And it just keeps getting worse.

  • Baphomet_The_Blasphemer@lemmy.world
    5·
    22 hours ago

    I’ve had several Alexas scattered around my house for years now. Seems everytime there’s a new update they function worse. Literally considering getting rid if them at this point.

  • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
    14·
    1 day ago

    7 years ago, my google home rebelled against me. That was the first and last time I think I ever tried to use it to make any sort of list.

    Screenshot of packing list. Item 1 aloe Vera. Item 2 did you hear me.

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 day ago

      Some people can’t use keyboards due to mobility reasons. Voice assistants are not bad as an idea, it’s the shitty companies that make them.

  • stoly@lemmy.world
    9·
    2 days ago

    I am surprised at how often I will do something like “Play ‘The Apple Orchard in Saghmosavanq’ by Tigran Hamasyan” and I get back “Now playing Christina Applegate”. It’s like AI latches on to they biggest keyword it can detect and focuses on that even if it violates part of the search parameters.

    • 4am@lemmy.zip
      4·
      1 day ago

      LLMs are just a phone autocorrect with a phone the size of a small town

  • JelleWho@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 day ago

    I have the problem with Google Assistant in Dutch that I asked for “speel muziek x” and it just starts to spel the words.

    I’ve been moving to Music Assistant with nodes that use Nabu, so all local and it actually tries to do what I asked it for

      • binarytobis@lemmy.world
        4·
        1 day ago

        I’ve only ever witnessed people using “digital assistants” to play music and make grocery lists. Both of those things are so trivial that I wouldn’t spend any time or money solving them, and it’s not even easier their way. The number of times I’ve heard someone say “Alexa. STOP. <Repeated command phrase in increasing volume>!”

        Definitely not enough of a tradeoff to wiretap your own house.

    • Denjin@feddit.uk
      13·
      2 days ago

      It actually takes more effort to ask a machine to do something for you than just doing most of the things you can ask them to do.

      Useful for the disabled and elderly or those with other mobility issues, for everyone else they’re a waste of time that spies on you and sells your data.

    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      8·
      2 days ago

      No, but if you want a voice assistant that you can tinker with but without expectations, I’ve been enjoying the Home Assistant Voice Preview (preview here refers to it not being consumer ready, a beta or similar).

      It does need a Home Assistant setup first, it’s not a stand alone speaker.

        • Dave@lemmy.nz
          3·
          1 day ago

          It does all the basics. Can play music via jellyfin, spotify or any of the supported Music Assistant sources (preferably plug in better speakers). Can set timers. I have it announce various reminders (put the recycling/rubbish bin out, etc).

          One thing it can do that I don’t think other smart speakers can is proactive things. When the room gets cold, I have it say “It’s getting cold in here, would you like to turn on the heating?”, then it listens for a response and you can reply yes/no.

          I’ve also been playing with connecting it with frigate events, such as “I can see Grandma on the doorbell camera”, or “I can see your Ariya on the driveway camera”. That needs some infrastructure though 😅

          • Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            2·
            1 day ago

            Thats cool. Maybe my experience has been tainted by the fact that I run piper/whisper on the server’s cpu, and by consequence, it’s slow as fuck.

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
              2·
              1 day ago

              Oh I’m using Home Assistant Cloud as I worked out day 1 there’s no chance of it recognising my voice. I would like to switch to local processing when it gets good enough though.