Kicked out of Nest

[Ray Tackett]

Google is killing the Nest brand as independent. All your smart home stuff which "works with Nest" will no longer work after 1 August, except for Alexa. Of course, this being Google, the privacy wall between Nest and Google goes away, too.

I'm happy to be paranoid about online privacy. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're really not out to get you."

[Tom Charlton]

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're really not out to get you."

Hi Ray,
<g> concur!

Nest, Alexa or any of their ilk . . . I’ve zero interest. A microphone in my living room . . . ya sure, you bet’ch’a.
I spoze googling and searching / ordering stuff on Amazon is bad enough. Having ordered that inflatable Suzy and other paraphernalia I now get all sorts of interesting suggestions and offers. <g>

Regards,
Tom Charlton (who, for the record, does not have nor has never ordered an inflatable Suzy . . . or other paraphernalia)<g>

[Dave Siciliano]

My Daughter has Alexia in her living room after her Mom gave it to her as a gift. Not for me. There isn't anything it does that I'd trade my privacy for.

[Bill Bridges]

Hi Ray,
<g> concur!

Nest, Alexa or any of their ilk . . . I’ve zero interest. A microphone in my living room . . . ya sure, you bet’ch’a.
I spoze googling and searching / ordering stuff on Amazon is bad enough. Having ordered that inflatable Suzy and other paraphernalia I now get all sorts of interesting suggestions and offers. <g>

Regards,
Tom Charlton (who, for the record, does not have nor has never ordered an inflatable Suzy . . . or other paraphernalia)<g>

If I had Alexa in my house all it would hear is the MLB and YES channel.

[Larry sreyoB]

We have a number of voice control devices throughout the house and use them extensively.

We have a five-zone Sonos audio system with each of the four indoor zones having a Sonos One which includes Amazon Alexa. We also have five Amazon Echo devices (Spot, two Echos, and two Echo Dots).

Voice control is used for controlling the audio system for music, news, and radio streaming. We use the Dot in the kitchen for adding items to the shopping list, "Echo, add milk and eggs to the shopping list", etc. It's also good for the random questions that come up; how to spell a word, a unit conversion, weather forecast, etc.

Three of us use it extensively. My son, the lone holdout, thinks it's 'awkward' so he does everything with the phone apps.

My son wanted to watch 2001 A Space Odyssey which we did last week. I remember how far fetched the interactions with HAL seemed whe I first saw it in the 1970s. It's amazing how far we've come.

[Ralph Jones]

Does it open the pod bay doors on command this time <g>?

[Russell Holton]

Does it open the pod bay doors on command this time <g>?

No

[Russell Holton]

I'm happy to be paranoid about online privacy. "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're really not out to get you."

Like this?

[Larry sreyoB]

Does it open the pod bay doors on command this time <g>?

No, but you can ask 'her' to open the pod bay doors. If you do, she says something like, "I'm sorry, I can't do that. We're not in space and this isn't 2001 A Space Odyssey."

I forgot to mention that I have voice control of most of the lights in the house, the irrigation system, and the thermostats.

[Dave Siciliano]

Let us know when you put the bedet on there and what the command is <g>

[Ward Miller]

I forgot to mention that I have voice control of most of the lights in the house, the irrigation system, and the thermostats.

Larry, what happens with a power failure? Some of my stuff turns off before the emergency generator comes up to speed and transfers. Some of that does not come back up by itself. My oxygen generator, for one.

[Larry sreyoB]

Larry, what happens with a power failure? Some of my stuff turns off before the emergency generator comes up to speed and transfers. Some of that does not come back up by itself. My oxygen generator, for one.

None of that stuff works without power, of course, so they all go down.

When power returns, the devices reboot in a minute, or so. The bottleneck is waiting for the network and internet to return which takes four or five minutes.

The voice control devices rely on the internet for the computing power necessary to do the voice recognition. In my case, Amazon.com servers. The devices themselves just listen for their "wake-word" (I use either "Alexa" or "Echo" depending on the device) Once it hears its wake-word, it sends the next few seconds of audio to the Amazon cloud servers to decode. Those servers parse the command and send it back to the device in whatever machine code they use. It all happens in no more than a second to a second and a half. The Google or Apple devices would do the same except with their servers.

[Terry Carraway]

Too many reports of Alexa emailing transcripts of conversations to a persons entire address book.

And don't forget, the non-order orders that got placed.

NO THANKS.