No, not that Google. I can’t function without that one.
I mean the voice thing.
Is there any application that is more convenient when using voice activation vs. a more traditional UI?
Sending weird texts to the wrong person is where we are? Or is this my bias against voice activated anything?
Can I get into my car and say: start navigation to John, start playlist “evening commute”? I tried programming Apples “shortcuts” but it seems they don’t work with proper music/navigation apps. Is life better on the Android side?
Is there a voice assistant that can help me bake a pie?
-OK Google: I’ve peeled the apples, now what?
Right now all I’m getting is a picture of an iPhone 11. Is this my weird pronunciation or is “AI” just not very usefull?
Voice recognition is still dodgy, a neat parlor trick when it works but nothing anyone should feel comfortable, say, entrusting their life to. Until that changes, your answer will be “Nope.” Unless of course your answer is being furnished by someone who markets AI or voice recognition. In that case the future is yesterday and you’re late to the party, but it’s nothing that can’t be put right if you’re willing to spend crazy amounts of money that are more reflective of your desire to be cool than the actual cost of delivering any such product that will actually work.
It’s sometimes handy when you’re driving and you can’t search for things. The issue tends to be that it produces lists unless the question is VERY specific. Something like “Ok Google, give me directions to the nearest McDonald’s” will give you exactly what you ask for. But asking it to give you the nearest place that recycles cardboard boxes is liable to bamboozle it a bit and have it return you a list of every recycling-related business within a five mile radius. Which might be good somewhere small, but in a large city it’s useless, as it doesn’t narrow it down at all.
And you can’t exclude things- saying something like “Where’s the second nearest McDonalds?” will bamboozle it as well. And it shouldn’t; the use case where a location is closed or inaccessible for some reason and you want to find the next closest one is not uncommon at all.
What I would love is to be able to ask questions with respect to a route- like “Is there a McDonalds on the way to the library?” or “What’s the nearest ice cream shop on the way to the library?” or “Is there an ice cream shop within a mile of the route to the library?” But it doesn’t seem to do that well.
Actually, I find it to be reasonable fast and very useful. The features you list off alone make it a nice addition to Android Auto but add radio station access, podcast selection, weather and many other features and I now will not consider a new car that does not support this app.
At home, it’s a lot easier to say Hey, Google, Play (my radio station) or Play (my podcast) than using dedicated hardware.
Before her death, I set up a multiple google home devices throughout the house with one of their phone numbers to allow my mother to call out “Hey Google, Call xxxx” from anywhere in the room, just in case. Sure, could have done that on a smart phone but no way I could have gotten her to that point. Was hard enough to get her using a flip phone properly.
I find the technology to be very useful. (hear that, google??? I’m saying the correct things, now let my wife go!!!)
I have a Google Home in the kitchen. Three main uses for me, and one trivial one:
“Ok Google, play my playlist/podcast/radio station”
“Ok Google, what is [Imperial measurement from recipe] in g/ml”
“Ok Google, how long will it take me to get from X to Y?”
All three of these accomplish in one sentence something that would take multiple keystrokes and sometimes several links to do via my smartphone. For the unit conversions, that’s particularly helpful as my hands may well be covered in ingredients.
The trivial use is that my pre-schooler can be entertained for at least 20 minutes with “Ok Google, what does [animal] sound like?”
It probably depends on the device. I have an LG G5 phone and when I say “OK Google” and give a command, it might take 10 seconds before the phone wakes up and Google assistant shows what I said, and starts to do it. Sometimes it doesn’t wake up at all. It’s not a new phone, but c’mon, is a three-year-old phone obsolete?
I use Google Home throughout my house. The majority of the lights in my house are Philips Hue and I have Chromecast set up for both my TVs. I use voice commands to turn lights on/off, to turn my TV on/off, to watch Netflix, and to listen to Spotify.
I also use Google Home to get directions, weather, unit conversions, some simple recipes, set timers, etc. Google Voice on my phone is used less often. I do use the ‘broadcast’ function to let my wife know when I’m on my way home or if I’ve sent her a text and she’s not responding I broadcast to let her know she has a message. I also use Google Voice while driving to start/end navigation and read/send text messages.
I don’t use the Google Voice on my phone much but the Google Home has become indispensable to the point where, if I’m at a hotel or staying with a friend, I miss the convenience.
Before her death, I set up a multiple google home devices throughout the house with one of their phone numbers to allow my mother to call out “Hey Google, Call xxxx” from anywhere in the room, just in case. Sure, could have done that on a smart phone but no way I could have gotten her to that point. Was hard enough to get her using a flip phone properly.
QUOTE]
I’ve never really looked into it but could I tie one of my parents cell phones into Google home? They have very old iphones. I guess what I’m asking is, does the phone have to be compatible, turned on, and relatively near the device like a bluetooth connection?
I’ve tried various devices and am amazed at how well they work … at times. (As a Computer Science prof I was around AI people a lot who kept promising amazing things soon and never delivered. Now that I’m out of the biz they finally did something. It merely takes a ton of computing cycles.)
But nothing ever became a habit. The only one that gets used regularly is the Echo Input which is cheap and plugs into the stereo. Mrs. FtG uses it to call up music to play.
I have an Echo Dash Wand. Push the button, ask a question, get an answer (maybe). Almost useful. But it eats batteries at a high rate for the little use it gets. It’s only supposed to be “on” when the button is pressed. (It supposedly can also scan barcodes for making a grocery list. Good luck with that.)
(These devices are often on sale for less than list. Check with camelcamelcamel.)
Like several others, I have Google Home. I love it.
“Hey Google, broadcast It’s time to eat.” Every other speaker in the house then plays my voice saying “It’s time to eat.”
“Hey Google, play Westworld on bedroom TV.” Westworld begins while I’m laying in bed, and turns on the TV if it is off. (I wish it could turn it off though… No luck there.). Episode starts, gets to intro/title sequence? “Hey Google, ahead 90 seconds.”
I have no use whatsoever for voice recognition on my phone, but at home? I absolutely love it.
I used to be able to say “OK Google, call X” while I was out driving, and as long as X was in my contacts, it would work properly. But earlier this year I had to replace my phone, and the newer software on it now requires an internet connection for voice recognition to work. Which I don’t have on my phone except when I’m at home on wifi. If I’m not driving, I’d rather just look at the phone and hit buttons anyway. Also the latest version of Google Maps can’t read out upcoming street names to me like the earlier version could, except when it has internet. So now when I’m offline all it can say is “turn left” or “turn right” and usually right at the very last fricken second. Thanks, Google.
I don’t believe so. It can use your phone’s contacts when running the Home app. I believe it can use a Pixel or other android phones, not sure. What you can do, however, is get a Google Voice phone number which pretty much turns the Home devices (in different rooms if you wish) into good quality speakerphones.
I took a few weeks for my mother to embrace the function but she finally starting using it as her primary phone as it was more convenient and easier for her to hear than the flip phone. The downside is that I could never get her phone number to associate with a name on caller ID.
She also warmed up to the other features such as weather, music and news.
I recently installed Alexa devices throughout my home. It’s obviously not at the point where you just talk to it in any normal way, it’s more along the lines of learning phrases and actions that work well. But for me it has already passed the point where the convenience and fun aspects of it do outweigh the frustrations, and that’s the point where I’m happy to buy in. It’s not like you’re committing yourself to a hardware format that might become obsolete, it’s software that constantly updates. It’s not really a polished product, but then it’s also not expensive. I think of it more as agreeing to participate in the beta-testing for the development process for human-AI interaction, and since Amazon are throwing vast amounts of R&D resources at it so I know it’s not a waste of time, I’m happy to play.
I hate talking to disembodied computer-generated voices in phone prompts, mostly on principle.
I just discovered my car has a navigation system that includes voice-activated destination entry, and by gum it actually works (though one time Bitchin’ Betty* kept insisting on trying to send me to the wrong place and I had to voice-enter the street address instead).
*our generic name for the female entity that gives directions and gets pissed off when you stop for gas (“Proceed to the route! Proceed to the route!”).
I don’t use them on principle. Passive listening devices that only promise very nicely that they won’t send data when they don’t hear the keywords. Except, they have a very high rate of passive self activation. Self activation that sends the data out to a server. To be logged, essentially, forever, because big data is hungry and demands all data. Data which has been leaked and may live on backup servers for an indefinite amount of time even after attempts at explicit deletion.
Like I’m not shaming you if you use it in spite of that, but for me it’s a security nightmare. Yes yes my phone is already doing that and targeting advertisements based on it and it’s technically even possible while turned off (though if the NSA is gunning for you any attempts at avoidance beyond the most radical probably aren’t gonna help you). It’s just, personally, not worth having a mediocre home assistant. I do sometimes turn the assistant back on to use my phone hands free for safety while driving.