Google Home or Amazon Echo?

[Craig234]

My issue is that I'm finding Amazon evil in too many ways to encourage giving them money - though I have an echo and a dot (and a kindle fire hdx and a kindle e-reader and a fire stick).

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I guaran-fuckin-tee that regardless of if it's amazon echo or google, everyone that buys this shit puts it up in the living room or wherever - never to be touched or interacted with again after an initial 2 weeks of playing with it.

Things like this are the perfect example of wasteful consumer spending.

 

[Craig234]

I guaran-fuckin-tee that regardless of if it's amazon echo or google, everyone that buys this shit puts it up in the living room or wherever - never to be touched or interacted with again after an initial 2 weeks of playing with it.

Things like this are the perfect example of wasteful consumer spending.

That's how I felt when I got it. Like the Kindle tablet. What the heck do I do with it?

Then I found two things (in addition to music radio, NPR news, etc.).

One, is "Echo, play progressive voices radio" to listen to the Thom Hartmann program. Use it daily.

Two, is access to my Amazon music. I'd get some MP3 albums, and then occassionally, navigate a web site to be able to play a song - rarely.

Now, it's as easy as "Echo, play" music. And now, even moreso. For $4/month, I have over 20 million songs any time.

Couple that with some good headphones I got, and an amp connected to an echo dot and my PC for gaming, and oh boy.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I guaran-fuckin-tee that regardless of if it's amazon echo or google, everyone that buys this shit puts it up in the living room or wherever - never to be touched or interacted with again after an initial 2 weeks of playing with it.

Things like this are the perfect example of wasteful consumer spending.

I use my Google Home every day to turn off my tv and turn lights on and off by voice. My wife uses it too for the same reasons.

 

[agent00f]

I didn't read the thread but generally speaking Google is way ahead of the game in terms of technical expertise/competence (in machine learning research), matched possibly only by MS/R. In contrast, Amazon specifically has mgmt issues around turning talent into complex products.

This implies there's a higher ceiling for their implementation, which will play out in the next couple years.

 

[DCal430]

One big are of advantage Google Home has over echo us Music. You can play music over multiple home devices simultaneously, echo can't do this.

 

[MaxDepth]

Internet traffic is one thing but IoT traffic is very specific and can searched on, captured, redirected, stopped, etc.

I get that people are used to the idea that "free" means comes with advertisements, but that's the overly simplistic view and while still applicable in many cases, is now not the point. Command and Control is the point. We think evil robot overloads when it is really a new avenue for thug/mob revenue. It's not that I will push ads down to Alexa for when I say, "Alexa, I'm hungry" and it replies, "We have sun chips on sale today and we can have it delivered in four hours." That may be the future for Amazon, but the real problem is that there is no security between the two points. Even a script kiddie could put a man-in-the-middle attack to where they lock you out of the role and then insert ransomware on all your devices, especially computing devices, door locks and devices. Basically an intruder can make it so that you have to cut power your house and remove all the IoT devices. Has that happened already? I don't know. Is it possible? Yes.

What has happened is that many IoT devices have been zombified (Actually, I prefer the term, "enslaved" because it describes the actions better) to the point that these devices have been harnessed to provide device-based points for concerted DDOS attacks. The owners do not even know their devices have been turned into slaves spewing data focused at a particular site. They may blame the Internet for being slow until someone points to a webtraffic site showing their outbound communication is saturated.

The device makers (the current breed of startups, that is) don't care that they are supplying devices that have mile-wide security holes. As a startup they have only two ideas in their pockets and it's all come from someone's MBA playbook (most likely Stanford or Haas/Berkley).

QUICK ASIDE: At first there was a rush to patent anything and everything with the formula "I do this normal thing" + "on the Internet." But in the past five years, most of these patents have been struck down as you cannot create a new thing by just saying "on the Internet." So it is a losing avenue to just rush out something "on the Internet" and expect everyone to pay you royalties forever.

So with the patent avenue struck down, or a painful long term battle (and let's face it most startups long term plan ends at the time of production and, or sale) ahead, people still wanted to get in the startup game as a quick way to score big bucks before you're 25. And that's the two ideas that are still panning gold. Number one is have a device that is IoT whether or not it is useful now. Just the idea of product
'X' that can be controlled from your phone still draws investment dollars. So now you find people looking at everything in their apartment/house, going 'hmmm, I wonder if I put IoT on it..." So you get the right person from the EE school who can put together a SoC and attach it to product 'X.' Viola, a new business venture.

But now that space is becoming crowded with the devices, so what makes yours unique? People actually using it. So you spend enough to get a help desk support team together to make the device more user friendly because...second idea, you now start collecting user data. Now you've got tracking and trending data, you have perhaps new unexpected use cases but at the end, real user data. At this point you say, yeah, targeted ads. Perhaps but the real point means that these startup companies, the people vested, now have their pivot. Which in startup speak means, an exit strategy. These folks don't want to be running help desks, they want to be rich now. They want to go the clubs and events as rockstars, they don't want the drudgery of actually maintaining a company. So now this data, as a slice of user experience, becomes an asset. This is Nest. This is Wink. This is what most likely will happen to Ecobee. Your user data becomes important to companies that don't have that slice of your life yet.

And this whole time, we not talked about communication security or sanctity of your data. It all comes down the very key point when you put an IoT device in your home, you have to ask the Internet for permission to use your house.And you do so through open channels.

I get your concern, but my response is "OK, say they're collecting all this data...what would they DO with it?" 99.9% of people's Internet traffic is most likely things like posting memes, complaining about politics, asking your spouse what they want for dinner, etc. All of this recorded data gets lost in the crowd, and it's only really useful for figuring out trends. These trends come in the form of targeted advertising...which doesn't really both me (it's how these companies make income to give away free services).

Yes, I know, there's been cases of directed attacks on people based on data collected by companies. But, looking at the amount of data out there, these cases are actually very rare.

If they were using collected data for something like ethnic cleansing or military interrogation, sure, there would be outrage. That's not going to happen though.

 

[FelixDeCat]

^ Thank you MaxDepth. This is why I have privacy concerns. I wonder if encrypting the data with https would help any. You would think a large company like Google would at least do that much.

 

[MaxDepth]

VPN. But a real working VPN that includes encrypted data from application to endpoint.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm a fan of Atmel and Raspberry PI. AKA DIY. For remote access, VPN. In fact even my VPN is restricted to my work's IP only. I used to leave VPN open but after heartbleed I decided it may not be something safe to leave wide open as an exploit of that nature might come up again at some point.

 

[spacejamz]

just installed a pair of these which work with Alexa...

https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Smart-Thermostat-Touchscreen-Amazon/dp/B00FLZEQH2

pretty sweet to control the both thermostat with voice commands (have a dot in my master bedroom, home office and living room)...

 

[MaxDepth]

Thanks, spacejamz.

However, this is yet another device that needs Internet access for most of its features. And no talk of security, just trust us, we have everything under control.

 

[TwiceOver]

That's the same combo I use. So far it has been rock solid. I do wish the skill was a little more robust. I wouldn't mind asking "Alexa, what is the thermostat set at?" or "Alexa, what is the indoor temperature".

Some day maybe. If Alexa could just get that information from Smart Things I'd be happy also.

 

[nakedfrog]

How often do you people change your thermostat setting?

 

[TwiceOver]

How often do you people change your thermostat setting?

I'm from the north, my wife from the south. So, often.

It also helps when I want to do a big swing one way or another. "Alexa, set the thermostat to 60" if the schedule is odd or I forgot to enter it for the week. Really helpful.

 

[Red Squirrel]

How often do you people change your thermostat setting?

Mine mostly changes itself. I just tell it what to do ahead of time once I get my work schedule. Or if I decide I'm too hot/cold then I can override it. Not the prettiest app as I wanted to make it nice later and just never bothered, but it's functional.

 

[poofyhairguy]

How often do you people change your thermostat setting?

It's nice to be able to ask the Google Home what the upstairs AC is set to from downstairs, and to change it if needed.

Favorite thing by far with the Google Home is device control. We use it to control lights daily, and I use it to turn off the tv when my wife leaves it on. "Ok Google turn off the tv" beats ever thinking about pulling out my phone or finding the remote. That and Chromecast Audio control are worth the price.

 

[slag]

I guaran-fuckin-tee that regardless of if it's amazon echo or google, everyone that buys this shit puts it up in the living room or wherever - never to be touched or interacted with again after an initial 2 weeks of playing with it.

Things like this are the perfect example of wasteful consumer spending.

I have 3 and use them daily. You're wrong.

 

[MaxDepth]

I wonder...
Since we are replacing most of the filament bulbs in the house with LEDs (the "warmth" is about the same but the LEDs are shining brighter), I shouldn't have to worry about power surges burning out the bulbs, right? Flipping an old light bulb off and on repeatedly would increase the chances of breaking the filament in the rapid charging, loss.

So if the LEDs are much less prone to this issue, then we could have lights coming on/off when a person enters and leaves a room. You'd still want lights on certain parts of the house when night/dusk approaches, but some rooms would not need lighting unless someone was in the room. So if that's true then using something akin to an Xbox Kinect in each room that triggers a sizable body presence. (As in, please turn on the lights when a fly or grasshopper is in a room.

So the best place for this sensor? Or, should I rely on a mesh of smaller devices? Or for funsies, just tag everyone who enters the house with an RFID tag. That would be a hoot.

 

[DCal430]

It's nice to be able to ask the Google Home what the upstairs AC is set to from downstairs, and to change it if needed.

Favorite thing by far with the Google Home is device control. We use it to control lights daily, and I use it to turn off the tv when my wife leaves it on. "Ok Google turn off the tv" beats ever thinking about pulling out my phone or finding the remote. That and Chromecast Audio control are worth the price.

Yes it is great. I do something similar. I say "OK Google turn On TV". It turns on the living room TV and dims the light in the Living room to very low. When I say turn off TV it turns the TV off and brightens the light.

 

[slag]

Last week, in the middle of the night, our master bedroom light came on at full brightness. Woke us up, we couldn't figure out what happened. Before we had gone to sleep, we had it dimmed to 5% but it came on full brightness around 3 am. I got up in a daze, turned the switch off, and went back to sleep. None of the other lights in the house were on. Oddest thing. Glitch or something I guess, but man, it sucked.

 

[DCal430]

Last week, in the middle of the night, our master bedroom light came on at full brightness. Woke us up, we couldn't figure out what happened. Before we had gone to sleep, we had it dimmed to 5% but it came on full brightness around 3 am. I got up in a daze, turned the switch off, and went back to sleep. None of the other lights in the house were on. Oddest thing. Glitch or something I guess, but man, it sucked.

Are you using smart dimmer switches or smart bulbs like the Hue?

 

[MaxDepth]

Thank heavens it was just your lights and not the smoke detectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY

 

[Rumpltzer]

I received an Echo as a gift/prize from work. I wasn't sure I'd use it much, but I do ask it about the news and to play music almost daily. I wish it was better at answering questions (Google would probably be better at this).

I'd love to use it to turn off lights and stuff like that, but I don't like the way it's implemented yet (too bulky, too expensive), so I'm waiting on it.

I use the Echo a lot more than I thought I would.

 

[Craig234]

I'd like to see a celebrity named "Aleksa" just to mess with people.