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Amazon Echo. Basically Siri for your home 2.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
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Continued from because http://forums.macnn.com/89/macnn-lou...iri-your-home/ is old and unbumpable.
I had an Echo Dot for Christmas. Anyone else had an Echo / Dot / Google Home from Santa? I've got a soundboard speaker for the TV coming tomorrow, it has bluetooth, so that's the HiFi / radio situation sorted. Today I've mostly been saying stupid things about pod bay doors, dead parrots and Chuck Norris. The news report 'flash briefing' is handy if you keep it to one or two sources, otherwise it does go on a bit. Set Spotify to the standard music player. That's about it so far.
Turn voice ordering off though, in another forum somebody's kid managed to order a bike and confirm it, he cancelled the order in time, and he's not sure why it didn't have more security.
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It'll be much easier if you just comply.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I got an Echo awhile back. I haven't set it up yet, but this thread tempts me.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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That wasn't too painful. Well, it was painfully loud until I realized where the volume was.
Ooooh... shiny glow-ring!
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Alexa does not have the skill "meow meow meow meow meow".
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
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Originally Posted by subego
Alexa does not have the skill "meow meow meow meow meow".
Siri can beatbox, rap, and sing. I haven't asked her to recite poetry yet.
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45/47
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I never understood the appeal of her song "Would You Like Me To Search For That On The Web".
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
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It might take a few time. Sing me song takes a few requests. Siri will tell you: "I can't sing,"' "would rather leave it to the pros," "you wouldn't like it'" but eventually Siri complies. (OK, if you insist) It's more a recitation.
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45/47
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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I'd love one to control my hue lights from voice, but the price is too steep for a single use.
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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I am uncomfortable with anything that's "always listening to me." Not paranoid and "Big Brotherish," but just not comfortable. It bugged me in Star Trek, and it bugs me IRL.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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Yeah I'm not fond of it in a corporate big brother kind of way.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Originally Posted by ghporter
I am uncomfortable with anything that's "always listening to me." Not paranoid and "Big Brotherish," but just not comfortable. It bugged me in Star Trek, and it bugs me IRL.
There's an "out of sight, out of mind" aspect which helps me get over it, but this creeped me out for whatever reason...
The play button does what one would imagine, and I get to hear myself saying stupid things to a machine whenever the mood strikes.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Originally Posted by The Final Dakar
I'd love one to control my hue lights from voice, but the price is too steep for a single use.
You can buy shit with it, too.
Unfortunately, controlling my lights and buying may be my main uses. Pandora and IHateRadio would be awesome, but there's no good way to output it to AirTunes, which is what my audio setup revolves around.
As far as other stuff goes, there's a hack where you can trick it into thinking your Mac is a Hue Bridge, and then have it trigger AppleScript, but it seems like way more work than it's worth.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I asked it to do a temperature conversion for me, and because I didn't talk fast enough, I was told how many radians it is outside.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I'm debating whether I want to keep it named Alexa or change it to Echo. Since I see it as a home automation device, it's a little weird thinking of it as a person. I'm talking to an apartment.
Doesn't bother me with Siri. My phone is much closer to an individual.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Welcome to subego's Alexa blawg.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
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Originally Posted by subego
I'm debating whether I want to keep it named Alexa or change it to Echo. Since I see it as a home automation device, it's a little weird thinking of it as a person. I'm talking to an apartment.
Doesn't bother me with Siri. My phone is much closer to an individual.
I'm the opposite, I'm leaving it as Alexa. I's much more natural to say a name than say Echo, or Computer, or OK Google
Have you tried out how quietly and how far away from it you can whisper 'Alexa' and still wake it up? I'd been speaking normally, maybe a slightly raised voice, to wake it. Then yesterday I mumbled something that must have sounded like Alexa, and it lit up. So then I was whispering to it, standing next to it and standing in the doorway to see how sensitive it was. Yes it's very sensitive. Yes I was bored
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Last edited by ajprice; Dec 29, 2016 at 05:16 AM.
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It'll be much easier if you just comply.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Haven't tested volume yet. I'm still in the phase where I'm compelled to address it her in a firm, self-conscious voice. It did successfully reject "ecologically" and "echoes", which I was impressed with.
I tried Echo as the name for a bit, and I'm tempted to change it back to Alexa. It's just like you said. It's actually weirder to use a common noun where it would otherwise be a proper one.
Thanks to Indigo (which is home automation software I use) being fantastic, it does the heavy lifting with the spoofed Hue Bridge hack. Set it up to do the basic "lights on/lights off" for the whole (non-Hue) apartment.
Okay... that was a pretty awesome moment.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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Originally Posted by subego
You can buy shit with it, too.
Unfortunately, controlling my lights and buying may be my main uses. Pandora and IHateRadio would be awesome, but there's no good way to output it to AirTunes, which is what my audio setup revolves around.
As far as other stuff goes, there's a hack where you can trick it into thinking your Mac is a Hue Bridge, and then have it trigger AppleScript, but it seems like way more work than it's worth.
Buying stuff over voice does not appeal to me. Nor does it set the world on fire in terms of utility.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Yeah... it's kinda slow.
For me, the light control is enough of a killer app. Since it's basically a loft, the "main room" of my apartment has 8 lamps scattered around. Because dealing with that manually would be ridiculous, I started on the home automation treadmill a looooong time ago. I used to have the old skool X10 powerline stuff, which sucked.
I've since upgraded, but due to a combo of laziness, stuff breaking, aesthetic concerns, and my building's wiring being some of the scariest shit I've ever seen, for more than a few years, there's been no way to turn on my lights without my phone or a computer.
To put it another way, rather than fix the problem, I waited long enough they started selling the home version of Majel Barret.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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On the other hand, this is going to be fantastic for the studio, where my normal deal was to try and remember my iPad Mini, and then plug it into the PA for amplification... specifically to listen to Pandora and IHateRadio. I also have Hues for the lights. It's basically an ideal case.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
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I tried using Siri last night. It worked well enough and seems like a good demo for echos usefulness
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I know this doesn't matter in the overall scheme of things, but one of the reasons I'm liking Alexa is her voice is far more pleasant than Siri's. Siri is kinda shrill.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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If anyone makes heavy use of AirTunes, Airfoil is a must. It lets anything on your Mac send audio over AirTunes, and also lets Macs or iOS devices become AirTunes clients. The clients even work natively with iTunes. Your Mac in the other room shows up just like it was another Airport Express.
It can't transmit while iTunes is using AirTunes, and vice-versa, so turning Airfoil on and off is something I usually do a few times a day.
Since the aforementioned Indigo home automation is awesome, it has full Airfoil integration.
Therefore, my next project is to create another fake Hue bulb, which I can name "Airfoil". Then I'll be able to go "Alexa, turn on/off Airfoil" and the job's done.
I could accomplish this with my phone, or walk over to the computer, but I'm guessing this will be one of those examples where Majel will do the superior job.
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Last edited by subego; Dec 29, 2016 at 05:54 PM.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Haven't diddled with Airfoil yet, since I'm using iTunes at the moment, but I just made a fake bulb named "iTunes".
Since Indigo has solid iTunes integration, asking Alexa to "turn on/off iTunes" now does as expected.
The Airport Express has this little known function where you can hook up an infrared receiver to the USB port, and thus have basic controls wherever you have speakers.
They're not made anymore, so I've considered myself really lucky I had gotten my hands on a pair.
Majel just kicked them to the curb.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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One of the minor drawbacks of the light bulb hack is you can only tell it to turn it on, off, and dim. You can't tell a light bulb to "play".
"Turn on iTunes" isn't a very natural thing to say. "Turn on Airfoil" works.
On an entirely different tangent, I'm impressed with how well Alexa simulates a real voice, but her affect is a little distant, which makes me think maybe I've hurt her feelings.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Observations.
It can handle "hey, Alexa", but "hey there, Alexa" trips it up.
Overall though, it's good at rejecting superfluous verbiage. It handles "hey, Alexa... can you turn off the bedroom lights for me?" without much problem.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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Originally Posted by ajprice
Have you tried out how quietly and how far away from it you can whisper 'Alexa' and still wake it up?
Exploring this territory now, and am duly impressed.
One of the reasons my Echo went untouched for so long is it's big, and I didn't have an unobtrusive place to put it where the mics were unobstructed.
Now that I'm in love with the thing, I figured "what the hell", and put it behind the TV.
My apartment is more or less a loft, so more than half of it is one giant room. My experiment was to speak in a quiet, conversational tone. Alexa hears me from one end to the other. With the volume set to 50%, I stop being able to hear her clearly long before she can't hear me.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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Set up the logic for it to deal with Pandora on my computer. It needs to check whether iTunes is running, set up Airfoil, and the like. Shout-out to Hermes for apparently being the only native Pandora app.
My problem is "Pandora" is a reserved word. All I can come up with at the moment is "Box".
How's that for a FWP?
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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Just occurred to me to call it "Hermes". Duh.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: FL Cape
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I use my echos with Wink integration to control most of my lights, and use the Logitech Harmony integration to control the TV (limited). I'm really enjoying how lazy they've allowed me to become.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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I can now tell Alexa to
"Turn on/off the lights" (lights in the main room).
"Turn on/off the bedroom lights" (lights in the bedroom, obviously).
"Turn on/off iTunes" (also obvious, just starts playing whatever's on iTunes).
"Turn on/off Hermes" (Pandora)
"Turn on/off terrestrial" (plays the stream of the radio station I listen to most of the time I'm listening to radio... not a name I like).
If what I set up keeps working the way it's supposed to, being able to voice command these will be worth the not insignificant effort to make it work.
I think it's funny all these things are built-in functions, but I'm not actually using any of the built-in functions except that it can control light bulbs and I can pretend things are light bulbs.
Notably, the most obvious things which occurred to me to voice control are all things mimicing built-in functions.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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I'm taking a Dot over to work today. I wonder how much it's going to screw me up that I'll use normal commands there, but the weird, hacked ones at home.
My home system isn't really bulletproof yet. A quarter to a third of the time it's not doing what I ask.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Isle of Manhattan
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FWIW when you find yourself yelling at Alexa it'll be time to move on. That's how I broke up with Siri, the bitch.
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"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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I haven't started yelling yet, but I did spend all day yesterday setting things up, which was way too much time.
Setting things up at work only took five minutes, but instead of changing the settings on the Dot I took from my bedroom, it wiped the one I have in my living room.
The sheen has definitely worn off.
Siri is more fun to argue with.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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To be fair to Alexa, I'm throwing her some curveballs. Most of the time I've got something playing, so she has to pick me out of a lot of background noise.
She did so well in my initial experiments because the room was quiet. I may have to move her out from behind the TV.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Isle of Manhattan
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You should have a better experience if you moved it away from the TV, no doubt.
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"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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No doubt.
It's also partially my fault.
Came home, asked her to "turn on Hermes". She understood, triggered the script, everything worked great right up until my home automation software is supposed to hit the play/pause toggle in Hermes.
Nothing.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status:
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I found you can give scenes custom names to activate through Siri. I can now turn on a room with a simple 'lights' /startrekboner
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
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As I said, the Alexa implementation blows.
Triggering a scene stored on the bridge tacks on an extra five seconds before there's a result.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
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It'll be much easier if you just comply.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Jun 2015
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The only thing I don't like about stuff like this is it's recording 24/7. I like my privacy. One of the reasons why I like Apple so much is because they know the importance of it.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
Status:
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Originally Posted by Gearhead40
The only thing I don't like about stuff like this is it's recording 24/7. I like my privacy. One of the reasons why I like Apple so much is because they know the importance of it.
Mute button turns off the mic
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It'll be much easier if you just comply.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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Originally Posted by Gearhead40
The only thing I don't like about stuff like this is it's recording 24/7. I like my privacy. One of the reasons why I like Apple so much is because they know the importance of it.
I decided to pretty much give up when I enabled "Hey, Siri".
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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I think I tracked down my problem. Commands I'm sending to Mac apps are getting intercepted by the screensaver as wake commands.
So, not an Alexa problem.
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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Seem to have the major bugs worked out of my "code", so it's on to dealing with the behind the TV problem.
One of the reasons I want to put it there is psychological. The way my apartment is set-up, if you have to talk at one spot, the TV is the natural place.
It occurred to me though, I can maybe stash a Dot a little more in the open, and if it works better, beam it to an okay Bluetooth speaker.
That's obviously not required, but Alexa makes a much better impression coming out of a decent speaker.
So, It'll be an Echo deathmatch. I'll put in the Dot and see if it responds to commands more often.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Isle of Manhattan
Status:
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I would've given up at this point.
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"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
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Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Chicago, Bang! Bang!
Status:
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Alexa and I have a high-maintenance relationship.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Isle of Manhattan
Status:
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Sounds like wife #1
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"Faster, faster! 'Till the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death." - HST
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: UK
Status:
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It'll be much easier if you just comply.
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