Topic: Amazon Echo and Google Home

[micah]

Do you guys have either?

I actually have both.  Each has pros and cons but overall both are awesome.  I've got my Echo Dot downstairs and hooked up to my studio speakers. I mostly use it for listening to music. 

The Google Home is upstairs and we have a chromecast on the TV so the kids use it mostly to watch youTube videos and listen to music.

Its fairly adorable to hear my 4 year old say, "Ok Google! Play 'Set it all free' from the 'Sing' soundtrack on Living room TV" without any intervention or help.  It can be annoying that they have that much control but it also gives them freedom and entertains them for big chunks of time when I'm trying to do something else. 

We don't have anything to automate which I know is where all the real power is for these things, but so far, just using them for music and youtube is pretty cool.

[micah]

It doesn't record all the time, it just listens all the time for its wake word.  If you watch your network traffic, you'll see it only sends data once its been activated*.

I've read about that case, and they're just trying to get the recording on the off chance that there was helpful background noise while it was activated. 

*The conspiracy theorist in me realizes that the NSA/CIA/FBI/MLB could hack it to always record or wake on other keyword triggers and/or intercept and decrypt the data.  Of course, that would constitute wire tapping which of obviously requires a court order 

To your point, the San Bernadeno iPhone case is the perfect example of even good security being crackable by the government when they want it.

[ober]

I don't have either.  Not really even sure what I'd use them for.  I barely use Siri or other voice activated stuff that I currently have.  My house isn't really all that 'smart' and even if it was I'm not crazy about just randomly talking to a device to get it to trigger something.  I'd rather have an app on my phone to push buttons.  But maybe that's me.  Any chance I get to use the buttons over voice on the phone, I do.  I just find it awkward to talk to an automated system.

[Jake]

I'm sort of with Ethic. I will resist this type of "smart" electronics until I am forced to use them.

But I do use my cars voice recognition all the time for receiving and sending text messages and other things. it is pretty sweet.

And I do have a wifi enabled thermostat at the cabin -

[ober]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... they already have you.   

[KnuckleBuckett]

Meh.  I don't really care.  If the big bad government wants to listen to our conversations...whatever.  Listening to us would have to be the least best spent tax payer money in history.  Our single act of final rebellion would, I suppose, be boring the NSA to death.

Voice controlled things in my life are limited to two remote controls Comcast and Roku and my Samsung S6.  Sometimes my wife.

[Jake]

I don't think it would be the government listening, I think it would be big business

[ober]

Sometimes my wife.

[micah]

I built my first "Alexa Skill" last night.  If you're not familiar with how the echo and dot work, you can add "skills" which are custom programmed micro-apps that alexa can listen for.  Its how you hook up spotify or your smart devices or log into your NPR one account.  Mine is pretty simple, it just lets you find out what the school lunch at my kids school is.  If you say, "Alexa, ask enfield street school what's for lunch" it will read todays menu.  You can also say, "whats for lunch tomorrow" or "whats for lunch on Friday" or "whats for lunch on May 16th" and it will tell you.

Right now its pretty basic, but I'd like to add more features too it. My wife is VERY involved in the school system stuff, especially PTO and there are tons of information points that the school does a poor job of making accessable beyond sending home flyers in the mail.  If there's interest and buy-in, I'd love to have info like "whats going on  this week" and it tells you that its teacher appreciation week and school spirit day on Friday and the book fair starts this week" etc. 

Anyway, the Minimal Viable Product just provides school lunch info and hasn't been approved yet in the amazon "skill" store, but I'm still feeling pretty accomplished.