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The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

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Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#151

Post by mac01021 »

nugi wrote: post #91
eropple wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wifi lawnmower is literally investment--it is the purchase of what in a business sense would be plant assets. Capital. The up-front expenditure of cash to generate value, in the form of saved time, later. Getting used to the idea of home automation as investment, as opposed to just business automation is something that older folks are going to have to come to grips with. But, like, I have Hue lights at home, I have…

I did the math, and found that hiring a local lawn service was even cheaper, more reliable, and used less of my time, the thing I am actually optimising for. Efficiencies of scale still beat gadgets. Not to mention the care, and graceful handling of edge cases. This is to say nothing of the myrid other services they provide. That said, I always dreamed of one, as a kid, who had to mow an acre. But as an adult, its cl…

Around where I live, you probably have to mow about 25 times per year. The lawn care people have quoted me about $70 per time to mow my ~1 acre yard. That's $1750 per year. It looks like, if these robots are able to become 20-30% cheaper then it seems like they'll probably be competitive with those people.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#152

Post by whoopdedo »

hota_mazi wrote: post #89

Hard to tell how significant that news is since Amazon doesn't list any Google Home product. And with Google Home Mini priced at $29, it's easy to speculate that it sold quite a few as well.

Also that the Echo can essentially "only" be bought on Amazon. While they advertise them there, a very small supply was sent to stores. Amazon uses the retail space for advertising but they're out of stock which drops you in the lap of Amazon. With other products sales will be split between retail and online (and retail is up about 4% this year). Or something that is only advertised online doesn't attract impulse buyers or people who want to see a demo before they buy.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#153

Post by enraged_camel »

fermienrico wrote: post #77
dilap wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of syllables isn't the problem, it's that prefixing every request with "OK," feels extremely unnatural -- almost like you're treating the Google assistant in a sardonic or sarcastic manner. (Also, "OK" is a very unnatural prefix! Notice how you accidentally replaced it with "hey". I watched a 7 year repeatedly do this a couple of days ago with Google Home, concluding it was broken. Compare w/ Alexa, which…

I disagree. Ok Google comes extremely naturally to most people I know. I prefer Google’s personification of an assistant - it’s the brand itself. Not some Alexa or Siri or some gender specific role. Google has taken an absolute brilliant approach towards voice and their popularity shows. It’s a pleasure to use compared to anything else.

>>Ok Google comes extremely naturally to most people I know.

And it sounds incredibly stupid to anyone else within earshot. I can’t get over how dumb my roommate sounds whenever he uses the thing. My immediate thought when I hear him say “OK Google” is that Google must have told him something and he is responding with “OK” to acknowledge. You know, the way people actually communicate.

I get that it becomes natural after a while but so what? Why start with such an unnatural way to activate it in the first place? Why not “Hey Google”? (I know it is supported in google home)

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#154

Post by mcny »

k__ wrote: post #149
blensor wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While those devices are far from perfect they are an evolutionary step in how people are able to interact with technology. My mother in law does not use a computer or smartphone at all, but she loves to use the Echo because it provides a familiar interface (speech) to services she would use (music, weather, casual information search). And interacting with voice assistants is a two way street in my opinion. They will…

Interesting. We have an Echo and to this day we haven't found any use for it. Talking is broadcast and most of the time we search stuff for ourself on mobile. Also, it often simply says it has no answer.

> We have an Echo and to this day we haven't found any use for it.

I briefly played with the webhook in ifttt and I think the "serverless" aws or Google Cloud could use this as a custom dash button. Instead of going to a dash button and pressing it if you run out of tide, you simply say "echo, trigger detergent" or I'm thinking with custom programming, "echo, trigger [predefined post request here that starts a series of actions]"

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#155

Post by Sephr »

robbiep wrote: post #138
Sephr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not feasible with software updates alone on the Echo Dot or Google Home Mini, as it will require better hardware unless you just want your device to constantly phone home everything.

I think they’re saying they changed to referring to Alexia in conversation to A or Her

I'm responding to "devices will be much [better] at figuring out when we're addressing them than the primitive idea of a wake-word". That kind of on-device context detection may not be feasible with the currently-shipping hardware.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#156

Post by toyg »

tjoff wrote: post #127
dilap wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have, and it's pretty funny. We quickly adapted to just saying "A." or "her". Probably in a few years this whole debate topic will seem quant, as devices will be much at figuring out when we're addressing them than the primitive idea of a wake-word. :-)

You're assuming that these devices have anything to offer even if they worked.

Considering their enduring popularity in mass-appeal science-fiction constructs (stories, movies etc), I'm pretty sure they do have "something to offer".

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#157

Post by afpx »

JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

None of my closest 100 friends and family bought either product, which is very strange given our technology backgrounds and the products’ apparent popularity. A good friend who works in IoT sort of considered it, but then ultimately became unmotivated because she doesn’t yet see the usefulness of consumer IoT.

My guess is that most buyers are much younger than me. Perhaps they seek to be early adopters like I once did. But, values must have also changed. For example, it wasn’t very long ago that the Xbox Kinect was released and many people freaked out by having a corporation freely listen to what they say.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#158

Post by Shoue »

dilap wrote: post #70
adjkant wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both. It comes down to the keyword identification algorithm of course, not the design by Google. Google's decision choice was not picking a random name that can be identified but instead working in their brand name. My bet is that give it a few years and we will have custom activation words within some constraints.

Is it both? The Google Home I was playing with at my in-laws house a couple days ago definitely only seemed to respond to "OK" (people kept forgetting and using "hey", which didn't work).

When you're setting up the Home during the training step it makes you say "Hey Google" and "Okay Google". It's definitely a bit hard to notice considering only a single word changes.

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#159

Post by notahacker »

bamboozled wrote: post #122
JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

Might I suggest some simple reasons for the increase in sales for the Dot? * Novelty value, it's a fun idea. It looks cool to buy an "edgy" product for your nephew / niece etc. * The marketing team worked hard to direct prime customers to buy one for their family / friends as gifts. * People are out of ideas and it's something new, novel and affordable. I really don't think people put much thought into presents in ge…

The aggressive price cuts in competition with Google also put it at the perfect price for "novelty electronic good that may or may not be useful"

(We bought one for a pretty tech savvy 89 year old who we thought might actually get practical benefits from IoT plugs as well as enjoy the novelty value of something that interacts vaguely like a human since he doesn't go out so much these days. But that's something of an edge case)

Re: The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season

#160

Post by toyg »

JulianRaphael wrote: post #121

Very revealing discussion. Most of the participants just argue about Amazon vs. Google here, some fear surveillance, some consider the devices useless, a few want to understand if the HN crowd finds it useful. This is something I notice here on HN in product-related discussions more and more: people just say what THEY think about product X (typically a negative opinion or complaint), rather being creative, constructi…

> Why do you think millions of people bought an Echo Dot or a Google Home?

Duh, because this has been the holy grail of personal computers since forever: you ask and computers do, no questions asked, no training, nothing. It's having servants without the pesky societal thing. In any scifi story ever there is something like that.

It's the first time it really feels like AI dreams are getting real. Interpreting speech is something so human that a computer doing it feels magical; and it removes all barriers to interacting with computers, which is a real problem that most people still have. Of course regular humans (i.e. not geeks) love this technological leap.

The technology is here to stay, one way or another, that's obvious. But problem-solving types of people (i.e. geeks) are bound to see the issues, the kinks, that can ruin the dream.

For me, the privacy implications are still a big obstacle; the world is still full of totalitarian states, even supposedly "democratic" states can barely survive periodic bouts of everyday fascism. This sort of tech is a totalitarian wet dream. We need better protections, in law as well as in tech, or we'll end up under constant STASI-like surveillance in our kitchens.

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