Home Assistants

[EmilieT]

Hi everyone, 

Digital home assistants have become more and more sophisticated over the past few years, and an increasing number of companies are developping and releasing their own version of the smart devices. They can perform a wide range of tasks, help you with your day to day organisation and the overall control of your house. Their potential keeps on growing!

Do any of you guys use home assistants, such as Google Home or Alexa?

If you do use one, I'd love to know what benefits you find to these digital home assistants, and how you prefer to use them - whether it's through speakers, using the mini version of the device, or through your TV. What kind of things do you use them for, i.e. playing music, setting timers, checking the weather, turning your TV on, etc? What do you think the best, and most fun functions are? 

If you do not use one, is there any particular reason behind this choice? Do you have any reservations, or feedback on what home assistants can or cannot do that is stopping you from getting one?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this! 

[jonsie]

I have to say that I find Alexa to be a bit dumb with too many 'blonde' moments

[EmilieT]

@gmarkj 

Oh I see! If you do decide to go down that road, it'd be interesting to hear how you get on 

@jonsie 

Are you speaking from first-hand experience or from seeing videos/hearing stories? Also I'm wondering if you find this is in all those types of devices or mostly with Alexa? 

[jonsie]

I'm forever getting the response 'Sorry, I don't understand that" although she does seem to be able to find the weather back home.

[davethorp]

I have amazon echo speakers throughout my house

3 in the living room (2 regular echo speakers and an echo sub in a stereo setup), one in the kitchen and one in each of the bedrooms

Main uses are playing music (apple music or the radio), setting alarms and timers, controlling my central heating and lights (hive thermostat and lights) and occasionally playing trivia games

I'm normally an Apple fan but Siri and the homepod are much more limited than Echo and Alexa are (wouldn't be able to control my heating and lights from homepod as they are not homekit devices) not to mention I've been able to fill my house with echo speakers for not much more than the cost of one homepod

[Glory1]

Interesting reading this thread and what devices people have and what they use them for.

Now I don't have any of these, just Alexa on my phone and Kindle, as well as the Google Assistant on my phone.

I used Alexa on my phone and Kindle and the Google Assistant a couple of times, more out of curiousity than anything else. I prefer Google, if honest though I find it just as easy to let my stylus 'do the walking' to slightly misquote an ad of years ago for Yellow Pages.

To be fair, the Google Assistant was a touch quicker than my typing out what I wanted, and there were no 'typos' in my voice. But I still tap out my search requests rather than using either Alexa or the Google Assistant. But your uses and @TallTrees suggestions make me wonder if getting an Echo, of all the various tech mightn't be a bad idea after all.

[EmilieT]

@jonsie I can see how that could be frustrating  Apart from the weather, what else do you/would you use it for?

@davethorp That's quite a setup, sounds very useful as well I'm curious about the trivia games, it's the first I hear of that use; is it a functionality of Alexa to ask you some random questions or do you use it to get answers to trivia questions from board games?

@Glory1 Voice command and voice typing isn't something I'm using much either, although this might be just a matter of habit. Can you think of other uses, similar to the ones @TallTrees mentioned, that you'd also find personally very useful?? 

[Glory1]

@EmilieT I do agree with you about habit when thinking about using Alexa or Google Assistant on my phone. I'm just so used to going straight to search and tapping out my question that it's only when the answer is coming up that I think I could have spoken that question, and as said no 'typos' in my voice. You just fall back on what your used to so often. I'm not a technophobe, so that's definitely not the problem. Just the case of 'old habits die hard' for me, I think. 

@TallTrees' suggestions are excellent, particularly being able to dial emergency numbers in case of an accident at home or a fire. Living alone myself I'd find that particularly beneficial. Can't think of anything else along similar lines, though. But the 2 would be very useful for anyone living alone or even if not living alone. Family members often panic in an emergency and run around like the proverbial chickens. An Echo or Alexa wouldn't have that problem!

[davethorp]

@EmilieT the trivia quizzes are through Alexa skills you can add to Alexa devices. The main ones I play are Question of the Day which as implied asks you a daily multiple choice question awarding points based on the difficulty of the question.

The other one I play is Pointless which is based on the popular BBC quiz and features 3 questions a day along with the voices of Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman

[Marjo]

I'd love to have a home assistant, the Echo for example. I live alone and even though I do talk to my cats sometimes  it's not the same as speaking to someone(or something) that actually answers back. So I think I'd enjoy an occasional chat to fill the silence. I also like the idea of searching something on the internet just by asking out loud. If there's any features that would help learning a new language (especially pronunciation) that would be interesting!

Have you tried any Alexa "easter eggs" guys? See a list here for example - apparently it's quite funny although I haven't personally tried.

[jonsie]

I'll try that when I get home.

My carers do most of the home assistance and I'm hoping to train my wife when I get home. Fat chance. ..!