Comment on Amazon Alexa showing just how much they have embraced enshittification
Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
What’s the alternative? Is there actually a good voice assistant out there?
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.
Or when driving.
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.
I’ve been playing around with it, it’s ok for home stuff, but no on-device functions.
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”.
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.
Just found Dicio, it works so well, woah
OwOarchist@pawb.social 3 days ago
Open your music app yourself, select the song, and press play.
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 3 days ago
My SO just asks me to do it. Works pretty well for them.
binarytobis@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Turn on the radio
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Okay grandpa, let’s get you back to the senior center…
Estebiu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
It would be pretty usefull to be able to do that with a voice command, while driving. Way less risky. But sure