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Amazon Sells Out of Echo Speakers in Midst of Holiday Rush

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

#121

Post by iKlsR »

capitalisthakr wrote: post #117

I had one for two weeks and sent it back. The requirement to summon an app before asking your question is clumsy and really takes the "magic" out of the experience. I'm waiting for the Google Home to be available. Critically lacking in both ecosystems, is the ability to handle multiple user profiles so that it can recognise who is asking the question and tailor the answer to that users schedule, travel etc.

> The requirement to summon an app before asking your question is clumsy and really takes the "magic" out of the experience. I'm waiting for the Google Home to be available.

TBH, GH is just a large speaker for your smartphone.

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

#122

Post by bcook »

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,…

Yeah, the RT-AC87U is known to have a buggy Quantenna WiFi chip, especially the 5ghz. There are many reports of problems over on snbforums.

The RT-AC68U or RT-AC88U are better choices (because they use Broadcom?). My RT-N66U has been a flawless AP for years.

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

#123

Post by ThomPete »

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…

I don't think what you are doing is ridiculous at all, in fact I myself strive for that myself but in a different way.

The reason why many people love it (me and my family included) is that they don't think of it as technology but as a product.

In my family we are two grown ups, a 7 year old and a 3 year old. Google Home understand us all first time in most cases. The ones where it doesn't are so rare it's note even 5% of the time.

I look for technology which:

1) removes the layers of abstraction when it comes to interacting with it.

2) Helps with banale tasks such as weather (can't be underestimated, when you have kids), starting some random music (Play smooth jazz, play Pat Metheny, Play dance music), play latest episode of "Startups for the rest of us", play the news, timer when you cook, add things we need to buy, ask something we are unsure about.

3) Gives us back some of the tangibility of the physical products.

All these things can be done via your phone, but once you have a voice interface you realize how much faster and less intrusive it is.

These voice interfaces are not yet good enough for really detailed needs but for our mostly simple needs.

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

#124

Post by coldtea »

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 never been on or even heard of a wifi network that always works.

Well, I work from home, and my wi-fi network (different routers across several homes, mostly Mac clients) has always worked.

The only thing that had issues was the DSL connection crapping out (usually once per 2 weeks or so) and having to restart the router to re-sync.

But no wi-fi issues, or machines disconnecting etc.

That said I always lived in single floor apartments (but with concrete walls). So I never had to try to e.g. bring wifi to the basement or so.

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

#125

Post by [deleted] »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #86
_greim_ wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely noticed certain people seem to deal with more glitches and breakage than others. Not saying any of these are you, but here's some speculation as to why: 1. Some people customize more, so their setup tends to operate in ways that weren't as heavily tested, or anticipated by the makers. 2. Some people are more technologically fluent, and instinctively avoid common failure modes, and/or tend to get every…

I'll add: 5. Some people are more bothered by little glitches. This is me. I get irrationally furious when, oh, KDE decides one day to consume all available system memory and then hang and I have to ssh into my own laptop to reboot it. (It's an otherwise reliable, not heavily customized system, so not so much an example of #4.) Meanwhile I see people walking around all the time with totally busted smartphone screens…

[deleted]

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

#126

Post by alistproducer2 »

Having a hot mic in my house that there is data to servers that I don't control really doesn't appeal to me. Although I know my Android phone is essentially the same thing, I'm actively looking to replace my version of Android with something different soon as I can.

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

#127

Post by Touche »

xelfer wrote: post #51
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…

> playing music where does the music come from when you ok google it? I don't have a sonos or whatever set up in my house, so I use my Echo for this (the speaker is excellent) and playing spotify, playing tunein radio, playing pandora, setting kitchen timers when cooking and getting weather reports. yeah you can get these in a million other ways, but it's just convenient to have in the kitchen.

Yep, there is no one killer thing, just a ton of small useful things. Like, when you are cooking and run out of oregano. "Alexa, add oregano", and now its in your shopping list.

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

#128

Post by petecooper »

FWIW, there's stock in the Amazon UK store, and Amazon are advertising via a front page banner.

Echo: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GAGVC9K/

Echo Dot: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01DFKBG5Y/

Delivery to UK addresses only, but if you befriend a UK HN-er who's willing to be a patsy, I'm sure that won't be too much of a hurdle.

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

#129

Post by dmritard96 »

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"

Powered on 100% of the time is the difference. The listening takes too much power for most devices still whereas echo's are always wired and listening. There are probably differences in the software as well but thats a big one. I guess the speaker is larger as well. Kinda like a beats pill audio quality (limited by size) with n always on mic.

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

#130

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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