anything else. Your phone needs to be in range of the 'dumb' speaker, needs to be paired to it / connected to the same wireless network, can't be used for any other audio functions, and probably can't be in your pocket if you want it to be listening for voice commands. It now also can't be trained to your voice specifically if you have others in your home who want to use it, which makes it ripe for abuse whenever you leave the home.
- zwkrt 8y ago
  I agree that the current solution is unfortunate, but most customers are seemingly blind to that or more generally demand seems inelastic to that aspect so I didn't address it.
mrlala 8y ago
I agree, why does it have to do a billion things? I use it for, in this order * Music * Kitchen timers while cooking * Setting simple reminders without having to go into a phone app or some crap (alexa, remind me to do X at 10am) * Kids asking random questions (alexa, how many moons does jupiter have) Other random stuff like weather maybe, when a sports game is on... But this is all just pretty basic stuff you would expect from a voice interface... to me, it has all the "killer apps" built in with the above.

agrippanux 8y ago

I've written 15-20 Alexa apps, some public, most for running parts of my life / house. A big part of the problem for a long time with developing Alexa skills is that if you needed to know where the user was, having them enable location permissions was insane. It required the user to have the Alexa app installed (which almost no one does), then navigate 3-4 fairly technical looking screens and finally flip a switch. I recently wrote a demo app for a friend's company that needed to know where the user was, and I jumped through a bunch of hoops for an otherwise simple task to avoid the app-permissions-dance. The app I wrote was demoed to the Alexa team by my friend (his company was doing a deal for the company's data to be supplied to Amazon), and the feedback he got from the Alexa execs was they know the location permissions process was a big issue. I think it's gotten better recently with the redesign of the Alexa app, but I haven't checked it out yet - I don't have any desire to release a public Alexa app. I just to keep my stuff in developer mode and customized to my needs.

xauronx 8y ago
The thing I’m missing is location within the house. If I’m in the bedroom I should be able to tell my bedroom Alexa “turn on the lights”, and the same for the kitchen Alexa. Having to repeat the same incantation over and over is frustrating.

CWuestefeld 8y ago

Amazon’s Alexa Has 80k Apps... Perhaps, but by eyeball, no less than 95% of those are stupid useless trivia games.

walterbell 8y ago

Alexa is useful to visually impaired and people and seniors: - landline dial by name - radio station by name - TV channel by name - play/resume audiobook by name - microwave for duration - device power on/off - time, weather, etc It takes some setup to get all devices integrated, but once it all works, it's borderline magic to a non-technical user.

deleted 8y ago

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pwthornton 8y ago

A lot of people are mentioning discoverability as an issue. That is a core issue. Same with understanding (the idea of once you discover something exists, how easy is it to understand how to fully use it?). Beyond that, we have issues with memorability. It's hard to memorize how to properly even use these voice apps once you learn for the first time. Here is a full rubric for whether or not a product is well designed: https://uxdesign.cc/the-design-critique-rubric-how-to-determine-if-something-is-well-designed-9421db59f982 https://uxdesign.cc/the-design-critique-rubric-how-to-determ... The hardest part might be that most apps for Alexa aren't privledged. You can't just ask Alexa to do the new skill. You have to first open the skill and then ask that skill to do something. "Alexa open the Food Planner app." This hitch in the process makes memorability very poor. I am an advanced Alexa user, and I almost never use any skills. They just aren't integrated very well. The one I do use is Sonos (and Spotify to power it), which is given priveldged access and allows me to attach an Echo Dot and Sonos speakers to the same room in my house, so that when I say, "Alexa, play The Beatles," Alexa plays the Beatles in the room it hears me in on my Sonos speakers with music from Spotify. When you use a combo like this, it feels pretty magical, but most of Alexa can't operate like this, so it feels really stitled, and the user experience is quite poor.

eric_b 8y ago

"Alexa, set timer for 14 minutes." Great for keeping my iPhone clean while I'm cooking. Otherwise I'd have to try and convince Siri to set a timer... (But yeah, i agree - definitely nothing very innovative about it. I don't really think voice control is ever going to be the next big thing)

jsgo 8y ago

This is looking at Alexa, most likely in smart speaker or some variant form, as the endgame which I don't think it is. My guess is that it and its competition is more or less a MVP to use audio for input and output and to understand how users interact with this "new" form of input. In a similar way to how Google Search and the various add ins they implemented for it along the way informs Google Assistant, so too I think these are stepping stones for something else. So I don't think the expectation is to have a runaway hit app, but rather to have a product that users will actively engage with. And considering they're making huge pushes into smart home product integration with Alexa, I really don't see how any of it could be viewed as cautionary... from Amazon's viewpoint anyway.

ssnistfajen 8y ago

For nearly two years since me and my family owned Amazon Echo speakers, the Android app was practically just a browser wrapper that frequently loaded slowly or wouldn't load at all (this issue is now mostly addressed wtih a redesigned native-ish Android app but I'm afraid it may be too late). Looking for new apps was an excruciating experience and navigating menus inside the app was bad. I gave up soon after and have since only used the app to reconfigure network settings for the speaker. I only use the speaker for casting music/podcasts, listening to news briefings, and timer/alarm/weather queries. Amazon Echo and Google Home do these basic functions well but I'd imagine they weren't the only actions these companies wanted us as consumers to do.

elif 8y ago

I think the proper solution is to go old-school. That is, provide a traditional desktop PC experience that is augmented and improved by Alexa. It should always be more productive to ask an AI than to Google, if this is to have a chance of success. The problem was jumping immediately to a new modality instead of bridging toward it from the present. Android assistant has the right idea.

hathawsh 8y ago

It may not be a runaway hit, but if you have kids and an Echo device, you should ask Alexa to "Open the Magic Door". It's essentially a text adventure with fun sound effects and good storytelling. I can imagine a future where Magic Door or something like it becomes a big hit. BTW, there's a web site for the game: https://www.themagicdoor.org/ https://www.themagicdoor.org/

casper345 8y ago

When I turn down the Alexa because of music but then I ask Alexa what is the weather, it is the same volume as down and I cant hear it. Then I have to say increase volume and then ask Alexa again. This is small but I think defines the missing design principle of Alexa. Yes I want the music to be low when Im doing active 1, but the introduction of new action of knowing the weather I need to hear it. These are the little "smart" features that are needed for a product that Amazon is striving for needs. Edit: I actually say Echo because I think we should stop personifying technology.

regnerba 8y ago
Same thing with the Google Home's. The first step in our good morning routine is set the volume low and the last step is increase the volume again at the end.
fallous 8y ago
How is the device or software supposed to deduce your wants without your expressing them? How does it know what you can and cannot hear, and that you chose to turn down the music (rather than explicitly turn it off) because it was distracting to some other activity rather than because that was the optimal setting for hearing the music while not waking a sleeping baby in your arms? And when it decides to shout the weather rather than voice it at the same level of the music which results in waking the baby, how "smart" is that?

irrational 8y ago

I don't know anyone that has one of these assistants in their home. If you have one, do you like it and why? What are the main benefits to having one?

grkvlt 8y ago

The problem seems to be there is no barrier to entry. Say what you like about Apple's app store, at least they have standards that are enforced, and to a certain extent Google as well. Windows, and the Microsoft app store, on the other hand, suffers the same problem of quality control and lack of curation as Alexa skills. There are some gems, and Amazon have put effort into making Alexa and the Echo devices useful out of the box with their default skills/commands. I've also never had issues with the smart home skills for various devices I have around the house. However, it's a telling statistic that there are over 50 'fart' skills, [0] half of which are rated at three stars or above. And of course, although stricter curation and quality control would fix this, it would cut the number of skills down hugely, maybe even to 1% of the current size, so the app store looks tiny and people don't bother with the platform. See also Metcalfe's law [1] and network effects... 0. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alexa+skill+fart&crid=2KFJ9DO3N51JM&sprefix=fart+alexa+%2Caps%2C207&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_11 https://www.amazon.com/s?k=alexa+skill+fart&crid=2KFJ9DO3N51... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

xauronx 8y ago
Amazon constantly runs “hackathons” with thousands of dollars of prizes to the winners and free echos just for playing. When I did it there were probably a hundred projects that were along the lines of “hi Alexa my name is John” “hi John I like you” (or similar effort). And all of them got into the store and all of them got free echos.

ram_rar 8y ago

As a techie, I have barely used it for weather , NPR, WSJ thats about it. May timer sometimes. But thats about it. I guess, dialogue as an interface is a little ahead of its time.

Proven 8y ago

I am not surprised. I can't think of any reason or use case that could justify owning it. Out with the non-essential junk!

spectrum1234 8y ago

Alexa was pretty mediocre. I use my Google Home to play Netflix on my tv including rewind, play music, turn off my tv, and pre heat my Tesla.