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We have several Alexa devices. We use them all the time and for a wide variety of purposes. By any rational, actual customer-connected metric, they are a wild s
by ergonaught 2y ago
We have several Alexa devices. We use them all the time and for a wide variety of purposes. By any rational, actual customer-connected metric, they are a wild success in this and similar homes.
This is an example of Amazon not actually letting the smartest people into the room. We do vast amounts of our shopping via Amazon, but that's through the app and website even when we manage the shopping lists/etc via Alexa. We're not going to do that directly through the robot. We're never going to do that directly through the robot. Anyone who proposed billions in R&D investments hanging on the delusion that we will do that through the robot, instead of paying attention to the things we are all actively actually doing every single day, should have already been moved along.
We don't need to shop like that.
We do need the hundred other things we do every day, and those are things Alexa currently does vastly better than the competition. The Prime stuff, the Kindle stuff, the dozen other Amazon-related things we do, are certainly further embedded into our lives by the fact of the Alexas.
Their real problem is the sudden closing of the gap, which is nearly certain to occur in the next year or two.
TLDR: "Amazon says you're using it wrong. Doesn't know how to count."
- sillysaurusx 2y agoWhat do you use yours for? Mine’s little more than a fancy voice-activated light switch. Fully agree on the point about not shopping through Alexa. Basic questions are misinterpreted in sometimes hilarious ways.
- djeastm 2y agoI have enough Echoes to cover my whole place within speaking distance and they serve as fancy voice-activated light switches and also timers, radios/music/podcast players (via Spotify) and calculators/measurement converters. They also provide local weather alerts and let me know when an Amazon package has arrived, both of which are nice. But whenever it tries to sell me anything, I get annoyed
- sillysaurusx 2y agoThanks for mentioning the Amazon package alert. I hadn’t set mine up.
- stacktrust 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41062989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41062989
- 8note 2y agoThey maybe should count the times when you add something to your shopping list, via Alexa, then later purchase it through another method. If you didn't have the voice box, you may forget that you needed that thing
- fantasybuilder 2y agoI absolutely agree. They are not positioning Alexa correctly in the market. It's a tremendous opportunity to move towards a smarter integrated home and a personal assistant. Buying even basic things using voice will never make sense. I use Alexa daily to voice-control devices in my Hubitat. Once there is an easy to set up local voice control option I will remove Alexa. Unless they reposition themselves as something more useful.