131–140 of 273 posts
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 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 verb…
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.
If someone says "Alexa, we need more bread" how do you figure out which skill to delegate that to when the 'amazon', 'ebay', 'ocado', and 'asda' skills all report they can order products matching that query, the 'music' and 'video' skills report they can stream content matching that query, and the 'grocery list' skill reports it can add that to a grocery list?
If I say that, what I really mean is "Look at Ocado and Asda, if I have a delivery coming in the near future add my most-ordered full size loaf of bread to the order if it's not already present, otherwise add it to my grocery list and remind me when I'm leaving work tomorrow"
And that behaviour is bread-specific. If I'm ordering beer I want different behaviour - and if I'm ordering something personal, maybe I don't want my search broadcast to every retailer just to check if they can help with it.
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.
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,…
Years ago I had this problem and bought an Apple router. My wifi has always 'just worked' ever since. There was an entire thread of people on here on HN saying the same thing when Apple decided to stop making them. Wifi, like cell, is very anecdotal because of things out of your control.
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…
Off the top of my head from last night while cooking dinner:
* "hey google, add olive oil to the grocery list"
* "hey google, set a timer for 15 minutes for rice"
* "hey google, play some Christmas music"
* "hey google, how much time is left on the rice"
I could have fumbled with pulling out my iphone for all of these, but I would have had to stop prepping dinner, wash my hands, and then mess with the phone. Instead, it just fits in the flow of what I am doing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. Years ago I had this problem and bought an Apple router. My wifi has always 'just worked' ever since. There was an entire thread of people on here on HN saying the same thing when Apple decided to stop making them. Wifi, like cell, is very anecdotal because of things out of your control.
It's a real shame they decided to discontinue them - they were absolutely the single consumer brand which didn't plain suck in my experience. Awful experience with Asus (overheating), Netgear (5 disconnects per hour), Cisco/Linksys (radio part died after a firmware upgrade, long fight to RMA a 3 days old unit), D-link (signal wouldn't cross a single wall), etc.
Fortunately I recently decided to look past the consumer products and discovered Ubiquiti. What a breath of fresh air. Amazing performance and range, all the stability of Apple without the Fisher-Price interface.
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,…
a dedicated network router and dedicated access points. The placement of the access points is key. They should be in the dead center of the area they're meant to cover and not be near any radio absorbing materials. You pretty much can't do that if you have to put your access point at the place where your internet comes into your house. I use Ubiquiti Edgerouter and AP equipment[0]. I had to wire cat6 between my basement and my entryway closet to get good placement of my access points.
testing and optimizing frequencies for the environment. I live out in the suburbs, but I still have to contend with my neighbor's RF noise. I use a tool for MacOS called Wifi Signal [1] that identifies clear channels and regularly suggests improvements.
Understanding the differences in the technologies available. I have a large house, and lots of high bandwidth equipment, as well as some low bandwidth equipment. The low bandwidth equipment (eg. Nest thermostats, raspberry pi garage door controllers) stays on the slower, longer range 2.4 ghz access point and I don't have to particularly care about placement. The high bandwidth equipment (laptops, desktops, set top box) is set to prefer the high bandwidth short range 5ghz network, and I placed my access points close to their points of use. Equipment like phones and laptops that move around are set to prefer the 5ghz network, but accept the 2.4 ghz network when they're too far from the access points. Newer access points allow you to specify minimum signal qualities to encourage clients to switch networks sooner when their signal quality drops too far to be useful.
I put a lot of effort and more money than normal into this solution, but the result is that my family generally doesn't notice the network. It just works, all the time. When we visit other people's houses, the wireless is bad and that's just something that is weird about other places. I want to say guests in my house get good wireless coverage, but if they do something with their devices that my family doesn't (like try to stream movies from a hammock in the back yard), or get on the "wrong" network, I can't guarantee much.
0: https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ac/ 1: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wifi-signal/id525912054?mt=1...
I want a thing like this with one single difference: I don't want to talk to it.
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 think you might be too YOUNG to get it. I think older people love the idea of interacting with a computer with voice - it's way easier for someone to get a quick answer with voice if they're otherwise unfamiliar with navigating a smart phone or laptop (plus the added Star Trek "Computer, locate Commander Riker" aspect - with that added feeling of nostalgia, maybe). EDIT: changed words for clarity
I do find it funny that the tech from a fictional post-scarcity society is being pioneered in the real world by a merchandise company (Amazon) and an advertising company (Google). Meanwhile, Microsoft is lagging behind despite Cortana (in my experience) having the best voice recognition of all the services, Siri included.