←back to thread

The era of open voice assistants

(www.home-assistant.io)
878 points _Microft | 2 comments | 20 Dec 24 00:29 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
jfim ◴[20 Dec 24 03:33 UTC] No.42468047[source]▶
That's a pretty timely release considering Alexa and the Google assistant devices seem to have plateaued or are on the decline.
replies(1): >>42468486 #
IgorPartola ◴[20 Dec 24 05:18 UTC] No.42468486[source]▶
Curious what you mean by that.
replies(5): >>42468541 #>>42469172 #>>42470796 #>>42472284 #>>42474211 #
oaththrowaway ◴[20 Dec 24 05:32 UTC] No.42468541[source]▶
For me the Alexa devices I own have gotten worse. Can't do simple things (setting a timer used to be instant, now it takes 10-15 seconds of thinking assuming it heard properly), playing music is a joke (will try to play through Deezer even though I disaled that integration months ago, and then will default to Amazon Music instead of Spotify which is set as the default).

And then even simple skills can't understand what I'm asking 60% of the time. The first maybe 2 years after launch it seemed like everything worked pretty good but since then it's been a frustrating decline.

Currently they are relagated to timers and music, and it can't even manage those half the time anymore.

replies(4): >>42468954 #>>42469393 #>>42470886 #>>42471275 #
1. IgorPartola ◴[20 Dec 24 13:25 UTC] No.42470886[source]▶
That’s interesting because I have a bunch of Echos of various types in my house and my timers and answers are instant. Is it possible your internet connection is wonky or you have a slow DNS server or congested Wi-Fi? I don’t have the absolute newest devices but the one in my bedroom is the very original Echo that I got during their preview stage, the one in my kitchen is the Echo Show 7” and I have a bunch of puck ones and spherical ones (don’t remember the generations) around the house. One did die at one point after years of use and got replaced but it was in my kids room so I suspect it was subject to some abuse.
replies(1): >>42473079 #
2. creeble ◴[20 Dec 24 17:38 UTC] No.42473079[source]▶
I too get pretty consistent response and answers from Alexa these days. There has been some vague decline in the quality of answers (I think sometime back they removed the ability to ask for Wikipedia data), but have no trouble with timers and the few linked wemo switches I have.

I’m also the author of an Alexa skill for a music player (basic “transport” control mostly) that i use every day, and it still works the same as it always did.

Occasionally I’ll get some freakout answer or abject failure to reply, but it’s fairly rare. I did notice it was down for a whole weekend once; that’s surely related to staffing or priorities.