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Slashdot Asks: Which Smart Speaker Do You Prefer?
Every tech company wants to produce a smart speaker these days. Earlier this month, Apple finally launched the HomePod, a smart speaker that uses Siri to answer basic questions and play music via Apple Music. In December, Google released their premium Google Home Max speaker that uses the Google Assistant and Google's wealth of knowledge to play music, answer questions, set reminders, and so on. It may be the most advanced smart speaker on the market as it has the hardware capable of playing high fidelity audio, and a digital assistant that can perform over one million actions. There is, however, no denying the appeal of the Amazon Echo, which is powered by the Alexa digital assistant. Since it first made its debut in late 2014, it has had more time to develop its skill set. Amazon says Alexa controls "tens of millions of devices," including Windows 10 PCs.
A new report from The Guardian, citing the industry site MusicAlly, says that Spotify is working on a line of "category defining" hardware products "akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles." The streaming music company has posted an ad for a senior product manager to "define the product requirements for internet connected hardware [and] the software that powers it." With Spotify looking to launch a smart speaker in the not-too-distant-future, the decision to purchase a smart speaker has become all the more difficult. Do you own a smart speaker? If so, which device do you own and why? Do you see a clear winner, or can they all satisfy your basic needs?
A new report from The Guardian, citing the industry site MusicAlly, says that Spotify is working on a line of "category defining" hardware products "akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles." The streaming music company has posted an ad for a senior product manager to "define the product requirements for internet connected hardware [and] the software that powers it." With Spotify looking to launch a smart speaker in the not-too-distant-future, the decision to purchase a smart speaker has become all the more difficult. Do you own a smart speaker? If so, which device do you own and why? Do you see a clear winner, or can they all satisfy your basic needs?
Don't need speakers that eavesdrop on me. If I want that I'll use a microphone.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Why the hell would I want something so Orwellian in my home? Cellphones are bad enough.
Personally, I am a fan of Neil deGrasse Tyson.
And..if I want to listen to music at home, I'll play it on my more than capable stereo/AV set up through real speakers, amps etc...and get the full pleasure out of the situation.
Ok, sure, I might have to get up...and go over to configure the playlist, but hell, I have to get up from time to time to get a beer anyway, so, what's the problem?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
'nuff said.
-Chris
I'm not as stupid as I look. I refuse to let Google, Amazon, Apple, or anyone put a smart speaker into my home without a FISA warrant. Christ, are people really dumb enough to pay any of these dick companies to spy on them?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Seriously, I'd prefer all my output devices be as stupid as digitally possible.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The decision is as easy as it always was: Don't!
Seriously, after talking about the dangers of eavesdropping and the big brother, having the computer's camera covered, who would possibly pay money to have a permanently-connected microphone installed in their dwelling?
You may think, you can turn it off, but you can not be certain. If the criminals and intelligence agencies manage to break into your computer, why would they not break into your "smart speaker"? Police too may find it much easier to gain the cooperation of the device's manufacturer to listen on you, than to get a warrant and then wire your house without you noticing.
Just say no and control your music the old-fashioned way — as we all did only a few years ago.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I like the technology and theoretically the sound quality of the HomePod and trust Apple more than other companies not to do anything with the audio from the device, and to treat security seriously enough it probably will not be hacked.
I like Alexa because it would be possibly useful for quick orders of random things that I don't need soon but end up forgetting to order. I also like they've opened the skill development SDK.
Google stuff I generally do not trust enough and it doesn't have enough benefits over the other two options to warrant consideration.
A last option I'm seriously considering though, is just getting a really nice set of speakers to put wherever I'd put a smart speaker, and then buy a box to make them AirPlay compatible (if they did not come that way already). Smart speakers are just over that line for me of a convenience I'm not sure I really care about, also why I do not have a smart thermostat yet (because I know how to program the existing older one to be about the temp I want at various times). The new set of nice compact speakers would probably be a lot cheaper than a stereo pair of smart speakers...
I'll probably try to hear all of the options in person somewhere before I make a choice on this one, I'm really particular with speakers as I don't care as much about about the low end as many people seem to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... it's the smart microphone that is always listening the one I don't like.
It's just a matter of time until somebody gains unauthorized access to the microphone on one of those devices and starts recording every sound in your house. No way they are getting my secret lasagna sauce recipe.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
Keep your surveillance devices out of my house.
Can we mod articles troll? Asking THIS audience THAT question? Come on!
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
There's an OSS variant (probably several) which aren't given due attention in the article.
The Mycroft project currently listens locally for the watch word, and aggregates ALL of the subsequent queries as audio through a single source to the online engines like Google, Wolfram or others. This anonymizes a lot of what the engines could learn about individual users.
Their next stage is to expand on the local processing even more, so they will only be sharing plain text to the online engine third parties. This version is due in the first half of this year.
For me, the benefit is simple local Linux-based Python-based skill development. When my kid was young I would make a family computer into a sort of daily-schedule-keeper, announcing the daily tasks like bathtime or bedtime. I would ssh into the machine when my kid started having "conversations" with the computer. So now I can rebuild a little bit of that in my own personalized smart speaker.
[
"Ms Slaker, I hear you're having sex. Your partner's browsing history indicates he likes his women bound and gagged while he spanks them with a riding crop."
I don't want to voluntarily "bug" my house
Do you have a cellphone? If so, then worrying about Alexa monitoring you is silly. A cellphone has far greater capability to track and eavesdrop.
I am considering backing the Mycroft 2. I am not about to pipe all my audio to Google, Apple, Amazon, et al., but this seems like a fun toy. I passed on the v1 because it used Google's STT, but this one apparently has 8 different STT options, one of which is Mozilla-developed and can run on local hardware.
According to Fast Company, their business model is framed around selling voice services to major companies who are similarly wary about sending client data to Big Tech firms. (The for-example is Land Rover-Jaguar.) This seems reasonable, and it provides incentive for Mycroft (which is open source; in part? in full? I can't quite tell) to continue to play honest or risk the cash from the privacy-conscious corporate partners that they hoped to attract.
I'm not totally sold, yet. I'd be interested in /. views one way or the other, or anecdotes from anyone who has a v1.
I have both Echo and Google Home. Though, because of the cost, I have Echo Dots in every room, and just an Echo and one Google Home in the living room.
I have many Smart Home devices, mostly Z-Wave and Zigbee (SmartThings controller, Philips Hue bulbs/light strips, Harmony hub & Kodi). By far the Echo's have worked better at controlling my smart home, but Google Home is (very very) slowly catching up, and does have a "few" features that make it better in general, but the price (per room) means it's not enough of an edge to switch out the Echo Dots. Google Home generally wins hands-down with a voice search, Alexa relies on Bing, so it's got both cables tied behind it's back.
The Amazon Echo still has a way to go on music control, unit grouping, and some other functionality, but it's been leading the pack since it's introduction, and nothing is close to it as yet. Hopefully, Amazon and Google will get over their spat, so that I can get Google Search instead of Bing.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
Your purchase history is yours to share. Every conversation you have, too -- that's your choice. But please, do warn me when/if I visit your house, so I know that no talk is private there.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
It's been done but needs work I'm sure. A raspberry pi and Mycroft is just a recipe /.ers love. https://mycroft.ai/
I have no plans on get a smart speaker or make one. I'm not that worried about privacy. I just don't see a real benefit from having one. I like my terminal when using a computer. I like my wireless keyboard/mouse combo for controlling the computer attached to my TV. It's a bit more raw and I prefer it that way.
Because I'm monitoring traffic on the relevant VLAN. It's pretty easy to tell what's going where. Unless you think that magic spying is happening on my network that I can't see for some reason.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Pfft. This is Slashdot. Who in the hell has sex with a partner?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
i am sure its legal somewhere to marry your doll.
There's something to be said for not getting out of my nice warm bed to shut off the lights in the rest of my house. Or, for that matter, telling the house to turn up the heat.
I have one that does that. "Darling, can you turn the lights out when you come to bed? And perhaps turn the heat up a bit?"
I don't want to talk to my speaker(s). I don't want or need for my speakers to order pizza for me or to tell me the capital of Montana. I don't need or want my speakers listening to me and sending data back to some monolithic infotech company who thinks what it's learned about me through eavesdropping on what takes place in my home is fair game to be sold to its business partners. All I want my speakers to do is faithfully reproduce the music I send to them. That's it.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This is the type of question you'd ask on a news for nerds site. A tech site where people would be interested in having gadgets.
Slashdot hasn't been that since back when Linux got USB support. That was the pinnacle of all technological advancement. It's now a site for dissing all mobile phones, being proud of keeping your old battery replaceable phone working, celebrating Apple supporting ancient iPhones, praising laptops that are 7+ years old, questioning why anyone would wear a watch, and wondering why wireless headphones even exist.
In what world did the submitter and more importantly the editor who approved the submission think they'd get any kind of a positive response to this question on THIS site.
It's like 1984, except people actually pay for the pleasure of having Big Brother in their home. If the NSA hasn't infiltrated these devices, it's only a matter of time. Even if the NSA couldn't get to these things, it's evil enough that these companies are working to have profiles on huge swaths of the population so they can monetize it in whatever way possible.
It's crazy that there are people on here defending these things. If the /. community isn't sufficiently paranoid, then society really is doomed to complacency.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
What are they going to find? That I talk to my cats?
This is the type of attitude that undermines privacy for those who actually need/want it.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Mycroft can work offline with KaldiSTT and PocketSphinx
Twinstiq, game news
I had a quick look at Mycroft and it looks as if it needs to phone home to some third-party server. If I were to build such a thing, the primary requirement would be no network connection from the process that did speech recognition - it should trigger other actions in other processes that might connect to the network, but no process should be both network connected and able to access my microphone.
CMU Sphinx makes it easy to write something that listens for phrases and performs actions based on them.
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