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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4097 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 9, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Does anyone have a recommendation on voice controls for smarthome things (e.g. Alexa, Google Home, etc) that are not designed to try to advertise to you? Currently I have a couple of Echo devices, but Amazon has been making Alexa steadily worse and worse. The app has ads inserted into your shopping list, and at least half the time the device will respond to a command with a "by the way, did you know about (other feature)" line.

Needless to say I want to replace my Echo devices since it's clear Amazon is more interested in advertising (to paying customers, no less) than it is in providing a user friendly service. But I'm also not sure if any of the competitors will be any better. So I'm hoping others here have experience and can make recommendations.

I used to work at a company that made voice assistants that didn't talk to the cloud and they worked better than Alexa et al believe it or not.

But unfortunately, the company got bought by Sonos for the tech and theirs does spy on you iirc.

All I can tell you is that what you're looking for is possible, but I don't know if anybody picked up the flag once we put it down.

I do know voice commands for local Home Assistant installs are lagging behind the rest of the system. If I'm up to date there are only a few prototypes with limited features: almond and the built-in "conversation". Great if you enjoy editing config files.

Personally I follow the "computers should be seen and not heard" rule, and wouldn't pay to have anyone's advertising bugs in my house. But I'm looking forward to having a local system I can yell "computer: do thing!" at.

In fact, I've been thinking about trying to start a home automation and security system thread here. Would anyone be interested? I'm putting a very basic camera setup in this winter.

I'd be interested. I'm thinking of putting in a camera system myself.

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