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This looks awesome and I love seeing FOSS, privacy-first equivalents of Big Tech. The video was really, really cute – and you could hear the improvements of the

This looks awesome and I love seeing FOSS, privacy-first equivalents of Big Tech. The video was really, really cute – and you could hear the improvements of the tech as time went on. I must confess that my initial thought about watching it was that it was something to help blind or partially sighted people, however, as a document-to-words reader. Only later did I twig that they are essentially Alexa-speaker-alikes. Therefore, I'll ask the question I always think of when I see smart speakers: what exactly is their use case? I've never used voice assistants. I've never had a PA. I have a variety of good, dumb speakers. If I am cooking, I have the radio on in the background and a smartphone in my pocket if I desperately wish to change something. I've always thought that the voice recognition was cool, but I've just never quite recognised a position where I would use it! For the record, I live in a house with at least two raspberry pis on all the time (one as a DTV tuner) so I am far from a luddite in that regard. I just genuinely don't really know what use-case a smart speaker solves. Please enlighten me!

Fredej 4y ago
My dad uses the Google speaker for two things: - Making animal / fart sounds for his grand-children. - Timers for cooking ("Hey Google, set timer to 4 minutes). I recently spent a month at my parents place. I really, really miss the timer thing. Additionally, I can see voice assistants as a pretty good interface for Home Assistant. At least for some parts.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Timers is the only thing I've used Siri for since the first weeks of it's introduction. End of the day feels like it's the only thing it's good for and it often fails at even doing that.
vidarh 4y ago
I use mine for at least half a dozen timers on an average day. The more you use it, the more often you get the impulse to just set another timer, be it for "remember to stop playing that game and be productive" or remembering to leave the house on time, because it's so simple. I also use it to turn off/on the tv and lights. Not much of a point if it's a single one, but helpful when it's a number of lights, e.g. when we go to bed or leave the house, and you can address them all with a group ("alexa turn off downstairs"/"alexa turn off everything"). And to play music. Just asking it to play a track and then asking it to play similar music (very hit and miss), for example, and then asking what's playing, all without having to reach for my phone, finding an app etc. My experience was that I bought my first one mostly because I wanted something to play music on in the living room anyway and didn't really care about getting a full on stereo setup as I'm not very picky about the sound quality, but I was curious. I never use voice assistants on my phone. But I found myself using it more and more as I got used to being able to turn things on/off without reaching for anything or when my hands where otherwise full. It's not something I'd have the slightest difficulty of living without, but it feels like it's decreasing friction for a lot of small things. I now have four - one by my desk, one in the living room, one in my sons bedroom and one in mine.
thejohnconway 4y ago
Saying “hey dingus, add $item to the shopping list” is a killer feature for me. It’s so much easier than adding something manually on your phone (especially if you have your hands full cooking). Reminders and timers are something I use too. It’s also pretty good for playing music when you don’t have something particular in mind: “play some classical music” for example. It’s definitely something I could live without, but even Apple’s speaker is pretty cheap. Especially so if it’s your main speaker (if you care about audio quality it might be a problem, but I don’t so it’s not).

Fredej 4y ago

My dad uses the Google speaker for two things: - Making animal / fart sounds for his grand-children. - Timers for cooking ("Hey Google, set timer to 4 minutes). I recently spent a month at my parents place. I really, really miss the timer thing. Additionally, I can see voice assistants as a pretty good interface for Home Assistant. At least for some parts.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
Timers is the only thing I've used Siri for since the first weeks of it's introduction. End of the day feels like it's the only thing it's good for and it often fails at even doing that.

vidarh 4y ago

I use mine for at least half a dozen timers on an average day. The more you use it, the more often you get the impulse to just set another timer, be it for "remember to stop playing that game and be productive" or remembering to leave the house on time, because it's so simple. I also use it to turn off/on the tv and lights. Not much of a point if it's a single one, but helpful when it's a number of lights, e.g. when we go to bed or leave the house, and you can address them all with a group ("alexa turn off downstairs"/"alexa turn off everything"). And to play music. Just asking it to play a track and then asking it to play similar music (very hit and miss), for example, and then asking what's playing, all without having to reach for my phone, finding an app etc. My experience was that I bought my first one mostly because I wanted something to play music on in the living room anyway and didn't really care about getting a full on stereo setup as I'm not very picky about the sound quality, but I was curious. I never use voice assistants on my phone. But I found myself using it more and more as I got used to being able to turn things on/off without reaching for anything or when my hands where otherwise full. It's not something I'd have the slightest difficulty of living without, but it feels like it's decreasing friction for a lot of small things. I now have four - one by my desk, one in the living room, one in my sons bedroom and one in mine.

thejohnconway 4y ago

Saying “hey dingus, add $item to the shopping list” is a killer feature for me. It’s so much easier than adding something manually on your phone (especially if you have your hands full cooking). Reminders and timers are something I use too. It’s also pretty good for playing music when you don’t have something particular in mind: “play some classical music” for example. It’s definitely something I could live without, but even Apple’s speaker is pretty cheap. Especially so if it’s your main speaker (if you care about audio quality it might be a problem, but I don’t so it’s not).