71–80 of 142 posts
They use Google cloud speech-to-text API, one of the key technology. https://mycroft-ai.gitbook.io/docs/mycroft-technologies/over... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I love the idea, but I think this isn't going to be "the one". It's VC funded, the VCs are going to want to get a RoI. And we all know where that leads...
The voice assistant space is dying: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co... Some of the comments below are part of the explanation why. It doesn't work as well as people were hoping, and it's a solution in search of a problem with limited application and it seems little monetization. The above article sums it up better from the big tech company's perspective.
Voice assistants which are trying to force engagement to squeeze money out of you are dying. Most people only use the voice assistants for a few simple tasks, which is perfect for an open source project like mycroft. It is, however, very, very bad for Amazon and Google, because those tasks don't make them money. That's why they're all going so aggressive on "you asked for the time, but by the way here's a 5 minute sp…
This is a word-for-word description of how Siri originally functioned. "You asked for the top 5 romantic resturaunts nearby; here are the top results from Google Search:"
Why is this so damn expensive? I have plenty of good hardware available to run the compute for this thing. Just make a daemon/app architecture where I can use my phone as a microphone and run daemons on whatever hardware I need to control. I just don't see this being worth the money. Hundreds of $ to make switching music slightly more convenient just seems like a colossal waste of money to me.
For example, I noticed a couple years ago at the store that a regular featureless analog wall clock was more expensive than an Echo Dot
These guys need to pay for their software dev out of hardware sales and can't hope for a runaway success yet, so of course it'll cost a painfully lot more
The voice assistant space is dying: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co... Some of the comments below are part of the explanation why. It doesn't work as well as people were hoping, and it's a solution in search of a problem with limited application and it seems little monetization. The above article sums it up better from the big tech company's perspective.
I don't think the entire space is dying. Amazon is having problems because Alexa has little benefit to them outside of direct monetization. They wanted people to use Alexa to buy things and no one wants to shop like that. So they have these devices and all this infrastructure to run people's kitchen timers, lights and play music. People will buy Alexa devices on Prime Day, use them dozens of times a day for years, an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the entire space is dying. Amazon is having problems because Alexa has little benefit to them outside of direct monetization. They wanted people to use Alexa to buy things and no one wants to shop like that. So they have these devices and all this infrastructure to run people's kitchen timers, lights and play music. People will buy Alexa devices on Prime Day, use them dozens of times a day for years, an…
This makes no sense to me. Apple's plan works because... their lock-in is better? I can "control most of the lights in my house, stream Apple music and set kitchen timers" with Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana and even Bixby. What is Apple's actual advantage here? How is Apple making money from this when Amazon does not?
Amazon is selling the devices at or below cost and hoping that Alexa will make the money (which it doesn’t)
The voice assistant space is dying: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-co... Some of the comments below are part of the explanation why. It doesn't work as well as people were hoping, and it's a solution in search of a problem with limited application and it seems little monetization. The above article sums it up better from the big tech company's perspective.
I don't think the entire space is dying. Amazon is having problems because Alexa has little benefit to them outside of direct monetization. They wanted people to use Alexa to buy things and no one wants to shop like that. So they have these devices and all this infrastructure to run people's kitchen timers, lights and play music. People will buy Alexa devices on Prime Day, use them dozens of times a day for years, an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes no sense to me. Apple's plan works because... their lock-in is better? I can "control most of the lights in my house, stream Apple music and set kitchen timers" with Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortana and even Bixby. What is Apple's actual advantage here? How is Apple making money from this when Amazon does not?
Apple makes money from the devices it sells. Siri makes those devices more convenient to use. Amazon is selling the devices at or below cost and hoping that Alexa will make the money (which it doesn’t)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup - I think this is the truth. I'm willing to spend several hundred dollars right this second for a simple voice assistant for things like weather, time, timers, unit conversion, alarms, and home assistant control (mainly lights). I've actually pre-ordered the Mycroft Mark 2, although no chance to evaluate it yet. I'm very interested in devices that can do this locally. I'm not interested in Alexa/Google home anymo…
>they both work, I got an echo (alexa) for free and use it for home assistant. It only works when I have an internet connection. So when my internet is out, I cannot turn my lights on/off with it. I understand why, but i too would REALLY like to just have all functionality dependencies for home automation to be local.