What's On Center Stage at the CES Tech Show? Your Voice (apnews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Some of the most popular gadgets over the holiday season were smart speakers with digital assistants from Amazon and Google. Apple is coming out with its own speaker this year; Microsoft and Samsung have partnered on another. As the annual CES gadget show kicks off in Las Vegas this week, manufacturers are expected to unveil even more voice-controlled devices -- speakers and beyond -- as Amazon and Google make their digital assistants available on a wider array of products. If these prove popular, you'll soon be able to order around much more of your house, including kitchen appliances, washing machines and other devices.

Comments

Order?

[nospam007]

"If these prove popular, you'll soon be able to order around much more of your house, including kitchen appliances, washing machines and other devices."

IOW an AW.

Artificial Wife.

Re:Order?

[ShanghaiBill]

Artificial Wife.

No, that is completely backwards. With these new devices, you tell THEM what to do.

Internet connected, always on microphones.

[RedK]

A good idea for sure. What could go wrong ?

best part

[AndyKron]

The best part about all of this is life is finite and I don't have any children that will be subjected to this continuing madness. I am the answer to the Drake equation question.

How does this all work in practice

[SuperKendall]

A home full of voice controlled devices seems kind of nightmarish. I see so much potential for overlapping responses, especially with Amazon adding Alexa into so many devices... is your Echo going to respond? Your microwave? Your toilet?

Or maybe it will be "OK toilet, flush now", "OK microwave, heat for 30 seconds". But then they lose the branding so I don't see that happening.

Seems like it's way better to have a voice assistant hub and then a lot of devices that can do things based on that...

  I'm sure as appliance makers get into the game they will treat security around your microphone with even more disdain than Google, making for a bad time.

Re:How does this all work in practice

[known_coward_69]

I have an Echo and you have to be specific in what you say. The skill developer codes it into the skill. You can't just say Alexa vacuum. you have to specify the brand of vacuum you have just like irobot or whoever coded it.

same with all their other thousand skills. it's kind of annoying for anything past the simple stuff like play music or get the news/weather. you have to remember what to say

Re:How does this all work in practice

[KingMotley]

I have 1 echo and 5 dots. They have similar functionality where if more than one hears it, then (usually) only one responds. It works well, but it's not perfect.

Music works the same way. Playing music on multiple devices are perfectly in sync.

As for the skills, that depends a lot on who the skill writer is. Nest is probably the best of the ones I've found. Philips is pretty bad. But almost all of them you can rename the device, so you don't have to call the roomba "roomba". I don't call my hue lights "philips hue color lamp 1", I call it "bathroom lights". It definitely could be improved however.

Too Many People In Too Small A Space

[mallyn]

Too many people in too small of a space.

Lines for food, airline, hotel, are too long.

Takes about 1/2 hour to get a taxi.

Takes about 1 hour for taxi ride from Venetion to the convention center

Los Vegas is not a good walking city.

The convention staff act too much like cowboys treating us like cattle. The only thing missing are the whips.

Lots of stuff that we will never see later.

And finally, the unwashed masses!

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery.

[jabberw0k]

and now "Speakers" are microphones.

Re:War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery.

[stabiesoft]

Speakers were always microphones, they are just a diaphragm with a coil.