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Your discussion on the Harmony Universal Remotes has me curious about Alexa.

Why do I want one? What are the perks? What can it really do? Are there negatives?

So, we have a Google Home + Alexa.

We use both, we have Prime, and we subscribe to Google Music. Google, as you might expect, is about 100x smarter than Alexa. Alexa loves to tell me what she cannot do. Google is very good at answering questions, but not quite as good as Google search. We keep the Google Home in the kitchen to answer questions, and it can tell us about our schedules (Google Calendar), etc.

They both do simple things like "set a timer for 30 minutes," etc. Both will tell you about the weather, or what time it is.

Honestly, until the Harmony integration, the Alexa was pretty worthless. If I hadn't won it in a raffle, I wouldn't own it. I probably used it more yesterday than since we got over the "Alexa, tell me a joke" stage.

It can mute my TV, control all the devices (including Fire TV). "Alexa, pause the movie" and it does. "Alexa, unmute the TV" and it does. "Alexa, watch Fire TV" and it fires everything up, using the Harmony, and sets the TV to the write inputs, etc. So far, home automation via voice seems to be its best feature, to me.

Google Home can apparently do all the Harmony stuff to: https://support.myharmony.com/en-my/har ... -assistant

Both devices can also do phone calls now, if you want that. Haven't used it on either.

Home sounds like the better product.

Wondering if I should wait and see if I get one at Dell EMC World next year.

They are both nice to have... but I wouldn't say either one is required yet.

I haven't seen the need for one yet.

Integrating the TV remotes makes me think I will look at it again... but still skeptical as to my personal practicality.

Yeah, if I didn't already own it, I wouldn't buy it for these features yet. But if I had more home automation (lights, etc), I might.

I have Arlo cameras to provide video of the porch, etc. Right now, those integrate into the Alexa, uh, camera/tablet version, but no other device. Supposedly coming to the Fire TV soon, which makes sense SINCE IT'S CONNECT TO A GIANT FUCKING SCREEN.

Shame I cannot have Amazon's devices with Google's AI + services

I'm assuming she accidentally triggered a keyword to call their friend or send them a message.

I mean, we accidentally trigger google a fair amount of the time. Alexa was worse about accidents.

So the Alexa innocently listens to everything being said all the time and just misinterpreted what it heard?

Oh, that's fair. Let me now buy a bug...I mean an Alexa for every room in my house!

Leisher wrote: So the Alexa innocently listens to everything being said all the time and just misinterpreted what it heard?

That's how these things work. But yeah, chances of things like this go up. And if your Alexa is quiet, and you don't hear it over other things, you won't hear the confirmation prompts.

Mine will occasionally say "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that request" while I'm playing games with voice (D&D, League, etc) and she thinks I'm talking to her.

Pretty much anything that sound like "Alexa" will trigger her.

"Alex, uh, casts Magic Missile. . . ."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand what you are asking for"

There was something in an Archer episode that would always trigger her as well.

Lastly, you can mute the microphones. But that kind of gimps her pretty hard.

"Ok, casting Magic Missile."

Then really fucked up things start happening in the family room.

Someone ask an Alexa to roll for initiative and see what happens.

Can it do dice rolls?

Troy wrote: Someone ask an Alexa to roll for initiative and see what happens.

Can it do dice rolls?

Google just rolled an 8. I hope BB didn't die.

But yes, you can ask google to roll an arbitrarily large die.

But you cannot roll a 0-sided die.

ME: "Alexa. Roll for initiative."
ALEXA: "Rocks fall. Everyone dies."

Cakedaddy wrote: ME: "Alexa. Roll for initiative."
ALEXA: "Rocks fall. Everyone dies."

I want that to be real so bad. Is it?