i dont get why these speakers are needed.....i just use siri on my ipad or iphone esp for my HUE lights....I even control them on the way home by telling siri in the car to change the lights
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Smart Speaker Owners Aren't Yet Widely Using Them to Control Connected Home Devices
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i dont get why these speakers are needed.....i just use siri on my ipad or iphone esp for my HUE lights....I even control them on the way home by telling siri in the car to change the lights
I guess useful all depends on what you have setup and how you use it. I find it incredible useful, especially when it comes to lighting and managing the temperature of my house. But to each his own.
Exactly? I can’t believe they didn’t think about this. For this article to be true everyone surveyed would have to own at least one smart home accessory.
I suspect that much of "Home Automation" is and will remain a gimmick for the foreseeable future, largely based on a combination of cost and device replacement. Big-ticket appliances - stoves / refrigerators / HVAC / etc. - last a long time, and when combined with the rapid pace of evolution in the HA market... it simply doesn't make sense to purchase new devices every cycle. Unless and until the market settles on a common set of communication and control methods where devices can be software upgradable this isn't going to change.
That said, IMO and for personal use, I see a lot of nerd-value in controlling my home environment, but not necessarily more. Here's my personal use-case by device type:
- HVAC Check!
- Music - individual rooms and whole-house - Check!
- Primary Lighting - Check!
- Mood Lighting - Check!
- Sprinkler/Irrigation system - Check!
- Alarm system (though only for enabling) - Check!
- Window Blinds - Coming soon...
- Door Locks - Coming soon...
- Garage Doors - Coming soon...
- Washer/Dryer - cycles started / status / completion / cycle stop?
- Note: Given that leaving a cloths dryer running when you leave the house is not good, the ability to stop a washer/dryer mid-cycle when away from the house could be very good
- Oven - start / status / timer / stop
- Note: I see this as a primary use for notification/status with a secondary use for control. The ability to warm up an oven when you head home - or shut it off when you leave - has potential for both convenience and safety.
- Refrigerator / Freezer - Notification of door open, time to change filter, etc.
- Media / Television - the industry is not there yet, though both TV and AmazonTV devices can be voice controlled.
- I'm envisioning a much broader set of capabilities, such as "Alexa, turn on the Cowboy's game" and having my AI Assistant turn on the television, turn on the receiver, find out what channel/app is playing the game and changing to it, then setting the volume accordingly.
- BBQ Smoker - yes, I have a bluetooth connected electric smoker with a really crappy dedicated remote device. I would love to have this enabled for AI control / status
- Water - Smart enabled could mean gathering metrics on usage and patterns and notification of problems such as a faucet left on. This should also apply to water heaters.
- Electricity - Some of this already exists, though to my knowledge it is not yet 'connected' to anything smart. I would want to have usage and pattern metrics, notification of trickle usage, notification of circuit tripping, and potentially even have the ability to shut off entire circuits if there's a problem.
It works and it's basically invisible once you've setup the Rooms in your Home (which is hardly "programming.") When I ask Siri to do something, it just happens but I often forget my HomePod is even there so just occasionally Siri will surprise me with an answer from there when I'm in range or forget to raise my wrist or the phone is locked.
It's very cool but I can see how it's not a killer feature for most given the cost barrier to entry c/w with the Amazon or Google spyware.
It's very cool but I can see how it's not a killer feature for most given the cost barrier to entry c/w with the Amazon or Google spyware.
Nail on the head. And the manufacturers just don’t get it.
All that’s needed is a universal API (not IFTTT, a proper one) and suddenly home automation will boom. Won’t happen though as the manufacturers are too greedy. Their idea of competition these days is giving customers no choice but to buy their products, not incentivizing their benefit over others. But it doesn’t matter because it’s only the customer losing out.
I cannot say for using Siri since she does not support any of my smart devices, but with Alexa it works like this:
Me: Alexas turn on bathroom light.
Alexa: Hears command, contacts her servers across the country via internet to figure out what I want her to do. Her servers tell her how to react. She then reacts based on her servers, but this is not always the correct reaction.
Alexa: Sends signal via my WiFi to my bathroom light to turn on. This assumes she got it correct, but she often does not get it correct, so the first two steps have to be repeated. It also assumes she can see the device, and that is often not the case, in that event the first two steps have to be repeated.
TP-Link LED Lightbulb: Contacts its servers across the country via internet to figure out what to do. Hopefully it works, but not always by any means.
Okay, so all this phoning home to servers requires time and good internet and WiFi connections as well as requiring the Alexa device and the TP-Link lightbulb to be working well. So much can go wrong here, and sure enough it often does. A little hiccup anywhere down the line results in an epic fail.
I'm interested to know about the 'Make a Purchase' bar in the graph -- specifically as it relates to Siri. What can you purchase using Siri? An Uber? Unless I'm mistaken, you can't purchase apps from either the iOS or Mac App Stores using Siri, right?
It's a bit hit and miss I've got a Echo and also 3 Sonos speakers with a stereo pair set as 'living room' and a stand alone set as 'kitchen' (its open plan so sound travels throughout the whole room) asking Alda to play music it can only do so through either the Living room or the kitchen. Not both at the same time. It's these sorts of niggling issues that puts me off buying other hone automation gadgets.
LMAO!!! Totally agree. Alexa is way too unpredictable to trust her with placing orders. I won't allow her anywhere near my orders. And she does screw up a lot of reminders and what not. It is just so much quicker to type in a reminder, calendar appointment etc. via my iPhone than arguing back and forth with a stupid device with the IQ of a moron. It is also quicker and safer to use a browser to place orders.
Yep I love tech but give me a break, I’m not telling Siri “Good night” or “I’m home” or anything like that.
Ha... These are two of my most used commands. Especially "Good night" which runs a routine that shuts down lights 1-X and turns on my masterbed room light along with the fan.
The "I'm home" is used a lot also if the geofencing hasn't kicked in.
90% of my home pod use is for controlling my smart home devices and also the only reason i bought it
I guess I'm most surprised by Bixby here... it sounds to be reviled. But it's surprising how little home automation tasks are called out, that's my #1 thing.
Help then please... how do I go back to white lights? More specifically, warm white, but not the warmest... the one step down from that... seriously, I always go into the app to go back to white...
Help then please... how do I go back to white lights? More specifically, warm white, but not the warmest... the one step down from that... seriously, I always go into the app to go back to white...
This is very obvious. What everyone does with speakers is ask a question/weather first. Many people also then use speakers as a bluetooth speaker (e.g. Amazon Echo), or just to ask it to play music. I'm surprised making purchases is higher than device control, but I'm not surprised its low in general. Most people want to see something before they purchase. Buying blindly is dangerous even if it's something basic. Like for dish soap, you want to make sure you get the right Dawn Soap scent, and seeing the picture at least allows you to confirm that.
People are not adopting in massive #'s and... there are significant privacy issues regarding Google and Amazon's approach. and the one with better privacy, in theory, is Apple and it's Siri. but that is a closed walled system which doesn't play nicely with non-Apple services like Spotify.
Honestly, I just want a speaker which can work. if i can talk to it and order it around. Give me privacy, not the BS datamining/spying that occurs at Amazon and Google.
Honestly, I just want a speaker which can work. if i can talk to it and order it around. Give me privacy, not the BS datamining/spying that occurs at Amazon and Google.
I use Insteon as well. While better than other protocols, it is not "zero" latency. The delay is noticeable for several of my modules. Smart Labs was acquired by some investment bankers last year and from what I see it appears to be dead as far as new HA products. My guess is they will sell off the IP and that will be it. Z-wave is the latest darling, not as good as Insteon in many respects, but with gen-5 devices security is finally acceptable.
Despite the limited accessories for Homekit, I do love it when i walk home from the pub and ask Siri on my watch to switch on the driveway light. She responds by saying 10-4 and the light comes instantly on. So neat
I usually just go to the Home App.
"Siri turn on the lights"....... "ok, here is what I found on the internet for turn up flights"
I grew up in a disused old logging cabin without electricity, plumbing etc, and along with the generation before me, was sold a jetsons vision of the future, that by adulthood our lives would resemble lives of ease and comfort in a space-age popular mechanics sci-fi future.
This stuff, alexa, homepod, does not even come close to delivering on a tiny fraction of that. I don't know what the hell derailed technological progress, but we're not living & working in space & under the sea, and we're not working 8 hours a week & relaxing and pursuing our passions while the robots take care of the rest. We went from leveraging the processing power of a pocket calculator and landing humans on the moon, to leveraging the resources of near-trillion dollar computer companies to barely be able to get 4 lights on in a room, and it only took a half a century... what a disaster.
This stuff, alexa, homepod, does not even come close to delivering on a tiny fraction of that. I don't know what the hell derailed technological progress, but we're not living & working in space & under the sea, and we're not working 8 hours a week & relaxing and pursuing our passions while the robots take care of the rest. We went from leveraging the processing power of a pocket calculator and landing humans on the moon, to leveraging the resources of near-trillion dollar computer companies to barely be able to get 4 lights on in a room, and it only took a half a century... what a disaster.
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