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> The "By the way" intrusion For those of us that don’t use Alexa, what’s this?

by louthy 4y ago

danpalmer 4y ago
It advertises other functionality. Typically functionality that allows you to spend money with Amazon. Siri has started telling me the company that provides it’s weather data every ~10th time I ask for the weather and I feel like even that crosses a line. I do hope Apple have a metric for how many customers swear at HomePods and have someone trying to minimise that.
SomeHacker44 4y ago
Sometimes, after answering your actual query, Alexa continues to blather on about something useless, starting with "By the way..." I wish I knew how to stop it, but telling her "don't say by the way anymore" returns blank stares. Maddening.
ergonaught 4y ago
You: "Alexa, turn off the lights." Echo: "Okay. By the way, did you know I can do some other random thing wholly unrelated to the task you gave me, the description of which interrupts something that matters and now you've lost it because you are screaming at me to shut up, please god shut up, please never ever make suggestions?"
- zbrozek 4y ago
  I have very few use cases for a voice assistant, but like them quite a lot. Setting timers and controlling the lights without having to touch anything and while moving around the house is fantastic. Having the voice assistant actually talk back and say anything at all more than the absolutely minimum possible response is unwelcome. Getting a 'by the way' response makes me want to chuck the hardware into the pool. That whole ecosystem is on my list of things to evict and replace with a self-hosted solution, but I've had too-limited time lately to go down that rabbit hole.
  - tartoran 4y ago
    Voice assistants will truly thrive when users have full control and all the data is local. We’ll never see this coming from a large player like Amazon.
travisd 4y ago
With my Google Home speaker, I’ll tell it to turn off the lights (which it probably has maybe 95% accuracy of getting right in the first place…). But it will then say “Okay, turning off 5 lights. By the way, you can ask me how long your morning commute will take!” which is just annoying when you’re trying to get to bed.
- someguy212 4y ago
  Oh so advertisements.

> The "By the way" intrusion For those of us that don’t use Alexa, what’s this?

by louthy 4y ago

> The "By the way" intrusion For those of us that don’t use Alexa, what’s this?

It advertises other functionality. Typically functionality that allows you to spend money with Amazon. Siri has started telling me the company that provides it’s weather data every ~10th time I ask for the weather and I feel like even that crosses a line. I do hope Apple have a metric for how many customers swear at HomePods and have someone trying to minimise that.

SomeHacker44 4y ago

Sometimes, after answering your actual query, Alexa continues to blather on about something useless, starting with "By the way..." I wish I knew how to stop it, but telling her "don't say by the way anymore" returns blank stares. Maddening.

ergonaught 4y ago

You: "Alexa, turn off the lights." Echo: "Okay. By the way, did you know I can do some other random thing wholly unrelated to the task you gave me, the description of which interrupts something that matters and now you've lost it because you are screaming at me to shut up, please god shut up, please never ever make suggestions?"

zbrozek 4y ago
I have very few use cases for a voice assistant, but like them quite a lot. Setting timers and controlling the lights without having to touch anything and while moving around the house is fantastic. Having the voice assistant actually talk back and say anything at all more than the absolutely minimum possible response is unwelcome. Getting a 'by the way' response makes me want to chuck the hardware into the pool. That whole ecosystem is on my list of things to evict and replace with a self-hosted solution, but I've had too-limited time lately to go down that rabbit hole.
- tartoran 4y ago
  Voice assistants will truly thrive when users have full control and all the data is local. We’ll never see this coming from a large player like Amazon.

travisd 4y ago

With my Google Home speaker, I’ll tell it to turn off the lights (which it probably has maybe 95% accuracy of getting right in the first place…). But it will then say “Okay, turning off 5 lights. By the way, you can ask me how long your morning commute will take!” which is just annoying when you’re trying to get to bed.

someguy212 4y ago
Oh so advertisements.