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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

#151

Post by Eridrus »

jsz0 wrote: post #102
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 c…

I can't wait to be able to control my TV from one of these things. Much easier than hunting for the Roku app on my phone, since I've long lost the actual remote.

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

#152

Post by VLM »

_greim_ wrote: post #27
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'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…

5. There is a social media effect where the planet has billions of people and every single person who has a problem, socially talks about it, much as some folk monday morning quarterback football games at the water cooler. This leads to horribly inflated perceptions.

As an analogy from another totally separate yet strangely parallel hobby, back when social networking meant ham radio morse code radios, I can personally assure you that every ham radio operator who can not solder a PL-259 RF connector, can not crimp an Anderson Powerpole DC connector, or can not solder surface mount components makes certain via social networking (over radios, back then) that everyone knows they can not, and that makes everyone think no one can perform those tasks because negative reports is all they hear endlessly repeated. However the reality is all those tasks are pretty easy and problems are rare and usually its possible to learn how to do it correctly with little time investment.

None the less, its a common "design pattern" of social media / networking that once the numerical problem count exceeds, say, the tribal count number around 100, the entire population no matter how many billions will all "know" that problem is universal for everyone, while perhaps they're the only person out of billions not experiencing the reported problem. Meanwhile the reality of the problem is there are (billions minus one hundred) experiencing total success.

I'm just saying its a social networking or social media problem, not a wifi problem.

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

#153

Post by croon »

nicolas_t wrote: post #119
croon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes, the wireless performance I get is great, it's the reliability I take issue with. You never get any disconnects or hickups?

I have the exact same router (with Merlins firmware) and never get any disconnects and I have a lot of devices (mbp, macbook air, macbook, iphones, android tablet and ipad). Do you live in an area with a lot of RF noise? or with a lot of other Wifi networks? I've stayed for a month in New York last year at a place with a lot of other wifi networks and my Macbooks became much more flaky when connecting to wifi. Maybe…

A house in suburbia. I can see maybe 5, possibly 10 networks tops, with a good client. I'd categorize that as "not a lot of noise", at least not from other WLANs.

I've tried different channels, but is that suggestion in regards to the signal (which is not a problem for me) or for its effect on reliability of keeping the connection?

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

#154

Post by bsharitt »

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 live in a relatively tech-infested city

I think these type of products may end up being better for the less tech obsessed. I'm thinking of getting one in the next year or so because I don't have my phone on me at all times when I'm at home and and I think that's true for a lot of people who aren't hyper-connected and attached to their phones all the time. It's nice to have access to all that stuff just in the house but without feeling like you're attached to a device at all times.

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

#156

Post by Eridrus »

eclipxe wrote: post #53
daveFNbuck wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the price point is the only issue, I'm pretty sure the Echo Dot does the same thing for $40. My concern is that voice controlling the music might not be worth sending out recordings of everything said in my house.

It doesn't record everything said in your house. It only listens to the wake word, and then records. Source: I worked on some of the low level audio functionality.

These comments about the NSA listening to you through these get annoying enough to me, I hate to think how annoying they must be to you when you built the damn thing.

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

#157

Post by croon »

fps wrote: post #138
croon wrote: post #90

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,…

Making wireless work isn't a matter of throwing money at the problem and buying off the shelf products, unfortunately. Nor is it a binary "works" vs. "doesn't work." I want to say I have "flawless" wifi at my house, but in reality I've looked at the use cases of all of my regular users and optimized the wireless network to be reliable and performant for those uses. This includes: a dedicated network router and dedica…

A lot of good points here. But your opening statement...

> Making wireless work isn't a matter of throwing money at the problem and buying off the shelf products, unfortunately. Nor is it a binary "works" vs. "doesn't work." I want to say I have "flawless" wifi at my house, but in reality I've looked at the use cases of all of my regular users and optimized the wireless network to be reliable and performant for those uses.

... I think fits with the question the OP asked, and my follow up to. Since it's not a binary, and people have different levels of acceptance, and different levels of work put in to getting that number closer to 1 than 0, that is my issue. A stable router and wired devices "just works" for at least the last couple of decades.

I can likely get a better WLAN than the one I have, but I have already put in more time than I'd like to. At this point if I can't throw money at it, I'll rather just throw money at installing cat6a, which I did for the stuff I cared about (desktop, htpc, server).

> 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.

Contradicting as it is to your first statement, do you really mean this though? Or is it simply "works well enough, within reasonable efforts, means and expectations"?

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

#158

Post by VLM »

lmm wrote: post #115
m_mueller wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that you mention induction stoves - that's exactly what I was discussing among other things in above link. I hate those touch stoves with a passion. What were they thinking? It has one job !

> I hate those touch stoves with a passion. What were they thinking? It has one job! They're easier to clean. They look better. They're possibly cheaper.

That's the problem, kitchens are trendy again, and looking good in "better homes and gardens" is always the death knell of usability.

If you want to cook, you'll have to take portable appliances onto the deck or into the basement because kitchens are solely about looking good now.

There are snarky analogies to web design in the above, BTW.

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

#159

Post by rovek »

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…

This started a discussion in my office (software dev team). The summary is that I'm never satisfied with the quality of tech as paltry as smartphones but my colleague with a smart watch, smart TV and Alexa in his house views their defects as "quirks".

Seems to be a question of disposition, in my circles at least. There was a bonus anecdote about how Alexa has ignored his girlfriend for a year though.

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

#160

Post by wears_sweaters1 »

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…

Checking my daily todo list on Todoist, getting news from NPR, playing audiobooks
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