Since84
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To infinity and beyond!
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Post by Since84 on Jan 9, 2018 3:51:42 GMT -8
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Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
Posts: 3,933
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Post by Since84 on Jan 9, 2018 6:25:05 GMT -8
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chinacat
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AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,431
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Post by chinacat on Jan 9, 2018 7:50:42 GMT -8
I am always astounded when parents want to blame others for the behavior of their children. Our sons were born in 1980 and 1984, so they were on their own when the first iPhone was released, but the equivalent when they were teens was video games. We monitored their play time, whether at home or at friends' homes, and made sure that schoolwork and chores got the proper attention. I do understand that mobile phone use is much harder to police, but if the effects on other areas of their lives is evident, then there is a simple solution: either the important things get taken care of or the phone use is restricted.
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Post by gtrplyr on Jan 9, 2018 8:20:34 GMT -8
In yesterday's thread there were a few mentions of Alexa vs. Siri , I thought I'd share my experience with Alexa.
As some of you may know we built a new house about 18 months ago .... during the build process I was very aware of designing the house to be a "Smart Home". We did a EV charger in the garage, the whole house was wired for Ethernet, Outdoor cameras were wired and finally solar was installed a few months ago. During the entire process I looked for Smart Home products that were tied into the Apple eco system and had very little luck. We ended up with :
Nest - Temperature Rachio- Irrigation Control 4- Whole house automation Chamberlin- Garage door Sonos- Interior speakers
ALL of which I wanted to control using some Apple product but no luck so I went with an Echo Dot (didn't need the speakers). Alexa has "skills" which connect the products and so far I've been able to integrate all of the above products to control them using my voice with various results. While it does work well what I've found is Alexa is VERY unforgiving with syntax , you have to say things in a certain way or it simply does not understand your intentions .... which frustrates my wife to no end .... and truthfully I've told Alexa off a few times as well !!!
I'm amazed at how well Alexa responds when you say the name "Alexa" ... very responsive and if you use the proper verbiage it will respond fairly well but I'm really hoping that Home Pod will be a nice replacement. I will be buying one as soon as it comes out and I'm really hoping that Apple works out compatibility with the above devices ... if they won't play ball ... BUY THE DAMN COMPANY !!!!!
There are problems with Alexa and Apple products .... Sonos recently added voice recognition via Alexa BUT Alexa will NOT let you play music from iTunes or Apple Music . You can use Spotify or Amazon music of course but I like Apple music. It's not a bug ...it's Amazon pushing their weight around which is no big deal with this but it should concern Apple as the ease of use will ultimately make some switch to Amazon music and this also sets a very bad precedent. I've been saying for years how Apple TV was such an important product because it put the Apple Eco system into the home ... I even emailed Steve Jobs about it (no reply). Apple needs to make Home Pod a priority and they need a take no prisoners attitude with regards to home automation ..... home automation and the car environment HAVE to be linked. I should be able to start music in my house and it should know when I get in my car and push whatever I'm listening to right over. It should know when I pull in my driveway and turn off my car to start that music when I walk in (assuming I'm the only one at home ... configurable of course) . These things are not hard ..... they just have to find a way to get into the auto environment .... either through manufactures (hard) or a easy add on device for auto .... They should BUY Control4 (home automation) and they can control a lot through that.
I drive up .... my car recognizes I'm home , opens the garage door, unlocks the entry, turns on the lights, sets the house to my desired temp, turns on music or TV and cooks me a dinner .... ok bag the last one but I want the other stuff!
I have to believe they have people working on this but I've seen little development ..... and in fact they could have purchased Nest and chose not to, would have cost a lot less than Beats and ultimately would have been a better buy IMHO.
Ok .... discuss.
Cheers to the longs
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Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
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Post by Since84 on Jan 9, 2018 8:44:46 GMT -8
In yesterday's thread there were a few mentions of Alexa vs. Siri , I thought I'd share my experience with Alexa. ... Ok .... discuss. Cheers to the longs I think you covered it quite well. I have only used Siri on my phone. It has a horrible time recognizing what I'm saying, even when I e-n-u-n-c-i-a-t-e carefully. Frankly it has never worked reasonably enough to become any sort of 'go to' for me. Perhaps my family/friends names are too complex for her to understand. Perhaps I'm too erudite for her to understand. Perhaps I have marbles in my mouth. I have given up trying. Periodically I will make an attempt, like when I'm driving and need to text hands free. Inevitably it fails, reminding my why I don't use Siri. Though I can pronounce 'v', I feel like Chekov in Star Trek. Never mind.
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Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
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Post by Since84 on Jan 9, 2018 10:08:16 GMT -8
Nice to see GREEN AAPL.
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Post by PikesPique on Jan 9, 2018 10:09:54 GMT -8
Vhere are the nuclear wessels?
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Post by incorrigible on Jan 9, 2018 11:26:45 GMT -8
I am always astounded when parents want to blame others for the behavior of their children. Our sons were born in 1980 and 1984, so they were on their own when the first iPhone was released, but the equivalent when they were teens was video games. We monitored their play time, whether at home or at friends' homes, and made sure that schoolwork and chores got the proper attention. I do understand that mobile phone use is much harder to police, but if the effects on other areas of their lives is evident, then there is a simple solution: either the important things get taken care of or the phone use is restricted. My kids are all adults now but when they were young teens, I had a router with parental controls built in to limit what they could access and what times as well. When we were having issues with one of them who was literally obsessed and on all night (text, IM chat, and myspace) via a neighbors unsecured wifi, we made her bring her phone and laptop into our room before bedtime to prevent her from using it. In the end, she thanked us for it. It's the parent's responsibility. Not Apple's.
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Post by longsince98 on Jan 9, 2018 12:08:54 GMT -8
It's disappointing that Alexa seems to have taken over and Siri still sucks. I'm honestly dumbfounded at how little progress Siri has made after so long. It's still a very, very dumb assistant good for little more than setting timers and conducting very simple queries. My brief experience using an Echo (only for music selection, mind you) was far better. I'm not at all optimistic about HomePod because although the audio will be great, Siri is terrible, the cost is high and a lot of the people who want a smart speaker now already have one. No, Apple isn't doomed. They're doing great in all their product lines, but Siri has been a massive disappointment since launch - over SIX years ago. For what it’s worth, in case you’ve not seen it: “Apple: Siri’s grade improved in 8 months from D+ to C. In the same 800-question exam last month, Google Home got a B-, Amazon’s Alexa a D and Microsoft’s Cortana an F.” www.ped30.com/2018/01/09/apple-siris-grade-improved/
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4aapl
Moderator
Posts: 3,655
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Post by 4aapl on Jan 9, 2018 14:06:29 GMT -8
As some of you may know we built a new house about 18 months ago .... during the build process I was very aware of designing the house to be a "Smart Home". We did a EV charger in the garage, the whole house was wired for Ethernet, Outdoor cameras were wired and finally solar was installed a few months ago. During the entire process I looked for Smart Home products that were tied into the Apple eco system and had very little luck. We ended up with : Nest - Temperature Rachio- Irrigation Control 4- Whole house automation Chamberlin- Garage door Sonos- Interior speakers ALL of which I wanted to control using some Apple product but no luck so I went with an Echo Dot .... They should BUY Control4 (home automation) and they can control a lot through that. I drive up .... my car recognizes I'm home , opens the garage door, unlocks the entry, turns on the lights, sets the house to my desired temp, turns on music or TV and cooks me a dinner .... ok bag the last one but I want the other stuff! I have to believe they have people working on this but I've seen little development I've been intrigued with home automation for about 20 years, from a little before reading one of the first Mac Addict magazines that had a bunch of info on doing this stuff, with things like x-10, or bee Z or a couple others at the time. But on a lot of it, I haven't really seen a good use, for us. We installed a internet thermostat 7 years ago, just after they started having some reasonable solutions (a year before that there were some ~$500 solutions). It's been great for being able to turn down the temp, and then kick it back up hours before coming home. Ours is one of the 3M/Filtrete ones from Home Depot for $100. We don't need one that tries to learn our schedule, especially since we normally heat with wood when we are at home. The irrigation looks tempting, especially if it ties in sensors with forecasting. But I lost interest before finding the right combination for us. The thing is, most other parts of what have been offered so far don't interest me much. I would like to install a set of 4 to 8 cameras with recording, but haven't found the right setup, and have hesitations about some of the units out there. But I could see adding some automated blinds that work with the system, along with a car sensor in the driveway. Lights seem tempting, but most things I could do better by just installing motion sensors. OTOH, some of these things you don't really use until you change your ways. My neighbor bought us two LED shop lights that have motion sensors on them. It has worked great in the side shed, where I only need light at certain times, and was using a wireless switch since it wasn't wired for a switch. But with the second, we decided that I just rewired a bunch of lights to two switches last year, that we didn't really need a motion sensor based light. In theory it would be really handy when our hands were full. But we already have to deal with the door knob, are used to the current functionality, and would have to add a plug somewhere to use this new one. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that this has been on the fringe for years, but still hasn't gone mainstream. I think this is because different people have different needs, and there haven't been enough things shown to be really useful. How many people really want to be able to unlock their front door, or open their garage, over the internet. While there are some people managing to put together systems that work for them and help them out, I still feel it's not quite there yet. And I think Apple is waiting until they have some compelling whole system solution. At least that's my take. And truthfully we did the same sort of thing when thinking about a "home server" while I was there on the server team. People had always talked about making a server for home, and some of us ran things like that. But when our boss gave us a week to come up with a compelling use case that we could then present to Steve, we just really couldn't put one together, 16 years ago or so. A lot has changed since then, and I'd like to think we could make a case for one now, but it would still take some thought to make it what a mainstream user would actually see as useful.
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bud777
fire starter
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Post by bud777 on Jan 9, 2018 14:48:21 GMT -8
My experience with home automation have been even more limited. I cannot remember if I have shared this before, but confession is good for the soul so I am going to risk repeating it. My first involvement was a Roomba. While this is not exactly AI, I thought that anything that reduces my wife's vacuuming reduces my chances of having to vacuum so I got her one for Christmas the first year they were out. It worked as advertised and everything would have been fine, but I just didn't know when to quit. I am not going to say my wife likes to be in control because I am not allowed to say things like that, but I knew that whatever the device did, she would be silently telling herself that it should have done it differently. Where I got this insight, i have no idea. She was fascinated by the idea of an intelligent automatic vacuum, so I set it up. As it started I said "It recognizes voice commands. You tell it where to go and it follows. But it will take a little while to learn your voice"
So the Roomba takes off headed for the wall and she says "Turn left" It hits the wall, backs up and turns left (50-50 chance right?) This happens about 4 more times with it sometimes "obeying" and sometimes "learning". Then I lost it, and she figured it out. It all worked out in the end. The Roomba has died somewhere in a closet. We haven't heard from it in years. And I am enjoying vacuuming.
The second experiment came when, in an epiphany, I realized my purpose in life. As a husband and father, my role in the world is to turn off lights. This let to the brilliant idea that if I replaced all the light switches in the house with ones that have motion sensors, I would have more time for vacuuming. I had this vision of walking down the hall with the lights coming on before me and turning off behind me. To test things out, I rewired the switch in a spare guest room. Everything worked just fine. When you left the room, there was a short delay and the overhead light turned off. When you entered the room, the light came on. It worked great until you rolled over in bed.
Some of us may not be qualified to live in a smart home.
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Post by gtrplyr on Jan 9, 2018 15:13:56 GMT -8
I'm really enjoying many aspects of automation ... yes it does make it easier to be lazy but imagine you are sitting on the couch watching a movie and your wife says ... "it's starting to get a little chilly" .... I just say "Alexa , turn temperature in Family space to 74 degrees" .... done. It's also great at night when we go to bed I can grab my phone and turn off any lights around the house , including the porch and landscape lighting. 4aapl, the Rachio irrigation is beyond fantastic .... it adjusts watering depending on your weather and then sends you a notice. This morning it is raining in Southern CA , Rachio sent me a text saying it was skipping the watering schedule for today because of the forecast. Before when we were having rains I would turn off the irrigation system and half the time I would forget to turn it on again ... when the grass started dying a little light bulb would go off reminding me I turned it off! Not only does it know when it's raining but it also does "seasonal adjustments" to accommodate for changing weather and adjusts watering times accordingly. It's simply fantastic and I couldn't imagine going back to a traditional timing system. I can also water zones just by telling Alexa to do so but I find I only use it to show off the features of the house when we have company come over .... I don't have any magic tricks and my jokes suck (well that's what my wife and kids tell me) so this helps me entertain guests!
The nest is also great because it's got motion sensors that help it determine if anyone is home .. if not it will automatically set itself to whatever temps you set for "away" mode. So much energy gets wasted heating/cooling a empty house .... I really believe that device will pay for itself fairly quickly. Of course you could just remember to adjust every time you leave the house but most people don't, I know I never did before getting the Nests.
Control4 lets me push a single button and have multiple things happen ... I can push "house sleep" and the Nests automatically go to whatever temp I've preset, all the interior lights turn off, patio light turns on, front door locks.... pretty cool. A LOT more can be done as it's really limited only by one's imagination .....
Anyway , my quest to become George Jetson continues ! I certainly hope Apple gets involved as I really think this will catch on.
Cheers to the longs ...
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Post by tuffett on Jan 9, 2018 20:04:27 GMT -8
It's disappointing that Alexa seems to have taken over and Siri still sucks. I'm honestly dumbfounded at how little progress Siri has made after so long. It's still a very, very dumb assistant good for little more than setting timers and conducting very simple queries. My brief experience using an Echo (only for music selection, mind you) was far better. I'm not at all optimistic about HomePod because although the audio will be great, Siri is terrible, the cost is high and a lot of the people who want a smart speaker now already have one. No, Apple isn't doomed. They're doing great in all their product lines, but Siri has been a massive disappointment since launch - over SIX years ago. For what it’s worth, in case you’ve not seen it: “Apple: Siri’s grade improved in 8 months from D+ to C. In the same 800-question exam last month, Google Home got a B-, Amazon’s Alexa a D and Microsoft’s Cortana an F.” www.ped30.com/2018/01/09/apple-siris-grade-improved/I'll just say this. In my real world experience, voice recognition has improved significantly, but contextual awareness and any sort of "intelligence" is garbage and always has been. "Hey Siri" doesn't work well when there's any sort of background noise, compared to Alexa which works extremely well with music playing.
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