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I think I want the services, IF they were useful. Currently they're invasive and not useful. I would love to tinker with an fully offline smart home but it's n

I think I want the services, IF they were useful. Currently they're invasive and not useful. I would love to tinker with an fully offline smart home but it's not something I've invested time into. For me to give up my privacy though I'd need a ton of hugely useful features. Something none of them has. The pointlessness of all the features is why I entirely left Googles ecosystem. I gave up a lot for a really, really dumb interface. If I have to specially craft my conversation with the AI, I don't want to give up my privacy for it.

Jorge1o1 7y ago
I personally get a lot of use out of the devices. “Alexa set a timer for 7 minutes” when your hands are full in the kitchen is really great. Music in the shower without having to fiddle around with my phone is nice too. Turning off alarms from bed without having to fumble around in the mornings is a bit dangerous, but also a real pleasure. With all that said, I still understand why people are concerned about their privacy, but even without other smart devices, the Echo is really quite useful.
- jfk13 7y ago
  I suppose it's just me, but I find this "music in the shower" use-case a bit mystifying. Do you take such long showers that whatever you started playing before you got in will finish and you'll need to manually start something else? Or are you unable to just relax for a few minutes in relative quiet, with nothing but the noise of the hot water cascading over you?
  - asdkhadsj 7y ago
    I mean, I'd love that if I could do it. I don't always have music in the shower but when I do I quite enjoy it. Unfortunately those verbal AIs do a terrible job at understanding artist names and song names in my experience. Plus I have difficulty remembering exactly what the songs are called lol. Not a great interface for me.
kaybe 7y ago
You can get an open-source version and run it on your own hardware if you really want it. Some examples are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806081

Jorge1o1 7y ago

I personally get a lot of use out of the devices. “Alexa set a timer for 7 minutes” when your hands are full in the kitchen is really great. Music in the shower without having to fiddle around with my phone is nice too. Turning off alarms from bed without having to fumble around in the mornings is a bit dangerous, but also a real pleasure. With all that said, I still understand why people are concerned about their privacy, but even without other smart devices, the Echo is really quite useful.

jfk13 7y ago
I suppose it's just me, but I find this "music in the shower" use-case a bit mystifying. Do you take such long showers that whatever you started playing before you got in will finish and you'll need to manually start something else? Or are you unable to just relax for a few minutes in relative quiet, with nothing but the noise of the hot water cascading over you?
- asdkhadsj 7y ago
  I mean, I'd love that if I could do it. I don't always have music in the shower but when I do I quite enjoy it. Unfortunately those verbal AIs do a terrible job at understanding artist names and song names in my experience. Plus I have difficulty remembering exactly what the songs are called lol. Not a great interface for me.

kaybe 7y ago

You can get an open-source version and run it on your own hardware if you really want it. Some examples are here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19806081