If there’s one thing Apple did, with Steve Jobs, other than build fantastic user experience out of mature but unapproachable technologies, it was communicating the fact that it had done so. Not only has Amazon failed to do this, the writer has as well.
I think it’s pretty cool that, in theory, I could say “Alexa, turn on the oven to 450” and it would (a) turn the correct device to the correct setting and (b) remind me when it was ready (or if it’s being super duper smart, tell me that it was 2 mins or so away from being ready) so that I could stagger over to the kitchen, pull a pizza out of the fridge or freezer, unwrap it, and stick it in the oven. All I need to do is have a bunch of speakers bugging my home, a new oven, ideally probably not two new ovens or not a new oven and a new toaster oven because god knows what will happen, and all this stuff networked.
Or I can walk over to the oven, turn it to 450, and say “Hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes” and wander off. When my wrist buzzes, I go stick a pizza in the oven and I say, “Hey Siri, set timer for thirteen minutes” and go do stuff.
I don’t need a new oven. I don’t need to worry that I’ll pick the wrong oven. I’m not inviting Amazon to parse all my conversations. I don’t need to learn a new magic phrase.
Oh and imagine the hilarity when you try to sell or rent your house and the internet gets turned off. We had a smart sprinkler system which, when we sold the house, we essentially had to rip out because it was easier to install a conventional replacement than figure out how to talk to it without an active WiFi.
I'm with you on that, but what I would want is the ability to know is the status of my oven.
My wife and I are always (excessively) concerned with whether we left our gas stove on/off, the doors are locked and that the garage door is closed.
For that stuff, I'd be willing to pay for the ability to check on that stuff that worries me. Having said that though, knowing that you left your stove on and not having the ability to turn it off would probably be kind of pointless.
You will get a much better ROI if you address excessive worriness. It has to affect more of your life than just the owen. Elevated Adrenalin can cost you a few years of your life.
Suffering from that issue myself, one thing that helps is a checklist, and go through that when you leave.
Another way is to unplug them, because then one remembers doing that.
Ovens can also suffer failures where the gas is turned on, but it fails to ignite. This is no issue when you're there and notice the gas smell and the burners not going on. If you're not there, the house fills with gas and explodes.
We do the checklist thing, and I find it helps to say stuff out loud while you're going through it.
Fortunately, our range is a "dual fuel" stove, which means the oven is electric but the stove burners are gas. Having said that, stuff being left on is still a concern irrespective of whether a burner is electric or gas.
Verbal checklists are extremely effective. It's why flying is incredibly safe, and they're also used in some operating theatres (see the Checklist Manifest).
Works even better with two people as you're forced to cross-check every item.
It's important to keep it a sane length and at a suitably high level, otherwise users have a tendency to skip items that are "obvious".
Hah, I had a "Hotpoint" GE range until recently when it started having a fun issue. If you Google the reviews, well it randomly turns on the oven....at the best of times like when you aren't home example. Because the stupid potentiometer used for the oven control has a piss poor "off" position that goes bad over time and the oven either a.) refuses to turn off or b.) oscillates on/off over an extended period.
Perhaps slantyyz was thinking that the IoT portion of the oven should be an isolated piece of hardware that is only capable of monitoring, and absolutely incapable of performing actions like turning on the oven.
However, this can still be hacked to say that the oven is off, while it is in fact on and you’re leaving for the airport.
I would as it takes a longish time to do which is annoying to wait for. So if it could be remotely turned on when I’m at the store or on the way home that would be a big convenience.
Likewise with most async things that I forget to do, like watering plants or cleaning the house. If I can throw money at it and reasonably expect it to work (sprinkler system, house cleaner) I will do it.
Reading the entire comment will help in this case.
The paragraph after what you quoted:
[instead of buying a new oven]..
"Or I can walk over to the oven, turn it to 450, and say “Hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes” and wander off. When my wrist buzzes, I go stick a pizza in the oven and I say, “Hey Siri, set timer for thirteen minutes” and go do stuff.
I don’t need a new oven. I don’t need to worry that I’ll pick the wrong oven."
My wife is a real estate agent and let me tell you - smart homes are a nightmare for buyers. My advice? Stay away from it. Not until there’s a fully-interoperable standard and it doesn’t matter whether your buyer is partial to the Google, Apple or Amazon ecosystems and there’s a smart gateway allowing you to quickly transition from one owner to another. Until then? No. Just no.
the internet connectivity requirement is silly, especially if you want to build a long term system.
This guy has a great youtube channel[1] which documents how he builds his home automation system (in house). Would highly recommend watching his videos.
It's definitely not easier to manually set a timer than it is to use Siri. Also, you can do multiple timers at once and they follows you around (versus being screamed at because the timer in the kitchen is beeping and no-one has noticed for half an hour and now the fire alarm is going off).
While I'm aware anecdote is not the same as data, I really feel that the smart home experience vis-a-vis Alexa is getting worse. It no longer recognizes simple voice commands. Third party integrations constantly need to be reset ("I'm sorry, I can't find that." or "If you want to use SiriusXM, please open Alexa on your phone."). Randomly swaps responses between devices across the house whereas it would always respond with the nearest device in the past. Etc. Etc. Etc.
It's the same sort of things that keeps happening with maps programs, smartphones, and basically any modern tech with software updates. No one can leave well enough alone. They have to put their fingerprints on it in order to advance their careers, so everyone mucks around and breaks things and calls it an improvement.
Frankly I'm just tired of expensive devices getting worse with every single software update.
All of these pointless upgrades that make things worse just make me use fewer features, do less exploring of what's possible, and I end up giving up on a product/company.
I used to be able to say to my watch, "Hey, Siri, where is my wife?" And I'd be shown a map. Now when I ask, it says I have to open the app on my iPhone. If I could use my phone, I wouldn't ask my watch!
I can have my Groceries list showing on my watch and say, "Hey, Siri, add 'peanuts' to my Groceries list" and she'll respond with, "You don't have a list called 'Groceries,' but I can create one for you."
I haven't tried since the iOS 12 release a few days ago. Hopefully it got fixed, but I don't even feel like trying anymore.
I've lost so much faith in Siri and similar technologies that the only thing I use it for anymore is once a day: "Hey, Siri, turn off the lights." And even then then there's a 5% chance of her responding, "Here are some web sites about 'turn off the lights.'"
I’ve noticed Siri has gotten worse on my watch as well. It’s basically impossible to use Siri to send a message on it now. I get the ‘what would you like me to send?’ prompt and then it doesn’t hear me at all. Really hoping the iOS 12 focus on Siri has fixed some of these issues.
Pointless updates really are a scourge of modern tech. I wish there was some googleable concept to focus and unite user rage. I don't think the culprits even recognize there's a problem.
I've been thinking about this a lot recently. Do you think these kinds of 'updates' belong in the category of feature creep, or do they deserve some new category?
I was more thinking about updates that don't actually advertise their purpose - no new features at all (unless you do some forensic analysis I suppose). So that can't be feature creep on the surface. But no doubt it would be possible to define a whole taxonomy within the class of 'updates considered harmful' that includes feature creep updates.
I must admit the ones that really get to me are Windows updates that for some reason best known to the devil himself seem to be postponed until I actually need to use the computer. Or those ones where you've just done a fresh install (say) only for the system to proudly announce that it's downloading updates, then installing updates, then working on updates, then (finally) announcing it needs to reboot (okay) and then just when you think maybe it's time you can use the system - no - checking for updates - and finding new ones! Just kill me please.
> I must admit the ones that really get to me are Windows updates that for some reason best known to the devil himself seem to be postponed until I actually need to use the computer.
This is the one thing that's becoming really infuriating lately, not only Windows but even macOS.
It's not just updates either (which macOS does pretty well), but a more general problem that the OS routinely interferes with what I need the machine to do and wastes the CPU/RAM/SSD/Network resources I need while I'm using it.
For example, updating caches/indexes requiring it to read/write the system drive heavily, running various kinds of maintenance and pinning the CPU to 100% for several minutes, or taking up all available bandwidth to do things that frequently did not need to be done at all.
Apple's iCloud Photo Library did the last one all the time until I disabled it. If you delete a large file and free up local drive space, it will almost immediately start using all available internet bandwidth to download and cache photos and videos from iCloud to fill up that space again.
Just yesterday, I discovered that Microsoft has either intentionally pushed everyone to use the "balanced" power plan or just broke the ability to select "high performance" in control panel. I had to open the group policy editor just to put it back it on high performance, because it was not possible to do it anywhere else.
I only noticed that little change because I was capturing data from a satellite passing overhead, which is not something that you can just arbitrarily delay or slow down, and right then Windows decided to reduce the maximum CPU speed to 0.49Ghz, completely ruining the data. That's not even a "real time" task, it doesn't specifically require low latency just high performance. Ordinarily that machine can handle it just fine, as long as the OS isn't actively crippling the hardware or trying to do other pointless, resource intensive tasks at the same time.
The other day I asked Alexa: "What day is the 28th?" I wanted to know about the next upcoming 28th later this month. Alexa told me what day August 28th was. I asked: "What day is September 28th?" I was told I have no calendar events that day. "Alexa, what day of the week is September 28th?"
More anecdata — my wife and Alexa got along only about half the time at launch, and a few years later it’s down to 1/4 or less.
Meanwhile, HomePod Siri understands her 9/10.
Every room has both, both are able to manage all devices, and Alexa was here first. Because of comprehension challenge, Alexa has been abandoned, now the only time Alexa wakes up is for TV mentions.
Note, not talking about syntax, talking about whether the words she said are what the device says she said.
Also agree about wrong devices in wrong rooms answering. Used to work, now doesn’t.
my wife and Alexa got along only about half the time at launch, and a few years later it’s down to 1/4 or less.
My wife has the almost identical problem with Siri. She has a very slight northern plains accent, but it's enough to confound Siri about 25% of the time.
It's worse with Microsoft's horrible "Blue & Me" system. That thing understands her only 5% of the time. She gave up on using it.
Siri understands what I say almost all the time, but only rarely knows what to do with the questions or commands I speak.
Except for one app: Reminders. For some reason, Siri has a hard time when I add things to Reminders lists. I have a Groceries list with about 30 items on it that are bad Siri misinterpretations of things that I want to buy, and I have no idea what they're supposed to be.
Things currently on my Groceries list that, thanks to Siri, that I have no idea what they are but keep them anyway just in case I figure them out later: Canned pills, Maybe to la, Bicycle, Not what I said, North, Raisin berry, Frog nodes, Special, Compound dirt.
> I really feel that the smart home experience vis-a-vis Alexa is getting worse.
To add a counter point, a week ago my 7 year old daughter had a great time asking one for various types of joke (“Alexa, tell me a bird joke”) at a pace only a primary school child can. It worked really well.
> I’m tired of expensive devices getting worse with every single software update.
Replying to you from an iPhone 8 that reloads the page 9 times before I’m allowed to see it, crashes every 10 minutes and has deleted all my photo albums. Yay iOS 12.
Skype seems to have recently lost the ability to have a text chat window open during a voice call. It doesn't do notifications on the icon in the task bar anymore, either. Sigh.
I'm on the latest version and I seem to still be able to chat on a voice/video call at the same time? Are you talking about chatting with people you're not on a call with?
I'm text chatting with someone. Then I initiate a Skype call with them. The text window disappears, the window goes blue, and there's no way to text and talk.
I clicked on everything on the screen, no text window. There is a balloon icon with lines in it, I thought "aha, the text chat window!" Sure enough, it opens the text chat window, and hangs up the call.
Arrgghhhh.
Microsoft has installed numerous Skype updates. I can't find any usability improvements. Things are just shuffled around, and/or broken.
I've been using Skype for 10+ years, and am about ready to abandon it for Slack.
I feel like Google Assistant has also gotten worse lately. I used to tell it to "navigate to the library" and it would handle it just fine. Now it asks "which 'the'?" like an idiot.
I turned off all the Alexa stuff a few months ago because I was tired of just randomly triggering all the time. It went off 10 times more when we weren’t trying to use it that it did when we were.
I don't like the idea of home automation and these complex, all-in-one systems in general. They are just bound to fail. And not even in some spectacular fashion, they will just be a grind to use with this or that piece not working correctly, requiring fiddling, etc.
Like my rather pricey, fully automatic Nivona coffee machine which has a really hard time beating a manual coffee grinder and a French press since they don't require descaling, special cleaning tablets, or adjusting the tray sensor to notice that the tray is back in.
Or like these home audio solutions where the sound is following you around the house in whatever configuration you want but have a hard time beating a simple bluetooth adapter connected to an old hifi.
Both at 1/50th of the price.
What works and what I would like however are some simple technological improvements to existing solutions. For example, being able to check if I closed and locked the door behind me. More like that bluetooth adapter than a complex integrated solution.
Also, it really doesn't need to relay my conversations to the cloud. What a terrible trade-off for a silly gimmick.
Well said and the other problem is that this technology can also become obsolete quite quickly - forcing you to throw out older hardware - creating waste.
For example - speaking of Apple - my iPad 3 is stuck on iOS9 - can't upgrade it anymore. The hardware and everything is fine, but some websites don't load correctly etc.
Migt have to jailbreak it...
And I don't understand why people are willing to have a listening device like Alexa in their home.
I miss the days when my TV didn't have software updates and was simply a dumb panel whose only job is to display a picture for whatever input I give it.
Fortunately, you still can buy dumb screens and add smart features with addons like Chromecast or just a computer with HDMI output. This works reasonably well, much like the bluetooth adapter.
Chromecast is a candidate for most-overlooked electronic gadget. This $35 or so gizmo lets me use the great UI on my tablet (or sometimes laptop because... reasons) to fling video up on my TV without dealing with all the trials and tribulations of my TV remote and crappy TV apps. I get why TV makers hate this model. Too bad.
I think Chromecast is one of the worse ideas for a shared communal TV. How do other people control the TV? Am I expected to leave my phone/tablet in the living room? A Roku stick/Apple TV/Nvidia Shield have apps and you can just use a traditional remote. With the AppleTV/Nvidis Shield you can Airplay/Cast when necessary.
I just disconnect when I'm done watching and the next person can connect using their device. With Netflix you need to at least switch profiles so it's about as convenient but I rarely watch anything on TV and never actual TV so it may be more annoying for heavier users.
There's not a ton of new dumb TV options. The majority of new offerings from the big TV makers are all smart TVs. The dumb panels that I looked at lacked specs on screen quality in comparison to smart TVs, too.
I don't mind software updates on TVs as much as I mind having a Smart TV that can connect online and has some apps (there are "non-smart TVs" that can get firmware updates through USB and without having to be online). I'm happier and feel safer with an additional device that can be the conduit to connect online (like Apple TV) or to other devices in the home network (any cheaper local/network media player device).
Agreed. Sometimes the simple solution is best so we don't end up working for technology instead of technology working for people.
The lack of interoperability between smart home devices and a consistent communication (and security) protocol remains the most painful part. There are some good devices (open sources and commercial) helping - my $100 Logitech Harmony Hub remote has gotten more done and taken care of small projects.
It's comparable to the wild west that required manual loading of apps onto PalmOS or WindowsCE mobile devices.
Exactly. I think humanity hasn’t mastered building complex software systems yet. In addition, I’m not sure I want proprietary, closed source software in something that is supposed to last 10 (car) to 50 (house) years... what if the company goes under, bugs are discovered but not fixed, or simply it’s no longer profitable to support your version..
Amazon is a company that wants to know everything about me, just like Google. They want to sell me all kinds of stuff.
Not a company I'd trust with private data about my home.
At least they’re using it to directly sell you stuff though. I find that head and shoulders above selling it to people who want to sell you stuff, but also may want to do a lot of other things.
Amazon is not deceptive in their sales tactics, which I appreciate. They identify likely needs, and provide me with options for meeting those needs. They provide a service. They’re like a personal shopper who leaves everything on your door step.
You pay for it, but you’re mostly happy to because it’s kind of a win win (except for the pickers). Sometimes you still save money, and you almost certainly save loads of time. They’re capturing your information in an effort to better serve you. You could say Google is doing the same with their direct products, but you’re not the one paying for those benefits, so you have to worry who is and what they’re getting out of the dynamic.
At least with Amazon you know they’re doing it to get money from you, and you can choose to give them that money or not. It’s a much more straightforward dynamic.
You're kidding yourself if you don't think Amazon is selling that data: "The Amazon Advertising Platform allows advertisers to efficiently reach Amazon shoppers on Amazon sites, across the web, and in mobile apps."
Selling access to you is not the same as selling the data, and it is in fact dishonest to equate the two. There is no endpoint Amazon provides where I can get data about people.
They have no reason to sell the data - it's their crown jewels and competitive advantage.
The same can be said of Google and Facebook too. Data is their "crown jewel" and platforms on top of that are their competitive advantage. But we do see goof ups and data being sold (to specific "partners" or affiliates) or stolen anyway. The easier route for those who value privacy is not to use such platforms and devices in the first place. Amazon and a Google are no different from this perspective.
My amazon personal shopper is an idiot who thinks:
"You just bought some headphones, here are 9 other models you should buy now."
"You just bought a mattress, here are 9 other mattresses." "You watched 3 minutes of this show and stopped 1 month ago, here are 9 other shows that aren't really related in any way, but they are the shows we recommend to people who love that show you obviously didn't like"
Just noticed a suggestion feature the other day, at the bottom of the page, that said: here's what people near you purchased recently. If that 'feature' has been around for a long time, I've missed it.
Not only slightly creepy, also entirely worthless trash as a feature. I couldn't care less what people in my geographic area are buying. It showed me results for a lot of things for cats - I've never owned a cat.
We're all in luck because the Home Assistant community [1] is on it. It's still a bit of a tinkerer's domain but things are rapidly evolving and becoming more user friendly.
Also, IKEA has simple, but very effective home automation (lighting and plugs for now though more will come) that is dead simple to use and can work without an internet connection[1]
Also, home assistant integration is dead easy and it's very cheap compared to comparable products. (Especially because amazon's offerings are vastly overpriced in countries where they have no locations).
I'm not interested in any home automation. The ability to turn on my lights with a wristwatch doesn't have reasonable benefits compared to the risks. It's hard for me to believe that people actually put these Internet-connected, voice-activated devices in their homes. The smartphones are bad enough. That kind of automation doesn't encourage living deliberately, and the privacy and behavior manipulation (tracking, ads, etc.) issues around it are horrendous. (DIY can avoid most of those problems though.)
90% of the functionality one reasonably wants from their home automation systems comes down to basically some descrete logic and some sensory input.
1) automatic lighting depending on occupancy. (this has existed since the 80's)
2) time based events which respond to either heating or lighting, maybe alarm systems aswell.
3) acces control/security
Those are basically all major systems most people would want to automate in their homes, and none of them should require voice control or a smartphone app. (heck, most could be done with discrete PLC's, although that would be a horrible UX).
I'd add a #4 voice control to that. You don't think you need it until you've used it, then you use it and wonder how the hell you ever survived without it. An Echo with a couple of smart switches feels like the future.
This is one of the sane use cases for the cloud, IMO. Local speech recognition kinda sucks, and expecting consumers to manually update their firmware (since we've taken auto updates off the table) for new improvements is not realistic.
I've been monitoring my energy consumption, extending my existing doorbell to an upstairs stereo, automatically turning lights on in different modes as I walk around at different times of day, playing a beautiful loon call as the sun sets, securing my home while I'm away (it auto-arms when my phone disconnects from the router and disarms when it returns), turning on a/c when I begin my commute home, reminding me it's garbage day, etc. All locally running on an open source platform with remote access over OpenVPN. This is the wonder of Home Assistant.
It's mostly just for fun but you can easily see it becoming very practical. My security system is legit; it emails snapshots from cameras to a special account that triggers a urgent notification on my phone while turning on a loud siren in the home and all the lights. I did a funhouse mode that played static on the tv and monster/police/machine gun noises on the stereo while chaotically blinking all the lights... it actually scared even me a little.
There's been a couple of really promising privacy respecting Indiegogo or Kickstarter offerings, but neither got to a product.
I find it really hard to believe there isn't a viable way to a home assistant / hub that leaves control and privacy in the home. The whole IoT, app, with constant data harvesting and selling is not what I want in the home, just control and ability to buy without all the dystopian baggage.
It all seemed so much more promising back in the days of X10 and keeping automation on the LAN.
Edit: X10 was launched in 1978. No wonder it could do with a refresh!
Proper "home automation" systems do exists, but they are usually meant for automating public and large buildings, require a KNX network (which is very, very expensive on the device and programming side) and usually have hardware which is simple not affordable to the average consumer.
KNX works fine, it is a broad standard with a ton of support, the issue is it's massive pricepoint and fact that almost every hardware device that has support for it comes in a DIN package. (which is fine for large scale buildings with utility closets which have DIN rails, but not for your average home).
Sounds like there's a niche I'd dearly love someone to find and exploit.
X10 still exists, and modules are still sold (for about a tenth of the cost of KNX modules from a quick search), but it's an ancient standard and very limited compared to what we might now expect. On, off and dimming are about the extent of its abilities.
KNX can do basically anything you want from a building (including HVAC, security systems etc), but is just very, very expensive.
Also, most software server front ends for it are horrible. I am actually wondering if building a relatively cheap KNX hardware module for home assistant might just not be the best option in that regard.
There's always Z-wave, which is way more modern than X10. I started with Wemo because I thought I didn't want to deal with a hub, and in retrospect, that was a mistake. Z-wave is faster and easier to set up and maintain than wifi/IP based equipment like Wemo.
The real distinction is the sheer greed with the IoT domain. They want you to pay in both cash and data while often having planned obsolescence and dependencies that make it abundantly clear that the master they serve is not you. Anyone who wants you to pay twice for the same thing is not to be trusted.
It seems like literally everyone in the domain is thinking of how to exploit the customers first and serve them second with security as an afterthought at best.
Alexa is especially bad about the last one given they are stupid enough to include a voice interface for skills installing and don't rigorously check the word selection or confirmation before installing unknown software.
I have high hopes for smart home and IoT appliances which is still mostly terrible.
But Amazon seems to still believe that voice interactions are not just a feature of future smart homes, but essential. I have never seen the need to voice control anything in my home, and I likely never will. I don’t want AI I want simple, cheap reliable and interconnectable automation hardware.
The first home automation tech I want is normal lightswitches everywhere and a hotel style master switch at the front door. The home automation/smart home tech I can easily get is a speaker that can order things?
I think IKEA seem to be a lot closer to revolutionizing smart homes than Amazon.
Nobody "needs" any of this stuff. But once you factor in laziness and convenience, "normal" people are willing to make tradeoffs.
I know I don't need Alexa, but when you've got grocery bags in both hands and it's dark, being able to turn on the lights by voice is handy even though it's far from "needed". And when it works well enough most of the time, it's easy to become dependent on it. For some things, voice is way more convenient than pulling out your phone and fumbling with an app (like changing a setting on a Nest).
A slightly related but different example: I just tried installing a pihole in my network, and it ended up being a total headache.
My wife likes using deal sites for shopping, and they like to redirect to a half dozen tracking sites before landing you on the e-store you want. And of course, the pihole got in the way of her shopping. The pihole ended up being way more trouble than it was worth and got decommissioned after only a couple of days, as white listing is a time consuming cat and mouse game I didn't want to play.
My wife cares more about her $5 shopping rebate than she does her information being passed around to marketing companies, because the tradeoff is worth it. I don't think my wife is much different from most normal consumers in that regard.
> I know I don't need Alexa, but when you've got grocery bags in both hands and it's dark, being able to turn on the lights by voice is handy even though it's far from "needed".
A simple motion/heat detecting light does what you need here, and is probably more reliable...
I have Alexa commands that will light up the group of lights I need to get from my front door to the kitchen. Also, I have dogs that would probably find a way to turn the lights on when I don't want them to.
Yeah I realize that it's a convenience, but I don't see how this (the "hub" if you want) is the area these giants focus on (Facebook is launching one, amazon obviously had one for a long time).
They seem to think that "we'll let others sort out the actual smart home, and we'll provide the controller for the smart home, because that's how we corner the market for ads/purchases/subscriptions whatever". I can see the angle they are approaching it from, and it might make sense short term business wise, but unless peoples homes actually get smart soon, their Alexa will be collecting dust after a while.
> being able to turn on the lights by voice is handy even though it's far from "needed".
The Alexa doesn't do that though, it only does if your home already has a ton of smart home stuff! So it's an interface to control a smart home (or if you prefer the common terminology - make an automated home a smart home).
If I buy smart speaker thing and say "switch the lights on", it will find a lonely Hue smart bulb somewhere and switch it on. But the chance it will actually switch the bulb on is only 50% because if the last person to switch it off used the wall switch, the light won't come on! So a smart bulb is fundamentally incompatible with a normal dumb wall switch! Add a smart wall switch, and you no longer need a smart bulb! So the smart bulb concept is useless for any lighting fixture that has light switches.
And most lighting in newish homes these days isn't in bulbs at all, it's in spotlights built into ceilings etc, or it's a light in a window, connected to a power socket. This is the problem. "smart home" tech is in its infancy and there is a myriad of different standards that don't solve the problem of being 1) cheap, 2) able to replace dumb tech in existing installations 3) complete (in the sense that the lighting gear can actually fit ALL lighting in a house, for example) 4) not make existing tech worse, such as in the hue+switch example. The quality of a new smart switch can't be flimsier than the 90's switch it replaces. It can't fail even one time in a million to switch the light off. When smart tech fails, it must become working dumb tech. If these giants really wanted to make my home smarter- they could push to standardize or even subsidize better smart tech. That's how they will get into peoples home long term.
> My wife cares more about her $5 shopping rebate than she does her information being passed around to marketing companies
When people tell me that they feel that way, I like to tell them a scary privacy story. Doesn't need to be true, just a plausible dystopian near-future. It could be about how the "quick quote" on the medical insurance site shows a vastly different amount than her friend of the same age and medical history - and she can't help think it's because she recently visited an online pharmacy with a referrer being a google search for a scary symptom. Something like that.
>> The Alexa doesn't do that though, it only does if your home already has a ton of smart home stuff! So it's an interface to control a smart home (or if you prefer the common terminology - make an automated home a smart home).
Very true. My house already did have smart home stuff, and that's actually the reason why I got an Alexa (it had a reputation for being good with smart home devices). And after getting an Alexa, its usefulness made me buy even more smart house gear.
Just an anecdote: my wife and I absolutly use Alexa as a controller for our house, even though "easier" solutions exist. Just shouting "Alexa, Time!" has completely replaced looking at a clock.
The only thing I don't like is using it to turn on the bathroom light, but only because the noise might wake up others in the house.
They didn't address the biggest "pain point" of "smart homes" aka home automation or domotics.
The biggest issue is the lack of a universal standard. A home is not a smartphone you can replace every 2 years. Things are measured in decades, and changes may require expensive and time consuming work in addition to the cost of the product itself.
I looked into home automation when I had to work on an old house. I looked into KNX, which seemed to be a good standard: adopted by several manufacturers, robust, etc... The biggest problem, beside the price, is that I can't buy the hardware I want (ex: A/C unit) and expect it to connect to my network. Most of them don't have any smart feature, and those that do are restricted to a single system that even if it lasts may not be what will be popular 5 years from now.
In home building, almost everything is standardized. Power plugs, dimensions of appliances, pipe fittings, etc... Smart home won't take off unless it is the case too. Any yet, maybe because it looks like the next big thing, companies try to lock down the market instead of first working together. The worst part is that the "smart home" is not a new thing at all. We had most of the technology decades ago, it never took of for that reason, and it seems like all we can do is repeat the same mistake.
Cloud and AI are new but it doesn't change the deal at all. If you can't get appliances to talk the same language, it isn't going to work. As for the incentive for the companies involved, getting your money or getting your data is essentially the same thing.
> I looked into home automation when I had to work on an old house. I looked into KNX, which seemed to be a good standard: adopted by several manufacturers, robust, etc... The biggest problem, beside the price, is that I can't buy the hardware I want (ex: A/C unit) and expect it to connect to my network.
You could integrate KNX into IP, but that would require another server which is either dreadfully expensive, or just way to complex to maintain for an average house.
Also, i don't know how it is in the US, but many buildings around my area lack any proper cabling infrastructure because they are ancient. Things like having cable gutters for ethernet and coaxial connections.
Most have a single coaxial cable coming in from the floor directly into the living room. (because that is where the TV/radio used to be).
These buildings are unlikely to be broken down because of their high value, but renovating them would cost a fortune. Currently no proper standard for wireless home automation exists.
There's a really interesting strategic move here that I hadn't previously realized. Amazon is bundling some perpetual cloud service cost into their new connectivity module. They're solving a cost problem for device makers in a way that can address a critical risk for consumers.
With perpetual cloud support, the long term maintenance costs of a novel connected device are much lower, and there's less of a chance that your smart devices suddenly die after a year or two when the manufacturer kills that product line. If done right, this could mean the ability to buy any off-brand or startup device product and not worry about losing ongoing support. This could significantly increase choices and lower costs for consumers, and gives Amazon an even more powerful voice in the ongoing direction of alexa-integrates products.
It's also a brilliantly unique move, in that no other company can offer the same blend of services around a smart home device. Conceivably, Amazon could enrich this with purchase and provisioning, i.e. every device sold through Amazon.com gets a certain lifetime support guarantee and arrives at your house provisioned for your wifi. This could make experimenting with new gadgets a lot lower risk.
The microwave is a genius move. The key thing is that it's a really cheap microwave. Most people who need a microwave don't want or need anything special, and will buy the cheapest decent-looking one, and this is where the Amazon microwave sits. They'll sell crate-loads of them. And all those people will then have a device sitting in their home with the potential to connect to Alexa. So if/when they decide they want to play the smart home game, they'll think 'Oh well we already have one Alexa device, so lets get an Alexa'.
> The key thing is that it's a really cheap microwave.
A few months ago I bought a house that did not come with a microwave. For the first time in my life I had to shop for one. And... I quickly learned that there are microwaves with "Inverters" that solve the microwaves cook from the outside-in problem. They've existed for like 20 years now.
The one I bought also has some sort of sensor for auto-magically heating up leftovers.
It's amazing and barely cost more than a standard one that would have fit the cabinet space.
How many people own a microwave though? Most people i know don't have one and would rather spend to money on getting a proper oven.
Microwaves also seem like they have little use compared to things like a stove or oven. Atleast i personally have barely used a microwave when cooking.
This is not the reality I live in. Everyone has a microwave, and for people in student halls or less affluent accomodation, it's sometimes the only available way to cook. For many (in the UK) 'ready-meals', most of which are preparable with just a microwave, are a staple part of people's diet - even among more affluent, but time-poor people. There's usually a whole supermarket aisle dedicated to these foods.
Individual accounts are of course often of modest value, however, I've literally never known a person that didn't have a microwave in their home, rich or poor, in the US. It's one of the things that is nearly universal in homes.
They're too inexpensive to not buy due to cost, and they're too useful (even if only used in rare circumstances) to disregard as a part of a kitchen. They take up a small amount of space, and come in numerous sizes to fit spacing requirements.
Essentially every supermarket in the US also has a frozen meals (ready-meals as you say), or equivalent, aisle. The items in those aisles appeal to just about every price point these days. They're clearly still quite popular.
More evidence that integration and centralization create better experiences for developers and consumers. Amazon is very successful in this area, and one of the few companies with the resources to offer this level of integration and centralization.
It’s a no-brainer for IoT companies to integrate with Alexa at this point. The problem is that nobody in the IoT industry seems to care about security, and Amazon does not seem to care about privacy.
Is Amazon the new Samsung? Make as many products and product variants as possible, throw them against the wall and see what sticks? It's not like its shareholders mind having little to no profits. Selling things for cheap or below cost helps it "innovate rapidly" (aka trial and error)?
P.S.: Samsung does make some good quality hardware in a few areas. I don't know if the same can be said of Amazon.
I would say that the main difference was that, in its heyday, Apple was looking and developing solutions for specific problems most people were not actually aware they were having. On the other hand, Amazon has a bunch of really solid solutions, very well executed, and is now experimenting with known problems they can be applied to.
It would be so cool if Amazon had their own OS instead of relying on Android. They could use this on their Fire tablets and even have their own unique phone with a unique OS to sell. It's sad that the we have to choose between Android and iOS at every instance. I know of very few competitors (Like Purism).
If Amazon had a mobile OS, it would probably be proprietary. Android has its faults, but at least an open Android stack is possible. I can't say I'd like to see Android lose ground to whatever Amazon would cook up.
I'd be happy for Android to lose some ground to competitors such as Windows, Sailfish, Tizen, a hypothetical Amazon OS, or almost anything else. While I appreciate the usable non-Google Android stack, the duopoly has gone too far, and there needs to be more competition in order to drive innovation and differentiating features.
Plus, it's not like Android will suddenly become less viable if it were to drop from ~85% to 65% market share.
A fork of Android would probably be most successful in China where they don't rely on Google apps and services. I don't think there's much of a market for Android without Google outside of China.
I'm curious how long Google!Android will be supported once Fuschia launches. Maybe 2-3 years, and it depends on how many existing Android devices can move to Fuschia.
I don't think they will release Fuchsia and then immediately abandon Android. They will most likely release it for some low-end phones first and then work their way up. Maybe even release a Fuchsia Chromebook before any Fuchsia smartphone.
Android's strength over Windows Phone was the app ecosystem and I don't think an emulator will instantly be good enough to emulate all kinds of apps with sufficient performance, especially games.
I can’t see them doing that without some form of binary compatibility.
Disclaimer: I work at google, but in an unrelated department, and have no inside knowledge / reads about what is going on with fuscia, and so my opinions aren’t more insightful than any other random engineer on the internet.
They do. Or at least, they did. Well, sort-of, in the sense that it was still Linux. The e-ink kindles - at least the first several generations, I have no idea about the recent ones - were a pretty vanilla Linux with a java userspace managing the UI - but NOT android. The original Echo seems to use a version of the e-ink Kindle's OS, while newer Echos use FireOS aka Amazon's android fork.
Amazon really tried to make FireOS work as a google-free mobile OS, but just never got the volume. Ok, I guess they still sell those $50 tablets or whatever, but millions of Firedroid devices is still a rounding error compared to billions of Google Playdroid devices, or even hundreds of millions of Baidroid devices. Network effects dominate - even Apple has a hard time with maps for exactly this reason.
once upon a time, on a site called slashdot, there was a meme (not sure if it was called that back then) about our robotic overlords. i've suddelny realized how close to home it's now hitting and am very nervous about the future.
I think it’s pretty cool that, in theory, I could say “Alexa, turn on the oven to 450” and it would (a) turn the correct device to the correct setting and (b) remind me when it was ready (or if it’s being super duper smart, tell me that it was 2 mins or so away from being ready) so that I could stagger over to the kitchen, pull a pizza out of the fridge or freezer, unwrap it, and stick it in the oven. All I need to do is have a bunch of speakers bugging my home, a new oven, ideally probably not two new ovens or not a new oven and a new toaster oven because god knows what will happen, and all this stuff networked.
Or I can walk over to the oven, turn it to 450, and say “Hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes” and wander off. When my wrist buzzes, I go stick a pizza in the oven and I say, “Hey Siri, set timer for thirteen minutes” and go do stuff.
I don’t need a new oven. I don’t need to worry that I’ll pick the wrong oven. I’m not inviting Amazon to parse all my conversations. I don’t need to learn a new magic phrase.
Oh and imagine the hilarity when you try to sell or rent your house and the internet gets turned off. We had a smart sprinkler system which, when we sold the house, we essentially had to rip out because it was easier to install a conventional replacement than figure out how to talk to it without an active WiFi.