Amazon Announces Alexa With Generative AI, New Echo Devices, eero Max 7 With Wi-Fi 7 Support and More

[idahohand]

Eero is as well built as the next router, has VERY good support, constantly gets updates. And has some clever ideas like you can set it up to switch to use your phone cellular connection automatically if the Internet goes down, and the Eeero will use its WiFi network to send the signal round your home.

If you want to attack Eero you need to try harder, like the subscription model they use and how some even simple features are locked behind it.

I will strongly disagree on the support side. My experiences with them proved to be reason I ripped them out of my homes. Add to that the fractured product offerings with divergent features for no obvious reason. They enable HomeKit secure routing on one but not others in the exact same family of products. Their roadmap simply doesn't make sense.

You are right that their "subscription" model is completely bogus. High-cost/low-value.

The phone cellular connection is a nice feature, but not unique or innovative. I've been using a hotspot as a backup internet connection on my home network for more than 3 years.

Bottom line is that if you trust Amazon with access to your network, then go ahead and use Eero. Be sure to keep in mind Amazon's history when it comes to collecting and protecting private information. Amazon Data Breaches: Full Timeline Through 2023 (firewalltimes.com)

 

[macphoto861]

it pesters me CONSTANTLY with ads for things I don't want, like children's jokes, suggestions to buy random things on Amazon, etc. You can't turn that content off either

I found this to be very aggravating as well... I want it to cycle through my photos, and the weather, period. I didn't buy this thing to have a billboard of advertising sitting next to me all the time. However, I was able to turn MOST of those unwanted things off in the settings... at present it does mostly just show me what I want to see, aside from various "try this next" screens (which suggest various things you can ask Alexa to do), and an occasional ad for something.

Still annoying, but at least it's (barely) tolerable now.

If Amazon wants to have stuff like this turned on by default, fine, I can accept that. But there should be a way to turn off anything that you don't want to be subjected to.

 

[LlamaLarry]

Also, what the crap? $1700 for an Eero 7 3-pack? Are they insane?

Netgear emailed me about their new WiFi7 router with similar pricing and I thought the exact same thing. I guess I be sticking with my "ancient" WiFi5 Orbi Pro mesh for a while longer and probably end up skipping 6x all together.

 

[bobcomer]

The screen in the Echo Show is obviously something Apple doesn’t really have an answer to, but is it actually useful (apart from the LCD light leakage)?

I have an Echo Show on my night table, and yes, the screen is useful to me. It's my clock/alarm/weather machine. As for it advertising things, I just don't pay any attention to that, or just tell it "off".

 

[bobcomer]

I was also hoping they would introduce a new Kindle Oasis with a Carta 1200 e-ink screen and USB-C, but I was disappointed when they spent most of the time talking about Alexa

I gave up on kindle because of screen size and read on my 12.9" iPad Pro. Sure battery life isn't as good, but it's a heck of a lot faster and a better screen.

 

[bobcomer]

I don’t see the point of all the smart home stuff. You can just walk to the light switch to turn the lights on, or to the front door to see who rang the doorbell. A dumb home is fine, it worked for years.

It works really well for me as I get older. You can't imagine how nice it is to just say "turn on all lights 60%" when you're getting up in the morning. And turning down or off lights at night, all by just a few words. It hurts to get up and walk over to a switch! No more stubbed toes either!

 

[bluespark]

I’m in the market for a mesh WiFi system and Eero would appeal to me if it wasn’t an Amazon product. I don’t trust them.

Consider TP Link Deco systems. I switched from Eero to a Deco 6E system (but with a Deco WiFi 6 ceiling-mounted POE unit on one floor). It has similar usability to Eero but allows for more configurability. It also has significantly better range than the Eero 6/6E units (meaning in my case that I have entirely eliminated some dead spots I had in my Eero network), although I of course cannot speak to the new Eero 7.

 

[Black Magic]

Had to ditch my Eero since it would not allow my work vpn to maintain a stable connection with Win 11. Known bug they won’t fix…so I got a new router

Weird, mine running just fine over here.

 

[mikegoldnj]

I barely have anything that can use WiFi 6 let alone WiFi 7.

 

[bluespark]

I don’t see the point of all the smart home stuff. You can just walk to the light switch to turn the lights on, or to the front door to see who rang the doorbell. A dumb home is fine, it worked for years.

Of course it is, but there are plenty of benefits to smart home technology for use cases that might differ from yours.

 

[bgiuriceo]

Yet another missed market by Apple and their HomeKit partners.

 

[Codeseven]

I’m still using my old Gen 2 Eero Pro WiFi 5. It’s been bulletproof. Frequently being updated, coverage is great, zero problems Over years of use. I totally believe someone that says they’ve had a horrible experience with Eero, you can look at almost any highly rated product and there will be someone that just threw it the trash. I don't even have a practical use case for it ’yet’ but I’ve been looking forward to a WiFi 7 router to replace my outdated (perhaps less secure) one and it will be a another Eero.

 

[Fraserpatty]

Never used a slide rule… I was using an HP-48 programmable calculator in uni. Which places me firmly in Gen X. But seriously, smart homes seem to me like technology for technology’s sake. I can see the use in a smartphone or a computer or even in a pinch a smart watch, but there’s no need to build compute capacity into everything.

I reckon the internet of things has failed to live up to its promise quite a while ago.

Today is one of those bad asthma days I have in the Fall. I’m very happy to turn my lights off and on with my voice instead of getting up and going over to the wall switch when I’m winded. I have several lamps which happily are on smart plugs so I don’t have to try to turn the screw on knobs with my hand that has nerve damage. There are probably a lot of people like me for whom the technology has become a real Boon. I’m happy you’re not one of them, but you just need to use your imagination to see how it benefits the rest of us.

 

[ebika]

You know you can turn the adverts off right? Mine certainly doesn't do any of that. Did you buy the cheaper advert version? If so, there is a one off fee to remove it all.

For me, I like that home assistant integrates with Alexa, so my smarthome stuff is all under one place, has great automations and a voice controller that is useful. We also purchased a 8" FireHD tablet and thats mounted to the wall now. I think it was <$80 and runs all the home assistant stuff perfectly. Apple devices are far nicer to use, if you're holding / touching everyday but some of the Amazon bits definitely plug a hole.

Oh, I've tried. They don't turn off, nor do they sell different versions of Echo Show with ads vs. ad-free like they do with their Kindles. Most of the ads I get are to boost my engagement, asking to touch now to hear a children's joke, or touch now to see the latest news on a war, or touch to watch/learn more about watching The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video, or watch Jack Reacher on Amazon Prime video. Sometimes it will suggest some deal it found on product similar to something I already bought. I just saw one on my kitchen Echo Show for "Popular questions: Alex, who will win the TNF?"

I'm not saying it's seizure-inducing displays to buy Chocopops all the time. It just cycles away from the things I'd prefer it to show. On my nightstand, I find that annoying, especially when I select "don't show me this any more" for children's jokes, and it shows it to me immediately again. In the kitchen, it's really annoying that it won't keep the cooking timers on screen in favor of suggesting I can watch Jack Reacher (which I did watch, so I don't need to again, plus I'm cooking, keep my timers up!)

I still like the idea of them. I use them for smart home stuff all the time. I get that since they're hemorrhaging money from the Alexa division that they have to do something to change engagement. It just doesn't fully line up with my use cases.

 

[jjudson]

It was bad enough having human beings spying on you.

Now I gotta worry about Skynet...

 

[TracerAnalog]

Privacy aside Alexa is better than Siri. Apple really need to fix Siri.

On device AI is difficult, more so when you want to safeguard privacy. And yes, they need to catch up soon!

 

[TracerAnalog]

Yep, surprised there were no Kindle announcement. Sounds more like they will axe the Kindles for good as unbelievable as it sounds those rumors might be true …. lets hope not.

WHAT? Nooooo

 

[TracerAnalog]

I'd bet money that Apple is already far along at developing a version of Siri tied to a domain-specific LLM. And when it's done it will be amazing (mostly).

I hope so…

 

[iBreatheApple]

I will still never forgive Amazon for turning Eero into a completely garbage product. I've never had more problems with a single piece of technology than I did with the Eero Pro 6E, and I tried multiple replacement units, had them reverting firmware updates, everything. Went through hell with support for months.

Some of the insiders on Reddit say the amount of workaround code on some of the earlier 6 products is baffling. I am still stumbling along with mine.

 

[kc9hzn]

Yep, surprised there were no Kindle announcement. Sounds more like they will axe the Kindles for good as unbelievable as it sounds those rumors might be true …. lets hope not.

I doubt it, they did just introduce the model for note taking. (Granted, my eInk tablet is a better experience for that, and the Kindles other than the Paperwhite are kind of expensive for what you get from them relative to the competition.) Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a trillion+ dollar company does when they’re about to axe the whole product category.

 

[iBreatheApple]

I'd bet money that Apple is already far along at developing a version of Siri tied to a domain-specific LLM. And when it's done it will be amazing (mostly).

I hope you're right, but what on God's green Earth would make you bet money on this? Siri is the dumbest assistant for random day-to-day inquiries. I use both Siri and Alexa many times daily and Siri is stuck in the first generation of smart assistants, in my opinion. And trust me, I want to have Siri over Alexa. But this is just the truth.

 

[Pezimak]

I will strongly disagree on the support side. My experiences with them proved to be reason I ripped them out of my homes. Add to that the fractured product offerings with divergent features for no obvious reason. They enable HomeKit secure routing on one but not others in the exact same family of products. Their roadmap simply doesn't make sense.

You are right that their "subscription" model is completely bogus. High-cost/low-value.

The phone cellular connection is a nice feature, but not unique or innovative. I've been using a hotspot as a backup internet connection on my home network for more than 3 years.

Bottom line is that if you trust Amazon with access to your network, then go ahead and use Eero. Be sure to keep in mind Amazon's history when it comes to collecting and protecting private information. Amazon Data Breaches: Full Timeline Through 2023 (firewalltimes.com)

That report you linked to proves just how secure Amazon is actually. 80% of it is full of criminal employees selling data, and hacks with no evidence they got access to real Amazon data.

As for Apple however:

Apple Data Breaches: Full Timeline Through 2023

On July 10, Apple patched a zero-day vulnerability in their devices, and acknowledged that it may have been exploited by hackers. You can find a full list of security updates on Apple’s website. Below…

firewalltimes.com

 

[vyspirit]

I gave up on kindle because of screen size and read on my 12.9" iPad Pro. Sure battery life isn't as good, but it's a heck of a lot faster and a better screen.

I can't read for more than 30 minutes on my iPad, my eyes get tired, especially at night, you'll find your eyes more comfortable when reading on an e-ink screen.

 

[bobcomer]

I can't read for more than 30 minutes on my iPad, my eyes get tired, especially at night, you'll find your eyes more comfortable when reading on an e-ink screen.

A lot of people have that problem, but I'm not one of them.

 

[kc9hzn]

A lot of people have that problem, but I'm not one of them.

Back when I had one, I never found the iPad particularly eye fatiguing. In fact, I found it was the opposite. I suspect that I’d been moving it around subtly while using it (due to the increased size and weight relative to a phone or iPod touch), and therefore, my eyes were changing focal length often enough to reduce eye fatigue.

Discussions of eye fatigue often bother me because there’s a lot of non-scientific fluff floating around (peddled by Luxottica, no less). Blue light can keep you up at night, but it doesn’t cause eye fatigue. And if blue filter lenses really filtered much blue anyway (they do a little, it seems), they’d be yellow like sunglasses. Eye fatigue seems to be more a matter of the muscles in your eyes getting tired from holding a position hours on end.