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Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

theguardian.com

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Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#31

Post by mdp2021 »

RileyJames wrote: post #14
feintruled wrote: post #6

I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options,…

> “Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation.“ The elderly woman stated she didn’t own a computer, or know how to use one. Yes, it’s an edge case.

> an edge case

Not really: that person could have easily assumed that she "did not need to own a computer, nor know how to use one", as she may have easily assumed that no random "rambling" uttered into a computerized microphone could ever trigger expenses. It's a justifiable expectation.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#32

Post by Semaphor »

mdp2021 wrote: post #26
scrollaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because nothing screams like "great UX" and "QOL" like a tablet in a greasy kitchen you can't operate when your hands are full, and having to learn to code in order to use a timer.

> having to learn to code At HN?! > when your hands are full One would never be empty handed while cooking?!

I can code, and I already have a tablet in the kitchen as a recipe book. But my hands are often either dirty, or in nitrile gloves, both make using the tablet either awkward or impossible. My workflow is to open the recipe I want, and then not touch the tablet until I’m done.

Not to mention that voice enables me to do this while also doing something else with my hands, like cutting veggies.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#33

Post by Semaphor »

jsjohnst wrote: post #29
Semaphor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.

> Because the QOL from one is insane for me. You have an “insane” QOL then if having a manual kitchen timer or a simple conversion chart on the wall would be a major difference. At least with the manual kitchen timer, you can always know how much time is left just by looking. Set a ten minute timer on an Alexa, you have to threaten it with violence to keep the timer visible for more than 30 seconds of it, and that do…

I often have multiple timers, that gets crowded fast. And even manual timers require me to touch them, while the whole point is that I can set a timer while my hands are full of raw sausage mix or whatever.

And my Alexa has no display, so it’s just "Alexa, timer [Name] status"

Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#34

Post by piva00 »

ghaff wrote: post #11
feintruled wrote: post #6

I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options,…

Voice control is mostly pretty disappointing. Setting an alarm, playing an album, getting a quick weather forecast? OK. But something more complicated where you really would like good voice control--like when driving--not so much. For example, with podcasts, I find I really need to pre-populate a playlist and by and large I find trying to totally control my phone by voice is very hit and miss. Voice assistants have g…

> playing an album

Only if the album you want is titled in English (or some recognised language and with actual words).

I listen to a lot of music that have unpronounceable song and album titles. Hell, even artists, how could I ever tell a voice assistant to play "STRGTHS by SHXCXCHCXSH"? An extreme example but not too far from some of the top 10 recently played stuff on my Spotify: "sch.mefd 2" by Autechre, "JNSN CODE GL16 / spl47" an album/EP by the same Autechre, "Hygh 2k12" by SCNTST.

It's a technology on that uncanny valley of working and simplifying some use-cases, and frustrating enough for some edge cases that you end up not trusting it, in my case making me avoid it.

Even for some basic alarms/timers it can be frustrating when it misinterprets your accent and sets timers for 50 minutes instead of 15. The pain of having to fix the failure and then re-add a timer/alarm is enough to push me away.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#35

Post by probably_wrong »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #5
bsenftner wrote: post #2

Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.

Boggles my mind that anyone buys these things.

At the risk of sounding like a drug dealer, have you tried one?

The main reason why I'll probably never buy an Alexa is because it sucks at the specific things I need it to do, but I concede that there's something liberating about just yelling at the computer and getting a reply. If I'm about to leave and I don't know which jacket to pick, being able to yell "Alexa, what's the weather like?" keeps me from switching contexts and losing my train of thought. It may not sound like much, but once you combine a bunch of small tasks it adds up.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#36

Post by retrac »

haunter wrote: post #16
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boggles my mind that anyone buys these things.

It's incredibly useful for people with disabilities

I can see that. But I hope it never becomes standard.

I find them aggravating because of my disability.

An acquaintance has made every light in their home integrated into Google's services. I have a mild speech impediment and Google seems incapable of recognising my speech as speech. "Hey Google. HEY GOOGLE. Hey Gooooogle! Turn off the lights." I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. "Hey Goooooooogle! Turn. Off. The. Lights.". I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.

And of course, when I gave in and used the switch, my host immediately came upstairs and chastised me for causing device errors to pop up in the network. Use voice!

Not terribly impressed, to say the least. And don't get me started on the bank's voice recognition system on the phone.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#37

Post by pessimizer »

feintruled wrote: post #6

I don't think this particular incident is any kind of big deal, though it's funny. It was only a £1.99 a month and there was a 7-day free trial anyway. Amazon say they emailed about it as confirmation. I think the issue it shows is how you can't trust voice control for anything important. It's just a bad interface for buying stuff particularly. If I am buying some dog food, I search dog food, glance over the options,…

> More likely it would turn into an exhausting game of twenty questions with the device narrowing my selection iteratively.

It's a recommendation engine at that point, so what I assume it will do is buy you the products that Amazon is pushing or that have paid to be recommended. Does Alexa handle the website's small print to the effect of "there may be other vendors selling this product for a lower price than the vendor we're recommending."

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#38

Post by nvarsj »

Semaphor wrote: post #7
bsenftner wrote: post #2

Be smarter than a smart speaker by never purchasing one. Why put an always on snitch in your home? Such convivence is a trap.

Because the QOL from one is insane for me. While I’m cooking, I can set timers and look up conversions (one big country that produces a lot of internet content, including recipes, uses the most insane units). Everything else is a nice bonus, but those parts are major. That said, I want to replace Alexa with something fully local, but the supply chain issues are currently a hindrance.

My main usecase for Alexa is also multiple timers while cooking. It's very useful - prior, I would juggle multiple independent timers on microwaves/stoves/fridge.

Re: Alexa, why have you charged me £2 to say the Hail Mary?

#40

Post by jsjohnst »

Semaphor wrote: post #33
jsjohnst wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the QOL from one is insane for me. You have an “insane” QOL then if having a manual kitchen timer or a simple conversion chart on the wall would be a major difference. At least with the manual kitchen timer, you can always know how much time is left just by looking. Set a ten minute timer on an Alexa, you have to threaten it with violence to keep the timer visible for more than 30 seconds of it, and that do…

I often have multiple timers, that gets crowded fast. And even manual timers require me to touch them, while the whole point is that I can set a timer while my hands are full of raw sausage mix or whatever. And my Alexa has no display, so it’s just "Alexa, timer [Name] status" Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in chan…

> Oh, and a conversion chat is also somewhat horrible, because this one country uses volumetric measurements where the form a product is in changes how much X of that unit means.

If it’s so hard for you, then buy measuring cups in US sizes or stop using US recipes. These are trivially solved problems in a low tech way. You’re like an addict trying desperately to defend why they need a fix. Yeesh!

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