8 ms·

I can’t believe that people actually pay for these things... Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me. I have an Ecobee smart thermostat that has integrated

by jtdev 7y ago

I can’t believe that people actually pay for these things... Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me. I have an Ecobee smart thermostat that has integrated Alexa, which I promptly disabled after installation.

kowdermeister 7y ago
What's wrong with gimmicks? Voice control itself is not a bad idea, the interface to control your technology is something you are born with :)
- tvanantwerp 7y ago
  No, it's something you acquire--no one is born speaking.
  - kowdermeister 7y ago
    The interface is sound and you can generate sound with your organs if you want to go full pedantic.
    - pushpop 7y ago
      In that case every computer interface is controlled by things you’re born with.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Gimmicks are short-lived for fundamental reasons. I'm going to sound like a broken record but, as someone who has owned multiple Alexa devices and quit their job to start a voice-UI business(didn't pan out), the current generation of "smart speakers" are a joke when it comes to doing anything serious besides asking for the weather or toggling light switches. I have no doubt that they are useful to people in very limited ways, but they are still sold as being a lot smarter than they really are. For what they provide, the privacy trade-off is too great for me. Alexa is a gimmick because it's a speech-to-text command line, and it's sold as being smart even though it's not. Since before I was a kid in the 90s, there have been many attempts to revolutionize computing with speech-to-text technology. Because speaking comes so naturally to us, it's easy to assume that voice-activated anything is better than pushing buttons. In reality, without intelligence and autonomy, lots of interfaces are made slightly worse with voice activation. For those who aren't visually impaired, the ability to use voice to turn off lights barely even makes sense. Alexa frequently gets things wrong and activates from sounds that aren't even close to the wake-word. The ability to create lists is barely practical because it so often can't understand a word, in which case the user has to go to the Alexa app and manually punch in the item. Voice control would be great if it were revolutionized, but it's hardly in a different state than it was decades ago. The only two things that have changed are improved speech synthesis and ample cloud computing. Because of this, most people I know who own one barely use them beyond a select number of features that are hard to get wrong like "Alexa, what's the weather?" or "Alexa, what time is it?". My parents still sometimes use it to play music(which I gave up on as a music fan), but it gets requests hilariously wrong 1/5 times.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    "Besides [a bunch of useful stuff], Alexa is useless! Therefore it's a gimmick." I have an Echo Dot which I use almost exclusively for a few static purposes: the weather, setting alarms, turning my lights on and off, and asking what time it is. I also ask it basic questions like whether various sports teams won or what time they're playing, which it also answers well. Not sure why you think it is useless just because it's not a magical general AI that can do everything. I find it extremely useful. > For those who aren't visually impaired, the ability to use voice to turn off lights barely even makes sense I'm not visually impaired and I use this feature all the time. It allows me to turn off the light when reading in bed without having to get up and walk to the light switch. > most people I know who own one barely use them beyond a select number of features that are hard to get wrong Yeah, exactly. How does this make it useless?
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      The point is that these few useful things can be all achieved much cheaper with much greater ergonomics. > the weather, setting alarms, (...) and asking what time it is. You can do that on your phone. Even assuming you wanted it hands-free, it doesn't justify an always-on microphone sending data to the cloud. We had the tech to do this level of voice recognition reliably in the 2000s. > It allows me to turn off the light when reading in bed without having to get up and walk to the light switch. Kids from my generation used to solder clap detectors for like $5-$10, and they're already more reliable and faster to use. Voice is cool, it's like being in Star Trek. I get it, I built my own system to control music in the 2000s, complete with audio responses snipped from Star Trek shows. But the feeling of "living in the future" wears off pretty quick, and you're left with a ridiculously expensive and user-hostile gimmick.
      - Karunamon 7y ago
        an always-on microphone sending data to the cloud. This is a dishonest characterization of how every smart speaker in existence works. There is no continuous stream as this statement implies. There is a continuous buffer of a couple of seconds for the device to locally catch a wake word. (You can verify this by disabling the device's internet connectivity - it will still catch the wake word and speak an apologetic message about not being able to connect). Also, changing the wake word requires a full restart, which says "firmware" to me. After the wake word is spoken, that buffer and anything immediately after it is what gets sent up to the cloud for voice recognition. The buffer serves a purpose in that it prevents an awkward pause between the wake word and the action reqeusted. (So you get to do "Alexa, turn on the lights" rather than "Alexa? bong Turn on the lights.") The "user hostility" and "gimmick"-ness of this design is entirely subjective and quite overblown, in that "nobody will ever use Dropbox when they could just use rsync and a cronjob"-type bias that HN tends to have. I'd say it beats the alternative from a pure functionality standpoint.
- imgabe 7y ago
  People are also born with fingers.
- ken 7y ago
  I wasn't born knowing how to speak. I had to learn. Babies can use their fingers to point long before they can use their mouths to speak. Also, based on every other case where I've tried voice recognition, I have to learn to speak in an extra-distinct and artificial way for a computer. (I don't think I have an unusual accent, but I can say "TRACK A PACKAGE" into the receiver all day long and not get where I want to go, even though no human would have trouble with it.) What's the point in that?
- Retra 7y ago
  Did you write that comment with speech-to-text? Why not? If it's such a good interface, why use a keyboard to write text?
mathgladiator 7y ago
So, for me, it is a glorified cooking timer and alarm clock. If I could buy a closed unit that just did that, then I would be happy.
- kevas 7y ago
  You mean.... your phone, right?
  - Karunamon 7y ago
    A cellphone is pretty much the absolute nadir of "closed unit" devices (in the sense the prior poster was describing) that could be possibly imagined.
    - kevas 7y ago
      How else would you use the word "nadir"
      - Karunamon 7y ago
        "Lowest point" basically. I.e. "Political threads are the nadir of discussion on HN"
  - tunesmith 7y ago
    The timer that is part of iOS is not as good as Alexa's. With Alexa you can easily set concurrent timers and label them. Siri doesn't know how to do that.
  - mathgladiator 7y ago
    I don't want to touch the phone with raw meat juice; voice commands plus learning to cook has the potential for amazingness.
    - kevas 7y ago
      I'm going to presume that you have Siri enabled... no touching required, right? Just knuckle the thing. Curl the pinky finger and tap w/ the knuckle. 0_o
sschueller 7y ago
Me too, but now they are even giving them away. Google has offered me a free Google home several times now. Thank you, I don't need your spy device in my home.
dalore 7y ago
I can't believe people actually pay for mobile phones. They seem like a gimmick to me. My rotary phone works just as well.
- Retra 7y ago
  I feel like your analogy is predicated on missing some pretty important facts. Sales and usage numbers, maybe. Obviously the fad for communicating between humans will gradually fade, as the time-proven wonders of shouting at a rock on your countertop demonstrates infinite utility.
NullPrefix 7y ago
It's similar to mobility scooters. Made for handicapped, but also popular among the lazy.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  ha, great analogy but without the snooping long tail result of usage...
mrlala 7y ago
>Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me ...what? Maybe you don't ever listen to music, but the first Echo was a GAME CHANGER. 99% hassle free being able to just say "play x on spotify" "play x on pandora" "play x on amazon music" "play radio station 103.5whatever". How else could you do that before the echo? You either had to plug in your phone/ipod and control it from there limited to what was on your device.. stream bluetooth from phone to speakers which was a nightmare and dependent on your phone there etc. Ever cook and want to set a timer without having to touch anything and stop what you are doing? Those two things ALONE are absolutely massive.. music + alarms. Not to mention the pure simple info you can get- especially for kids. They can ask so many questions and get answers. They can set their own timers. I can go on and on.. but it's pointless because you have decided a device that is vital to many peoples day-to-day life is still a gimmick in 2019....
supergeek133 7y ago
I use my voice controls for 3 big reasons daily: 1) Timers (laundry, cooking, etc) 2) Music 3) Smart home stuff On the 3rd one, voice actually made the smart home easier. To use a smart light bulb you had to unlock your phone, open an app, login, and do your thing. Now I tell my Alexa/Google to do it and it's super easy. Also the chromecast integration on Google Home is killer "OK google play pandora on TV" or "Play xyz on youtube on tv"
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I only use my voice controls once a day. When I come home, Siri automatically turns on my lights. When I go to bed, I shout "Hey, Siri, turn off the lights." (10% of the time she responds with, "OK, your six a-m alarm is off." I don't know why.)
  - supergeek133 7y ago
    Honestly it took me awhile to get to this state (aside from the fact I work with this stuff as my job). It was almost like the transition of getting a smart watch. Once I forced myself to do certain things with it, you get into a state where you realize how much easier it is to use it.

by jtdev 7y ago

kowdermeister 7y ago

What's wrong with gimmicks? Voice control itself is not a bad idea, the interface to control your technology is something you are born with :)

tvanantwerp 7y ago
No, it's something you acquire--no one is born speaking.
- kowdermeister 7y ago
  The interface is sound and you can generate sound with your organs if you want to go full pedantic.
  - pushpop 7y ago
    In that case every computer interface is controlled by things you’re born with.
ravenstine 7y ago
Gimmicks are short-lived for fundamental reasons. I'm going to sound like a broken record but, as someone who has owned multiple Alexa devices and quit their job to start a voice-UI business(didn't pan out), the current generation of "smart speakers" are a joke when it comes to doing anything serious besides asking for the weather or toggling light switches. I have no doubt that they are useful to people in very limited ways, but they are still sold as being a lot smarter than they really are. For what they provide, the privacy trade-off is too great for me. Alexa is a gimmick because it's a speech-to-text command line, and it's sold as being smart even though it's not. Since before I was a kid in the 90s, there have been many attempts to revolutionize computing with speech-to-text technology. Because speaking comes so naturally to us, it's easy to assume that voice-activated anything is better than pushing buttons. In reality, without intelligence and autonomy, lots of interfaces are made slightly worse with voice activation. For those who aren't visually impaired, the ability to use voice to turn off lights barely even makes sense. Alexa frequently gets things wrong and activates from sounds that aren't even close to the wake-word. The ability to create lists is barely practical because it so often can't understand a word, in which case the user has to go to the Alexa app and manually punch in the item. Voice control would be great if it were revolutionized, but it's hardly in a different state than it was decades ago. The only two things that have changed are improved speech synthesis and ample cloud computing. Because of this, most people I know who own one barely use them beyond a select number of features that are hard to get wrong like "Alexa, what's the weather?" or "Alexa, what time is it?". My parents still sometimes use it to play music(which I gave up on as a music fan), but it gets requests hilariously wrong 1/5 times.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  "Besides [a bunch of useful stuff], Alexa is useless! Therefore it's a gimmick." I have an Echo Dot which I use almost exclusively for a few static purposes: the weather, setting alarms, turning my lights on and off, and asking what time it is. I also ask it basic questions like whether various sports teams won or what time they're playing, which it also answers well. Not sure why you think it is useless just because it's not a magical general AI that can do everything. I find it extremely useful. > For those who aren't visually impaired, the ability to use voice to turn off lights barely even makes sense I'm not visually impaired and I use this feature all the time. It allows me to turn off the light when reading in bed without having to get up and walk to the light switch. > most people I know who own one barely use them beyond a select number of features that are hard to get wrong Yeah, exactly. How does this make it useless?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    The point is that these few useful things can be all achieved much cheaper with much greater ergonomics. > the weather, setting alarms, (...) and asking what time it is. You can do that on your phone. Even assuming you wanted it hands-free, it doesn't justify an always-on microphone sending data to the cloud. We had the tech to do this level of voice recognition reliably in the 2000s. > It allows me to turn off the light when reading in bed without having to get up and walk to the light switch. Kids from my generation used to solder clap detectors for like $5-$10, and they're already more reliable and faster to use. Voice is cool, it's like being in Star Trek. I get it, I built my own system to control music in the 2000s, complete with audio responses snipped from Star Trek shows. But the feeling of "living in the future" wears off pretty quick, and you're left with a ridiculously expensive and user-hostile gimmick.
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      an always-on microphone sending data to the cloud. This is a dishonest characterization of how every smart speaker in existence works. There is no continuous stream as this statement implies. There is a continuous buffer of a couple of seconds for the device to locally catch a wake word. (You can verify this by disabling the device's internet connectivity - it will still catch the wake word and speak an apologetic message about not being able to connect). Also, changing the wake word requires a full restart, which says "firmware" to me. After the wake word is spoken, that buffer and anything immediately after it is what gets sent up to the cloud for voice recognition. The buffer serves a purpose in that it prevents an awkward pause between the wake word and the action reqeusted. (So you get to do "Alexa, turn on the lights" rather than "Alexa? bong Turn on the lights.") The "user hostility" and "gimmick"-ness of this design is entirely subjective and quite overblown, in that "nobody will ever use Dropbox when they could just use rsync and a cronjob"-type bias that HN tends to have. I'd say it beats the alternative from a pure functionality standpoint.
imgabe 7y ago
People are also born with fingers.
ken 7y ago
I wasn't born knowing how to speak. I had to learn. Babies can use their fingers to point long before they can use their mouths to speak. Also, based on every other case where I've tried voice recognition, I have to learn to speak in an extra-distinct and artificial way for a computer. (I don't think I have an unusual accent, but I can say "TRACK A PACKAGE" into the receiver all day long and not get where I want to go, even though no human would have trouble with it.) What's the point in that?
Retra 7y ago
Did you write that comment with speech-to-text? Why not? If it's such a good interface, why use a keyboard to write text?

mathgladiator 7y ago

So, for me, it is a glorified cooking timer and alarm clock. If I could buy a closed unit that just did that, then I would be happy.

kevas 7y ago
You mean.... your phone, right?
- Karunamon 7y ago
  A cellphone is pretty much the absolute nadir of "closed unit" devices (in the sense the prior poster was describing) that could be possibly imagined.
  - kevas 7y ago
    How else would you use the word "nadir"
    - Karunamon 7y ago
      "Lowest point" basically. I.e. "Political threads are the nadir of discussion on HN"
- tunesmith 7y ago
  The timer that is part of iOS is not as good as Alexa's. With Alexa you can easily set concurrent timers and label them. Siri doesn't know how to do that.
- mathgladiator 7y ago
  I don't want to touch the phone with raw meat juice; voice commands plus learning to cook has the potential for amazingness.
  - kevas 7y ago
    I'm going to presume that you have Siri enabled... no touching required, right? Just knuckle the thing. Curl the pinky finger and tap w/ the knuckle. 0_o

sschueller 7y ago

Me too, but now they are even giving them away. Google has offered me a free Google home several times now. Thank you, I don't need your spy device in my home.

dalore 7y ago

I can't believe people actually pay for mobile phones. They seem like a gimmick to me. My rotary phone works just as well.

Retra 7y ago
I feel like your analogy is predicated on missing some pretty important facts. Sales and usage numbers, maybe. Obviously the fad for communicating between humans will gradually fade, as the time-proven wonders of shouting at a rock on your countertop demonstrates infinite utility.

NullPrefix 7y ago

It's similar to mobility scooters. Made for handicapped, but also popular among the lazy.

olivermarks 7y ago
ha, great analogy but without the snooping long tail result of usage...

mrlala 7y ago

>Alexa has always seemed like a gimmick to me ...what? Maybe you don't ever listen to music, but the first Echo was a GAME CHANGER. 99% hassle free being able to just say "play x on spotify" "play x on pandora" "play x on amazon music" "play radio station 103.5whatever". How else could you do that before the echo? You either had to plug in your phone/ipod and control it from there limited to what was on your device.. stream bluetooth from phone to speakers which was a nightmare and dependent on your phone there etc. Ever cook and want to set a timer without having to touch anything and stop what you are doing? Those two things ALONE are absolutely massive.. music + alarms. Not to mention the pure simple info you can get- especially for kids. They can ask so many questions and get answers. They can set their own timers. I can go on and on.. but it's pointless because you have decided a device that is vital to many peoples day-to-day life is still a gimmick in 2019....

supergeek133 7y ago

I use my voice controls for 3 big reasons daily: 1) Timers (laundry, cooking, etc) 2) Music 3) Smart home stuff On the 3rd one, voice actually made the smart home easier. To use a smart light bulb you had to unlock your phone, open an app, login, and do your thing. Now I tell my Alexa/Google to do it and it's super easy. Also the chromecast integration on Google Home is killer "OK google play pandora on TV" or "Play xyz on youtube on tv"

reaperducer 7y ago
I only use my voice controls once a day. When I come home, Siri automatically turns on my lights. When I go to bed, I shout "Hey, Siri, turn off the lights." (10% of the time she responds with, "OK, your six a-m alarm is off." I don't know why.)
- supergeek133 7y ago
  Honestly it took me awhile to get to this state (aside from the fact I work with this stuff as my job). It was almost like the transition of getting a smart watch. Once I forced myself to do certain things with it, you get into a state where you realize how much easier it is to use it.