For most voice control applications, trigger words are enough to reliably detect owner intent, but it seems Echo needs a better mechanism. Maybe adding cameras and looking for eye contact would work?
Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
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Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#22I had the wake-word on mine set to "Amazon" and then made the mistake of watching an online training video for AWS....
Had to stop it and change the wake word back to "Alexa".
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#23Wow, this is a new DDOS attack vector. Get an ad on broadcast radio saying stuff like "alexa, order more milk", or "okay google, send a text to xxxxx".
Toyota ran an anti-distracted driving radio ad where they did this. The ad narrator says "Hey Siri, please turn airplane mode on." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZBVTMrgFA
Fuck that shut.
If airplane mode is turned on and my GPS disabled as I'm close to the my right turn you better believe I'll be distracted.
A better solution would be a true hands free mode that prevented touch input from working while driving.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#24I think they need to pick a different name. 'Alexa' is very easy to trigger with other names, and reliably activates when I am watching any show with a character named 'Alex', 'Alexy', etc. One side effect I've noticed is that they seem to have tried to account for it, which has made the Echo less responsive to actual requests; a few times I've stood in front of it yelling 'ALEXA' trying to get it to stop and it does…
Alexa is not that easy compared to other names. Can you identify a single word that Alexa rhymes with? It's very hard to select a good wake word.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#25This happens to me with Siri and podcasts - I listen to podcasts in my car, through my iPhone. Occasionally what people say will sound close enough to "Hey, Siri" that it stops the podcasts and and answers whatever question it could extract from the talking following what it thought was "Hey, Siri".
It's repeatable, too. One time it happened right as I was parking, on an episode of This American Life. (Or Serial. Or Planet Money. Yeah, yeah, I listen to a lot of NPR shows.) So I kept rewinding back over that part, and it kept triggering Siri.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are three options for trigger words. There's Alexa, Amazon, and Echo. We have ours set to Alexa (default) and when the neighbor girl comes over (Alexis) the Echo frequently wakes during conversations.
I've been thinking of changing it to Echo -- using 'Amazon' just feels too corporatey.
But that will cause issues when I play Ecco the Dolphin!
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Toyota ran an anti-distracted driving radio ad where they did this. The ad narrator says "Hey Siri, please turn airplane mode on." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZBVTMrgFA
Fuck that shut. If airplane mode is turned on and my GPS disabled as I'm close to the my right turn you better believe I'll be distracted. A better solution would be a true hands free mode that prevented touch input from working while driving.
Does airplane mode disable the GPS? GPS is a passive receiving of radiowaves, so I'm guessing not?
(according to Apple, prior to 8.2 it did turn it off. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204234)
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#28I think they need to pick a different name. 'Alexa' is very easy to trigger with other names, and reliably activates when I am watching any show with a character named 'Alex', 'Alexy', etc. One side effect I've noticed is that they seem to have tried to account for it, which has made the Echo less responsive to actual requests; a few times I've stood in front of it yelling 'ALEXA' trying to get it to stop and it does…
There are three options for trigger words. There's Alexa, Amazon, and Echo. We have ours set to Alexa (default) and when the neighbor girl comes over (Alexis) the Echo frequently wakes during conversations.
My sister was never great at keeping friends for long growing up, but it amuses me to no end that her two long-time friends she's had since she was very young... are named Alexa and Siri :v
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#29This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Douglas Adams in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A man not just ahead of his time, but humorous about it too. > The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive—you merely had to brush the panels w…
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Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#30Sometimes when you try to recognize speech you wreck a nice beach.