Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Echo Dot

amazon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 410 posts

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#211

Post by SoMuchToGrok »

untog wrote: post #208
xd1936 wrote: post #13

My problem with Alexa is, I don't want to invest in a new ecosystem. I'm fine with Amazon being the hub that connects all of my services, but I don't want to use Amazon To-Do List, Amazon Prime Radio, Amazon Traffic, Amazon Sports, Amazon Calendar, Amazon Weather. That being said, they announce partnerships with more and more services every month. Things are looking up.

There is an open API, so this situation will improve over time. Alexa and AWS Lambda are two of the things I'm most interested in these days (disparate, I know) but they're also things without open source equivalent. I'd love to see that change.

Check this out: http://jasperproject.github.io/

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#212

Post by portmanteaufu »

rdudek wrote: post #151

What's stopping people from accidentally ordering things with this thing? Could I go into somebody's house that has one of these devices setup and say "Alexa, order some breast clamps" ?

You can add a PIN code to the voice purchasing process.

http://www.howtogeek.com/237386/how-to-enable-disable-and-pi...

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#213

Post by firephreek »

ghaff wrote: post #29
startupfounder wrote: post #14

The transition from primarily visual UX towards an auditorial UX is really powerful. Looking at screens to get key information distracts me from my surroundings and seems archaic. My wife is a sound designer who has opened my eyes to the importance of sounds both in film and in the world. It's not that I was unaware of sounds, but I didn't realize how important they are to centering me in this world and the made up w…

The problem is that voice interfaces break down pretty quickly once you try to do anything complicated. The Echo has pretty solid voice recognition--far better than anything else I've ever used--but it's still hard to get it to do anything useful once you get beyond a pretty narrow script. (e.g. what's the weather forecast, play this artist, etc.)

Try Hound. It's faster than anything I've tried and it's context management is just impressive as hell. The echos lack of negative clauses is really really frustrating.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#214

Post by runjake »

caractacus wrote: post #63

When did I turn from the enthusiastic kid who dreamed of audio-controlled personal assistants like this to a cranky old man who doesn't want anything remotely spy-possible in his house?

Because when we dreamed of this as kids, the thought of the corporations behind these technologies that harvest our data for their gain didn't come up.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#215

Post by endergen »

chinathrow wrote: post #172

My problem with Alexa is, I don't want a far field cloud based voice recognition device within my reach. I'm fine with a device doing the voice recognition on premise/on device with the same functionality.

Versus a close field cloud based device in your pocket? I'd be more comfortable if knowing that Alexa is truly not listening unless the blue light is on.

But I hear your point. I think we're all getting lulled into just giving up on totally ruling out our most paranoid considerations. Not that it isn't quite rational to be paranoid given the constant barrage of proof of device exploitation and mass surveillance.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#216

Post by ryandrake »

caractacus wrote: post #63

When did I turn from the enthusiastic kid who dreamed of audio-controlled personal assistants like this to a cranky old man who doesn't want anything remotely spy-possible in his house?

I love "smart" devices, but hate "devices that needlessly insist on connecting to the Internet".

One of the worst offenders is Dropcam. They have a super camera, easy to set up and use. Great picture quality. Would be an awesome baby monitor or "closed circuit TV replacement". But why the goddamn hell does it need to connect to the Internet? Why is the only option available to needlessly stream video out of my home network to the cloud, only so that I can then stream it back into my home network for viewing??? WTF? That's both a waste of outbound bandwidth and a waste of inbound bandwidth. I should be able to put it on my network, switch off the cable modem, and still be able to view video locally. How hard is that? I could do that with a webcam and a really long USB cable!

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#217

Post by hyperbovine »

caractacus wrote: post #63

When did I turn from the enthusiastic kid who dreamed of audio-controlled personal assistants like this to a cranky old man who doesn't want anything remotely spy-possible in his house?

Yet I'm guessing you carry a smart phone in your pocket almost everywhere you go.

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#218

Post by joeyramone »

davis_m wrote: post #30
ghaff wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It appears you have to have an original Echo in order to purchase a Dot. Where do you get that? As far as I can tell, this looks like an Echo with minimal speakers. [Edit: Ah. It's only available through voice shopping on either an Echo or Fire TV--though that would seem to be a marketing gimmick as opposed to a technical restriction]

> Echo Dot is available in limited quantities and exclusively for Prime members through Alexa Voice Shopping. To order your Echo Dot, use your Amazon Echo or Amazon Fire TV and just ask: I guess technically you don't have to already have an Echo, but it is only available through voice shopping.

No, it's not. You can order it here too: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00VKTZFB4/ref=dp_olp...

Re: Amazon Echo Dot

#220

Post by sh1mmer »

"If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, you can set a different wake word for each—you can pick "Amazon", "Alexa" or "Echo" as the wake word."

So they haven't solved the I have multiple Echos in my house problem yet..

Post reply on HN