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Gizmodo: Don't Buy Anyone an Amazon Echo Speaker (gizmodo.com)
Adam Clark Estes, writing for Gizmodo: Three years ago, we said the Echo was "the most innovative device Amazon's made in years." That's still true. But you shouldn't buy one. You shouldn't buy one for your family. [...] Your family members do not need an Amazon Echo or a Google Home or an AppleHomePod or whatever that one smart speaker that uses Cortana is called. And you don't either. You only want one because every single gadget-slinger on the planet is marketing them to you as an all-new, life-changing device that could turn your kitchen into a futuristic voice-controlled paradise. You probably think that having an always-on microphone in your home is fine, and furthermore, tech companies only record and store snippets of your most intimate conversations. No big deal, you tell yourself. Actually, it is a big deal. The newfound privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can literally listen to everything you're saying represents a chilling new development in the age of internet-connected things. By buying a smart speaker, you're effectively paying money to let a huge tech company surveil you. And I don't mean to sound overly cynical about this, either. Amazon, Google, Apple, and others say that their devices aren't spying on unsuspecting families. The only problem is that these gadgets are both hackable and prone to bugs.
https://xkcd.com/1807/
I just got a google home when they went on sale a couple weeks ago.
I already had a chromecast and audio chromecast.
My kids, who don't have phones, now say "Hey Google, play Christmas music on the family room speaker" And it happens. "Goodmorning" and it tells me the weather and my commute time while I eat breakfast. "Add eggs to my shopping list" as I'm walking through the kitchen thinking about it. "Turn off the Christmas trees" as I walk upstairs to bed.
All of these tasks could be done with my phone. Most of them are much faster and convenient to just say. There are some things I still use my phone for- like picking specific radio stations or tv episodes to cast. It's been a fantastically useful tool.
I suppose the trade off is that I now have to refrain from planning my murders or insurrections in my kitchen.
No, I think his intelligence is set too low.