alexa, play despacito

Do you use a home assistant such as Google or Alexa or Siri? How do you use it and how do you feel about it? (especially, how do you feel about it if you've actively chosen to not use one?)

I know my Mom wanted to buy me a Google Home when it was on sale one year but wanted me to check it out first. I choose not to get one because I didn't see a reason for one really. Why ask Google when I can just reach over and pick up my phone and look something up. I didn't think I would use it very much because I thought it was awkward to talk to something like that. I don't even like using talk to text because I feel silly.

I live in a really small apartment and those services don't do my chores, anyway. I also barely do anything that would make them actually useful. I even rarely switch the lights on because it's still pretty brigth outside most of the time. And for turning on the radio I can just do that myself, as well.

So I don't see the point.

I don't have one and I don't see that much of a use for it. I'd probably forget about it.

I remember hearing one of my former teachers had a student named Alexa and they had to call her "toast" or something because the alexa thing would start listening when they said her name

Yes, I use my Google Home mini to adjust my bedroom's smart lights. faster than me pulling out my phone and opening an app

I constantly use Google Home to turn on and off or adjust lights, ask about weather and temperature or word definitions, or just to check the time lmao. I also ask her to set alarms and to turn on music when I know what exact song I want and think she'll understand me or when I just vaguely want a genre and know she'll turn on some related playlist. I've gotten so used to her over the past months when working from home a lot, that I sometimes do a double-take when I'm away from home and need to remind myself that she isn't there haha. When I leave home I ask her to turn off all lights the last thing I do, and when I return the first thing I do is ask her to turn them on again. Convenient~

Really freaky sometimes when someone on the telly or a cat's meow manages to activate her though.

I told our alexa to "stop cursing". I don't even remember why I asked her this but I think I was joking.

Now she actually will not curse. It turned on explicit filter and so many music choices can't be played. I can't figure out how to navigate the app and turn this off.

lmao. I don't think our Google lady has the ability for such profanity.

no, but that's because i'm far too paranoid about my voice being collected/stored in google servers. idk why that in particular bothers me when like, everything else that google collects about me doesn't. maybe that seems a liiiitle too invasive for my tastes. perhaps.

When Spotify was giving out the free Google Home devices last year I got one but I'll be honest I've done very little with it. They're kind of fun to use but I don't think I could ever get used to asking questions and stuff out loud to a device rather than just pulling out my phone and googling as my go to

colours said:

no, but that's because i'm far too paranoid about my voice being collected/stored in google servers. idk why that in particular bothers me when like, everything else that google collects about me doesn't. maybe that seems a liiiitle too invasive for my tastes. perhaps.

Click to expand...

Pretty much this exactly. But then I'm the sort of person that denies mic permissions and covers my webcam, so... yeah!

I do have wifi lights, but I control them via an app :)

Well, I do that too. But I'm lazy enough to allow google to always listen in to my home ahah. Funny, really.

I do not use smart devices. Personally, I don't like that they're constantly listening to me, and I don't see the point in them most of the time. Sure they can do some cool things but that's hardly a reason for me to get one. I don't even keep webcams plugged up and I've disabled my microphone on my Android. Even then, I know that I'm not totally free from privacy breaches, which I hate, but in this day and age it's pretty difficult to get completely away from it all.

Also why in the actual hell do people need smart FRIDGES??? It keeps your food cold and you can sometimes get water and ice out of it. What sort of business does a fridge have to be doing literally anything else I just don't get it

actually i currently have a amazon tv box (idr wut its called off the top of my head) and alexa is built into it and i would use it on rare occasions to turn my tv on or off but thats about it. since mostly everything i do is so close to me i can just do it myself, i feel old school to the new school, but not old school enough to be considered old school. IDK could just be me. Maybe if i lived alone and had fancy lights in my room and all that but i dont.

I have a Home and Nest Mini currently, although I'm using just the Nest as an upgrade to the Home since I got it for so cheap. I primarily use it to control the lights in the basement because all the lights down there are on drawstrings, so I decided to install some smart lights when I was moving myself into the basement, that way when it's dark I can just use my voice to activate the lights rather than stumble around in the dark trying to find the strings and risk tripping on stuff. It's also quite useful for checking the weather in the morning when I can't look out the basement windows since they are covered to prevent light from coming in so I can get ready for work and know what's going on.

Louis fonsi despacito 🎶

I don't find the need to pay for something to turn my lights on/off for me or dictate the weather or whatever. I can do all that stuff myself.

Heck, if I could, I'd disable Google Assistant on my phone.

I'm no luddite - I have an iPhone 12 that tracks my eyes - but I hate the idea of always-listening devices. At least I can turn off Siri, but I'm dreading trying to finally get a big TV when I move out of my parents' place because they'll all have always-on mics.
I bought an old-style Chromecast when they announced the voice one and I'm debating getting backups for when they inevitably discontinue it (although they could always just kill the software too). Ironic that Apple's big privacy stance somehow allows Apple TV+ only on the ones that listen to you.
Plus as I live in a rural area where our broadband can go down to sub-1mb speeds for no reason and take an entire pregnancy to resolve (this has happened with 3 different providers this decade) I'm wary of making my ability to use the abundant, reliable electricity in my house to light it, heat it etc. reliant on the less reliable wi-fi.