8 ms·

Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago
Boggles my mind that anyone buys these things.
- haunter 4y ago
  It's incredibly useful for people with disabilities
  - retrac 4y ago
    I can see that. But I hope it never becomes standard. I find them aggravating because of my disability. An acquaintance has made every light in their home integrated into Google's services. I have a mild speech impediment and Google seems incapable of recognising my speech as speech. "Hey Google. HEY GOOGLE. Hey Gooooogle! Turn off the lights." I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. "Hey Goooooooogle! Turn. Off. The. Lights.". I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. And of course, when I gave in and used the switch, my host immediately came upstairs and chastised me for causing device errors to pop up in the network. Use voice! Not terribly impressed, to say the least. And don't get me started on the bank's voice recognition system on the phone.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      You're an edge case, like the old, the young, the computer-illiterate, the very computer-literate, people who speak English but deal with a lot of things that aren't in English, and so on...
    - andrewaylett 4y ago
      I'm struggling to understand their stance :(. The point of "smart" is that it makes things easier. If it doesn't make things easier, what's the point? And as a guest, it had better make it easier for you. For what it's worth, which obviously isn't much, all my public rooms have smart switches as well as being able to be controlled by voice. And if someone needs to use the physical switch (they're all still uncovered and accessible) then that's a failure of my system not of whoever needed to bypass it. The main benefit to me of smart is that I can automate transitions, so it's that much less likely that anyone will need to manually adjust the lighting.
    - vidarh 4y ago
      This is a problem because your acquaintance have used smart bulbs instead of replacing their switches with smart switches. Lightwave rf switches and similar can be controlled with Google/Alexa or their own app, but still have buttons to push as well. I absolutely understand your frustration with that. In terms of understanding, it'll improve. I have a broad Scandinavian accent. My Alexa handles that just fine for the most part. It's not more than a few years ago most speech recognition struggled with that (I remember a phone booking line that insisted on recognising me saying "London" as "Birmingham")
- probably_wrong 4y ago
  At the risk of sounding like a drug dealer, have you tried one? The main reason why I'll probably never buy an Alexa is because it sucks at the specific things I need it to do, but I concede that there's something liberating about just yelling at the computer and getting a reply. If I'm about to leave and I don't know which jacket to pick, being able to yell "Alexa, what's the weather like?" keeps me from switching contexts and losing my train of thought. It may not sound like much, but once you combine a bunch of small tasks it adds up.
  - rgrieselhuber 4y ago
    I just don't see those tradeoffs adding up for me. My days in the Bay Area taught me to dress in layers and always have extra layers when going out anyway, although I know it was just one example you were giving. I don't even like to speak around them because I assume they are archiving every voice sample forever.
    - vidarh 4y ago
      That's the thing, you won't really know how much they add up until you start using one. Even then it took a long time before I used it as much as I do now. My son uses it even more, e.g. preferring to ask it to do maths rather than opening up a calculator app. But frankly "hands free" timers/reminders/alarms alone is enough of a killer feature for me alone.
Semaphor 4y ago
Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.
- ulfw 4y ago
  The fact you call this mini feature of setting a timer (which is equally available on your phone via voice) "QOL" is fascinating to me
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Yeah. Those are the sort of occasionally handy things that Alexa is somewhat useful for. But QoL? (I don't even generally use it as a timer in the kitchen as opposed to spending 5 seconds to set a timer by hand that shows me a countdown.)
  - heretogetout 4y ago
    The phone is even more of a snitch than is an Echo or what have you.
  - wutbrodo 4y ago
    Setting a time, setting alarms, playing music, turning lights on and off, controlling media, (eg Netflix), checking the weather, etc. I'm just focusing on the universal use cases, and excluding varying degrees of niche usesnlike interactively displaying recipes and saying the rosary. Especially in rooms where you don't already have a sound system, it's really a no-brainer. And I question that you've ever interacted with a smartphone if you think either the responsiveness or the convenience (not everybody is glued to their phone, and sometimes it's in the other room). This need people have to think everything is either super-tubular-amazing or completely-useless-dross is _exhausting_. For anybody interested in understanding instead of posturing online to fill some emotional void, it's plainly obvious how smart speakers could be a modest improvement to QoL for many people.
eranation 4y ago
What about smartphones, not just yours, but also those around you with Hey Siri or Hey Google turned on? I don’t see a huge difference.
- bsenftner 4y ago
  I turn them off, and disable their ability to function completely. Unless I am in control and the processing is local, no ambient computing.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago

Boggles my mind that anyone buys these things.

haunter 4y ago
It's incredibly useful for people with disabilities
- retrac 4y ago
  I can see that. But I hope it never becomes standard. I find them aggravating because of my disability. An acquaintance has made every light in their home integrated into Google's services. I have a mild speech impediment and Google seems incapable of recognising my speech as speech. "Hey Google. HEY GOOGLE. Hey Gooooogle! Turn off the lights." I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. "Hey Goooooooogle! Turn. Off. The. Lights.". I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. And of course, when I gave in and used the switch, my host immediately came upstairs and chastised me for causing device errors to pop up in the network. Use voice! Not terribly impressed, to say the least. And don't get me started on the bank's voice recognition system on the phone.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    You're an edge case, like the old, the young, the computer-illiterate, the very computer-literate, people who speak English but deal with a lot of things that aren't in English, and so on...
  - andrewaylett 4y ago
    I'm struggling to understand their stance :(. The point of "smart" is that it makes things easier. If it doesn't make things easier, what's the point? And as a guest, it had better make it easier for you. For what it's worth, which obviously isn't much, all my public rooms have smart switches as well as being able to be controlled by voice. And if someone needs to use the physical switch (they're all still uncovered and accessible) then that's a failure of my system not of whoever needed to bypass it. The main benefit to me of smart is that I can automate transitions, so it's that much less likely that anyone will need to manually adjust the lighting.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    This is a problem because your acquaintance have used smart bulbs instead of replacing their switches with smart switches. Lightwave rf switches and similar can be controlled with Google/Alexa or their own app, but still have buttons to push as well. I absolutely understand your frustration with that. In terms of understanding, it'll improve. I have a broad Scandinavian accent. My Alexa handles that just fine for the most part. It's not more than a few years ago most speech recognition struggled with that (I remember a phone booking line that insisted on recognising me saying "London" as "Birmingham")
probably_wrong 4y ago
At the risk of sounding like a drug dealer, have you tried one? The main reason why I'll probably never buy an Alexa is because it sucks at the specific things I need it to do, but I concede that there's something liberating about just yelling at the computer and getting a reply. If I'm about to leave and I don't know which jacket to pick, being able to yell "Alexa, what's the weather like?" keeps me from switching contexts and losing my train of thought. It may not sound like much, but once you combine a bunch of small tasks it adds up.
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  I just don't see those tradeoffs adding up for me. My days in the Bay Area taught me to dress in layers and always have extra layers when going out anyway, although I know it was just one example you were giving. I don't even like to speak around them because I assume they are archiving every voice sample forever.
  - vidarh 4y ago
    That's the thing, you won't really know how much they add up until you start using one. Even then it took a long time before I used it as much as I do now. My son uses it even more, e.g. preferring to ask it to do maths rather than opening up a calculator app. But frankly "hands free" timers/reminders/alarms alone is enough of a killer feature for me alone.

Semaphor 4y ago

Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.

ulfw 4y ago
The fact you call this mini feature of setting a timer (which is equally available on your phone via voice) "QOL" is fascinating to me
- ghaff 4y ago
  Yeah. Those are the sort of occasionally handy things that Alexa is somewhat useful for. But QoL? (I don't even generally use it as a timer in the kitchen as opposed to spending 5 seconds to set a timer by hand that shows me a countdown.)
- heretogetout 4y ago
  The phone is even more of a snitch than is an Echo or what have you.
- wutbrodo 4y ago
  Setting a time, setting alarms, playing music, turning lights on and off, controlling media, (eg Netflix), checking the weather, etc. I'm just focusing on the universal use cases, and excluding varying degrees of niche usesnlike interactively displaying recipes and saying the rosary. Especially in rooms where you don't already have a sound system, it's really a no-brainer. And I question that you've ever interacted with a smartphone if you think either the responsiveness or the convenience (not everybody is glued to their phone, and sometimes it's in the other room). This need people have to think everything is either super-tubular-amazing or completely-useless-dross is _exhausting_. For anybody interested in understanding instead of posturing online to fill some emotional void, it's plainly obvious how smart speakers could be a modest improvement to QoL for many people.

eranation 4y ago

What about smartphones, not just yours, but also those around you with Hey Siri or Hey Google turned on? I don’t see a huge difference.

bsenftner 4y ago
I turn them off, and disable their ability to function completely. Unless I am in control and the processing is local, no ambient computing.