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

201–210 of 273 posts

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

#201

Post by CaptSpify »

icebraining wrote: post #170
petra wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they lie about this in general(and enable blanket surveillance), it would be relatively easy to detect , and hurt Amazon's brand.

How? If you say "by analysing the amount of data it transmits when not in use", then not really - they could record it locally and then sneak it alongside a normal request.

I don't know how Echo's update, but they potentially could also sneak in an update that does listen 24/7, then a couple days later push an update that turns that off.

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

#202

Post by CaptSpify »

seanwilson wrote: post #64

I found the idea that it could be always listening to you creepy at first...but if you think about it your mobile phone, landline phone, computer microphone and more could be hijacked to always listen to you as well so there isn't much difference.

"I thought leaving my door key under my matt was a bad idea, but then I realized that if someone wanted into my house, they could just break my window!"

I'm not saying your making the wrong decision, it's a trade-off that everyone needs to make individually. If your happy with your Echo, great! But just because someone has one attack-vector on you doesn't mean you should dismiss new attack vectors.

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

#203

Post by wmeredith »

sikim wrote: post #168
matwood wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are people actually using these for? 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 h…

I believe from iPhone 6S and above, there's an option to just say "Hey, Siri" to activate Siri without having to touch the phone, so you can basically do the same thing with iPhones.

"Hey Siri" doesn't work well, if at all, when the phone is in a pocket. I've tried.

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

#204

Post by mistermann »

matwood wrote: post #135
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…

> what are people actually using these for? 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 h…

> "hey google, play some Christmas music"

In Canada this just doers a google search, whereas "play Bruno Mars" fires up Spotify as expected.

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

#205

Post by twothamendment »

stonecodegump wrote: post #94
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…

My macbook disconnects from wifi once per day, quite consistently. I'm just used to it now, and reconnect and within a minute or so I am good to go again.

Things like that are why I wired network to all the important places - like my desk. I work from home. I don't want to think about wifi issues. I think I'd have to spend quite a bit to get wifi that was as solid as being on the wire - and that just isn't worth it to me. I never trust wifi to work, but that said I do have an Echo on each floor of my house and they are wifi only. Once in a while I notice they are spinning blue while they reconnect, but I don't know the last time that it didn't work when I tried to use it.

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

#206

Post by CaptSpify »

Crespyl wrote: post #177
alistproducer2 wrote: post #126

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.

And at least with an Android phone it's typically possible to root/wipe and install a custom OS that's completely separated from Google/whoever. There's usually still a few binary blob drivers, and you have to have some trust that the hardware itself isn't malicious, but at least you can be confidant that it's not dependent on/subservient to some online service that's out of your control. I'm not terribly interested…

Agreed. I don't like closed-source stuff, but I'd still absolutely use an Echo if it didn't require cloud connectivity. At least then I'd be able to prevent it from reaching outside.

Unfortunately all of the FOSS voice-recognition stuff I've tried has been hacky at best.

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

#207

Post by wmeredith »

systemtest wrote: post #190
Zombieball wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> isn't the most convenient way to turn on a light switch still just physically flipping the switch? The answer to this is: No. The Echo and Google Smarthome don't require you to take it out of your pocket to interact with it. Walk in the door and it's listening. It sounds like a small difference but it is huge. I think voice interfaces are very easily dismissed as for the lazy people, or a gimmick. Until you start u…

I feel like presence detection is a better option for lights. Stumbling in the dark waiting for Echo to process your command versus just having the lights turn on when you enter a room.

I disagree, here. I may not always want the lights on. I prefer voice control to motion detection.

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

#208

Post by L_Rahman »

gruturo wrote: post #137
matwood wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Similar experience with Apple access points. After getting fed up with crappy gear which needed a daily restart, had awful range, overheated despite proper ventilation, would in theory allow simultaneous dual band but in practice really didn't, etc etc etc I bought a Time Capsule (the Airport Extreme with built-in hard disk) around 5 years ago and couldn't be happier. The connection has always been absolutely rock so…

It's shocking just how good the Ubiquiti gear is.

My setup at home is:

Motorola Surfboard SB6183

Ubiquiti EdgeRouter X

Uniquiti Unifi AP

I set it up once and the only outages I've had were when my provider (Time Warner in NYC) had issues that made the Surfboard loose connectivity. Despite the fact that I'm in an incredibly noisy RF environment, I've never had trouble connecting to my AP.

If had spare time and money, this is a business I'd try:

- partner with Ubiquiti to white label their gear

- build an app to make the APs easy to setup

- work hard to become the Wirecutter's top pick

- sell them on Amazon

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

#209

Post by garethsprice »

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…

Picked up an Echo Dot on Black Friday on a whim and I'm genuinely surprised how much I use it.

Last night's tasks:

- Got into a dark house with my hands full of bags, "Hey Alexa turn on the living room lights. Play blues music."

- Taking my shoes off, "Hey Alexa what's the news"

- Cooking, "Hey Alexa what's 12 fluid ounces in cups. Add garlic to my shopping list."

- On the way out the door, "Hey Alexa ask NYC Transit what's the status of the 4 train"

- Going to sleep, "Hey Alexa turn off the bedroom light. Play white noise. Loop."

- Wake up in the middle of the night "Hey Alexa what time is it? What time is my first meeting tomorrow? Cancel my alarm for 7:30AM. Set an alarm for 8AM.". All without shining a screen in my face, which can disrupt sleep cycles.

There's a few glitches (sometimes the speech clips, had to reboot it once or twice) but speech recognition is decent (I have a soft-spoken English accent which challenges some systems). Also it's great when alone but kind of awkward talking to the machine when you have company.

I can see a lot of mundane tasks switching over to ambient, speech-based interfaces in the future. I'll be adding Alexa Skills development to my skillset over Christmas.

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

#210

Post by dx034 »

CaptSpify wrote: post #185
dx034 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want to have a voucher under the tree, you want the product. Delivery in January will put off everyone who wants to buy as a present.

But what if you don't want to buy it as a present? Or know someone with a birthday in January?

I'd still argue that many people are more likely to buy gadgets in December (gift to yourself).

Birthday is different though, but will not be the case for most decisions.

Post reply on HN