worse? What did I miss - it was never good to start with. Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant - all they were ever used for was set timers and play songs.
AI is the only hope to make them marginally more useful than they are.
Location-aware reminders is almost literally all I want from an assistant these days. “Remind me of x next time I’m at y, or by z time at the latest.” Is this an impossible task? I can imagine how I would code it, but maybe I’m missing something.
I think they just haven’t figured out how to monetize it, really. I agree that it’s totally codable. I could do it with tasker if it were my job, IE, I was paid to and had 8h a day to do it.
Where’s the monetization in alarms, though? Or time-based reminders? Surely those are no more lucrative than what I’m asking for, yet they’ve existed for years.
Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.
I think if you realize youve been cooking rice for about 7 minutes you will definitely think in terms of time LEFT and not at what time o’clock it should be ready. “Oh it’s been cooking for about 7 minutes then it needs another 8”
Ok I’ve tossed this comment around in my head a few times, and I can’t fathom why you bothered to make it. What the fuck is the difference between an alarm that goes off at 9:15 and a timer that goes off at 9:15?
Timer counts down time and can be paused; an alarm goes off at particular time and can only be snoozed after it goes off. Alarms take into account timezones and time changes, timers are absolute and independent of “clock” time
My wife cannot set timers on our Nest Hub. It just doesn’t understand her command. I’ll say the exact same sentence right after and it’ll work. We did reset her voice profile, remove/add her back, checked all settings possible, nothing worked. Such a decent piece of hardware (speakers are actually pretty good, and the screen is decent and bright) that’s ruined by shitty software. It’s been unplugged for the last month and I didn’t even care. It’s going on Marketplace next week lol
I would have thought the same thing if it wasn’t that it used to work just fine, then one day it stopped working for her. One day, she tried setting alarms for dinner like she did every day before that, and it refused to comply, going “I don’t understand” or something like that.
I just find it shocking that anyone ever used it. It’s completely useless. I ask it to do something as simple as turning on a light. Sometimes it can’t connect to the server (which is a completely stupid necessity). Sometimes it turns on the light. Sometimes it says it can’t connect to the service that turns the fucking light on. Sometimes the little lights come on to indicate it’s thinking and then just… doesn’t do anything. Sometimes it will turn on the light with just a “bing”. Sometimes it will say “okay turning on the light”.
It’s completely unpredictable at best while completing the most mundane tasks.
Sometimes it can’t connect to the server (which is a completely stupid necessity).
That’s where it does the voice processing. The only processing it does on-device is the wake word and taking commands. Actually figuring out what you mean is done in The Cloud. Doing that on-device would not only make the devices significantly more expensive, but they would also rapidly become outdated.
The rest of your complaints are valid and I’ve experienced them all myself to boot.
Doing that on-device would not only make the devices significantly more expensive, but they would also rapidly become outdated.
Uhhhh no. For one that technology already exists on home assistant and can run on a raspberry pi. For another, Android devices already do that with apps like GBoard and Google Recorder.
you’re talking about devices that are like, 5-10x the price of the nest mini.
Devices you already have and carry with you everywhere…?
I mean if it’s really about money they could at least offer a “hub” of sorts as an optional accessory that other devices can talk to for local processing for a significantly improved experience, and if people don’t want to pay for it they can just not.
worse? What did I miss - it was never good to start with. Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant - all they were ever used for was set timers and play songs.
AI is the only hope to make them marginally more useful than they are.
x
Location-aware reminders is almost literally all I want from an assistant these days. “Remind me of x next time I’m at y, or by z time at the latest.” Is this an impossible task? I can imagine how I would code it, but maybe I’m missing something.
I think they just haven’t figured out how to monetize it, really. I agree that it’s totally codable. I could do it with tasker if it were my job, IE, I was paid to and had 8h a day to do it.
Where’s the monetization in alarms, though? Or time-based reminders? Surely those are no more lucrative than what I’m asking for, yet they’ve existed for years.
Fair point. Maybe they use the data for research?
Without alarms and timers, they don’t sell the phone, probably.
This broke for me a few months ago. It just randomly… won’t start, despite saying otherwise.
“Set a timer that goes off at 9:15 am”
*It proceeds to lecture me on the difference between an alarm and a timer, also, sets neither. *
Ah, I think the wording confuses it.
Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
Yeah I understand, I got the lecture from Siri.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.
I think if you realize youve been cooking rice for about 7 minutes you will definitely think in terms of time LEFT and not at what time o’clock it should be ready. “Oh it’s been cooking for about 7 minutes then it needs another 8”
Ok google, make it stop
lol
Well they are different, so why would it set one if you didn’t specify what do you mean exactly
Ok I’ve tossed this comment around in my head a few times, and I can’t fathom why you bothered to make it. What the fuck is the difference between an alarm that goes off at 9:15 and a timer that goes off at 9:15?
The setup.
Timer counts down time and can be paused; an alarm goes off at particular time and can only be snoozed after it goes off. Alarms take into account timezones and time changes, timers are absolute and independent of “clock” time
Yeah in theory but not if I tell it when to set the alarm off. It’s just useless pedantry. Like your virtual assistant is a redditor or something
My wife cannot set timers on our Nest Hub. It just doesn’t understand her command. I’ll say the exact same sentence right after and it’ll work. We did reset her voice profile, remove/add her back, checked all settings possible, nothing worked. Such a decent piece of hardware (speakers are actually pretty good, and the screen is decent and bright) that’s ruined by shitty software. It’s been unplugged for the last month and I didn’t even care. It’s going on Marketplace next week lol
My wife has similar issues. I think it was just trained on male voices.
I would have thought the same thing if it wasn’t that it used to work just fine, then one day it stopped working for her. One day, she tried setting alarms for dinner like she did every day before that, and it refused to comply, going “I don’t understand” or something like that.
My female roommate has similar issues. If she deepens her voice it works.
My family has our own accent. I don’t know why, we just do. We don’t sound like anyone I knew growing up. Voice control has never worked for me.
I think this happened to me once when the assistant was trying to use another clock app than the native one.
I just find it shocking that anyone ever used it. It’s completely useless. I ask it to do something as simple as turning on a light. Sometimes it can’t connect to the server (which is a completely stupid necessity). Sometimes it turns on the light. Sometimes it says it can’t connect to the service that turns the fucking light on. Sometimes the little lights come on to indicate it’s thinking and then just… doesn’t do anything. Sometimes it will turn on the light with just a “bing”. Sometimes it will say “okay turning on the light”.
It’s completely unpredictable at best while completing the most mundane tasks.
That’s where it does the voice processing. The only processing it does on-device is the wake word and taking commands. Actually figuring out what you mean is done in The Cloud. Doing that on-device would not only make the devices significantly more expensive, but they would also rapidly become outdated.
The rest of your complaints are valid and I’ve experienced them all myself to boot.
Yes that’s the stupid part.
Uhhhh no. For one that technology already exists on home assistant and can run on a raspberry pi. For another, Android devices already do that with apps like GBoard and Google Recorder.
You can get a Pi that can do voice to text and NLP, maybe it can even do it with reasonable speed.
You can get a Pi that is $35.
But you won’t get a Pi that is $35 which can do voice to text and NLP with reasonable speed.
When you say “Android devices” you’re talking about devices that are like, 5-10x the price of the nest mini. Of course they’re capable.
Devices you already have and carry with you everywhere…?
I mean if it’s really about money they could at least offer a “hub” of sorts as an optional accessory that other devices can talk to for local processing for a significantly improved experience, and if people don’t want to pay for it they can just not.