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

Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 273 posts

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#101

Post by madaxe_again »

GuiA wrote: post #7

Clearly, people love these things. I have a few friends who own it and say it's an amazing product; and commenters on HN have expressed their enthusiasm for it as well. There is a question that's been bothering me for years now, to which I still don't have an answer, which is: does modern technology suck just for me, or am I just less tolerant of defects than most people are? I am currently typing this from a 2016 ma…

Technology used to be a product sold to consumers. Now consumers are sold through technology to data brokers. The priority changed, and you are no longer it.

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#102

Post by jsz0 »

hijohnnylin wrote: post #26

what are people actually using these for? i'm legitimately curious about the use cases for this. if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want, including playing music. is it for light switches? Hey Siri/Google already does this, no? also, how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just ph…

> if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want,

Most of those devices just don't have speakers/microphones cable of working reliably at room scale in real world conditions. They've certainly gotten better over the years but I doubt they will ever match the reliability of physically larger devices purpose built for the task.

> how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch?

I don't think this is the killer app for the Echo but home automation is becoming pretty mainstream these days. Enough so that stores like Lowes, Home Depot, Target, etc stock bulbs, switchable outlets, starter kits, etc.

> isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch?

Not if you have your hands full or the switch happens to be on the other side of a dark room. Home automation is a novelty at first but once that wears off it becomes just another tool not very different from a light switch

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#103

Post by simcop2387 »

ekarulf wrote: post #80
hijohnnylin wrote: post #26

what are people actually using these for? i'm legitimately curious about the use cases for this. if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want, including playing music. is it for light switches? Hey Siri/Google already does this, no? also, how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just ph…

I'm a new parent and I need to track when my son eats/poops/pees etc. There are times when my hands aren't available. I built a tiny "app" that just records these things to a google spreadsheet for me. I also like the idea of "authenticating" via being present in my home. If my in laws are watching my son while I step out for a few minutes - they can talk to Alexa as easily as I can.

Interestingly this is something that amazon is actually advertising the echo with: https://www.amazon.com/cWix-Baby-Stats/dp/B01CJRUAF6

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#104

Post by Greed »

hijohnnylin wrote: post #26

what are people actually using these for? i'm legitimately curious about the use cases for this. if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want, including playing music. is it for light switches? Hey Siri/Google already does this, no? also, how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just ph…

As an (incidental) user I can tell you that Alexa is of middling usefulness at best, even for someone with a high degree of home-automation type stuff. The voice recognition is quite good compared to similar services, but that's about the only thing it has going for it really.

Most of the 'skills' (an appstore with absolutely zero quality control) are useless or extremely limited shovelware hidden behind archaic verbal rituals. I say verbal rituals because what you might consider a normal request, such as "Alexa, how much is Tesla stock selling for?", turns into the complex "Alexa, ask Cool ACME Stock Master what the current buying price of Tesla stock is".

It very much appears that instead of being able to infer what you mean, Alexa mostly just matches extremely specific strings to extremely specific corresponding processes. Understandable as a developer, extremely frustrating as a user.

Using Alexa becomes natural. Re-phrasing the same thing thirty times until you get the intended result with the required phrasing moreso.

Really the only reason to buy it is so that you can control your Lifx lights and listen to streaming music on demand. The latter is quite good as long as you don't mind mediocre speakers or sound quality.

All of that said...there is, however, something to be said about the novelty factor of being able to ask for very basic dictionary / wikipedia lookups.

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#105

Post by detaro »

hijohnnylin wrote: post #26

what are people actually using these for? i'm legitimately curious about the use cases for this. if you have an android phone or iphone or smartwatch, you already can "Hey Siri/Google" whatever you want, including playing music. is it for light switches? Hey Siri/Google already does this, no? also, how many people have 50$ wifi connected bulbs? and isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just ph…

> Hey Siri/Google already does this, no?

Only if you have your phone on you, and at least I don't carry mine around at home.

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#106

Post by m_t »

petra wrote: post #93
proaralyst wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The device I carry day-to-day needs to be specifically compromised. With voice assistants using an internet service, only that internet service needs to be compromised. For bulk surveilance, I think it's far more likely for the Echo servers to be attacked than my smartphone.

Amazon says that only after you say the hotword it transmits voice to servers.

Well then we can definitely trust them.

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#108

Post by therein »

croon wrote: post #90
new299 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of technology is pretty flaky. I think you have a couple of issues however: 1. You have sucky Internet. Bad Internet is going to cause numerous issues. From what I've heard it's hard to get a really good Internet connection in the US. But in many places in the world, great Internet connections are available at low cost. Bad Internet means devices are going to have issues with firmware updates. Things will be mo…

> 2. There's no reason why your macbook should keep disconnecting from Wifi. Perhaps you live somewhere with a lot of RF noise? Or you have a cheap/crappy router? Again, this is an issue which many people don't face. Mostly Wifi just works. I've went through tons of routers, and on those routers all available firmwares (dd-wrt. open-wrt, tomato, etc). I've been using an Asus RT-AC87U for the last couple of years now,…

I have the same router with the same firmware. I'm using a mid-2014 MBP Retina and my Echo Dot works great along with all my wireless devices both in 2.4G and 5G. My setup is basically Internet -> pfSense -> RT-AC87U with Webpass. Over 5G, I get 250+ mbit.

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#109

Post by davidiach »

GuiA wrote: post #7

Clearly, people love these things. I have a few friends who own it and say it's an amazing product; and commenters on HN have expressed their enthusiasm for it as well. There is a question that's been bothering me for years now, to which I still don't have an answer, which is: does modern technology suck just for me, or am I just less tolerant of defects than most people are? I am currently typing this from a 2016 ma…

What you really need is a self-driving car! /s

Re: Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

#110

Post by vacri »

daphreak wrote: post #96
vacri wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the internet is out for more than a minute and get Comcast on the phone I love those people who choose to purchase the bottom-tier internet, and then bitterly complain about how terrible the customer service is. "So open your wallet and get an ISP with good customer service" -> cue look of hate from them.

Unfortunately not all of us have alternative ISP's to switch to. I hear upgrading to a business account can help with certain providers but that's not always available at all locations.

Oh, for sure. I just mean those people who can choose.
Post reply on HN