Amazon Alexa

“The new AI powered Alexa beta basically can't do egg timer, music, or light switch duties as reliably as the old Alexa”

“it's super convenient to use a voice prompt to start/stop timers while cooking”

“Alexa might be more respectful of user data.”

“Something Alexa has been able to do for what 5 years?”

“The lights can be activated by voice and that's pretty nice to have.”

“I have an old alexa and a paper calendar we literally write on for our family stuff.”

“Amazon's customer-facing software has always been quite terrible across the board IME, even before LLM coding. The Alexa app, for example, is awful”

“you yell, "Alexa, set a 30-minute timer!"”

“Amazon and I guess Siri's original design was completely undiscoverable. Both had limited vocabulary and actions you could take.”

“The problem with Alexa is that by the time it appeared anywhere other than Echo devices, it was already deeply enshittified.”

“Voice data in the Amazon cloud is well-defended.”

“I forgot people already be yelling Alexa/Siri/Google.”

“Since Amazon took (and as far as I know still takes) voice privacy incredibly seriously”

“Alexa having access to my Amazon order history means I can just say "order a new water filter for my fridge" and the correct item shows up the next day.”

“I embraced AI to let my elders control their home and they love being in control”

“a temperature sensor that I found available in the Alexa speaker that I already had on the night stand”

“Old competent non paid Alexa was good for timers as well, the rest of the platforms a turd”

“having alexa control the bedroom lights while changing diapers”

“Alexa usually gets the job done and I don't need to look at my phone.”

“we'll just use an app on our phones to turn off the light in the bedroom, or perhaps request out loud for Alexa to do so”

“conversational assistants generally being largely superfluous for a lot of people including myself”

“introducing non-deterministic behavior into a device I primarily use to help with timekeeping and control lights is nothing but a regression”

“The new Alexa powered by an LLM is objectively better that previous Alexa in a few ways.”

“if they'd only practised customer obsession like Amazon used to (still?) preach, and not stuff their products with ads”

“Which just leaves Alexa. Not enough meat to make a meal like this out of, I think.”

“Next thing you know, they're going to add Alexa support before Assistant/Gemini.”

“is way more convenient than checking 14 light switches around my home”

“When it tries to upsell Prime subscriptions into even more Amazon subscriptions I always interrupt it”

“I have eight and have never bought one. Having worked there I actually trust the security more than before I worked there.”

“Alexa and other voice assistants, yada yada, were all ventures looking for something as big as, say, the rise of mobile, and they all failed”

“They offer a lot of convenience if you want voice control and home automation and they're fairly affordable”

“my Alexa isn't going to give google a map of everywhere I travel”

“Google home / Alexa on the cheap end”

“They're rarely funny but usually competent, unlike other AIs in my experience.”

“Amazon still has more work to do with making their tool-use calls bullet proof”

“has gotten amazing at answering questions, setting timers, telling me the weather, etc., but would I ever pay a subscription for it? Absolutely not.”

“Amazon updated my old Echo dots with Alexa+ beta, and it's pretty good.”

“but when it comes to things that really matter like spending money autonomously, it completely falls flat”

“the capabilities and reliability of both Alexa and Google’s voice assistant have regressed once they moved to an LLM based system”

“Alexa is in the same boat. Compared to old-fashioned finger-and-screen interfaces, maybe voice simply isn't a great way to interact with computers”