
How Smart Speakers Are Changing the Way We Listen to Music - ohjeez
https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-smart-speakers-are-changing-the-way-we-listen-to-music/
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millstone
Smart speakers feel like tablets: an initial burst of sales, followed by years
of decline as the devices sit in drawers. They're priced right for gifts and
impulse buys (especially with the heavy discounts), but they're in practice
less useful than they seem, and their actual utility is vulnerable to being
eaten by smartphones.

However they will endure as ad-ons. The latest Bose headphones have Google
Assistant built in, Sonos soundbars have Alexa, etc. Just like TVs became
"smart" (i.e. equipped with ads and analytics) we will see more and more
"smart" devices with this stuff integrated. It's a checkmark in the feature
list, and a revenue source for the tech titans. Hug your dumb devices tightly!

~~~
sigi45
I don't think so.

I'm using our echos every day for time keeping, weather, music and lights.

My tablet (Nexus) I played with it way shorter.

Also I miss Alexa when I'm in a hotel.

What? No music? No timer? No quick weather report? No alarm clock and for the
lights I have to use a switch?...

It's not just a gadget it is a very convenient input method.

And it is already super useful but still basically the first generation of
devices.

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arbie
> Also I miss Alexa when I'm in a hotel.

> What? No music? No timer? No quick weather report? No alarm clock and for
> the lights I have to use a switch?...

There is now an Alexa app that provides the same functionality on smartphones.

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marban
Regardless of device or media used, my personal experience has been that while
the level of new music discovery has increased by a lot, I found myself much
less engaged/immersed when everything is served to you by an algorithm.
Compared to decisively picking an album and even with just teasing through the
tracks in the order the artist composed it, I'm getting the reminiscent
feeling that this is not the best development for either the producer,
consumer and media culture in general. In other words, I can't even remember
the last time I just sat there and did nothing but _listening_ to music.

~~~
genghizkhan
That's quite interesting. My experience has been the exact opposite. I tend to
be far more likely to listen to my Discover Weekly than any other playlist,
and I totally love listening to those songs both as their own thing as well as
when I'm working. It's just a lot more satisfying to find new
songs/artists/albums every week than not. It's just like radio, in a sense,
except it's curated using an algorithm and closer to my taste than a lot of
traditional radio. The algorithmic part doesn't bother me: I don't really care
if the being at the other end of the radio is an algorithm or a person.

Mind you, this is my experience with Spotify: one of the reasons I'm nearly
religious in my choice of streaming services. I tried Apple Music for nearly a
year when it launched but found little to like there.

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jpindar
Spotify is indeed like radio - but without ads and other chatter, and with
info about the song name and artist.

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djrogers
Somewhat interesting, but this really comes off as a Luddite attempting to
explain smart speakers to people who’ve never heard of them.

He’s not ready to talk to a plastic puck? His friend ‘taught’ her echo to play
ambient music? Honestly this sounds like it should have been written in 2015.

~~~
a-dub
_shrug_ he's writing about the impact of these things on the music industry in
a music publication. It's not going to be as fawning as one of those absurd
go-go-gadget-fanboy websites, but it seemed like a perfectly reasonable
exposition of what they are, specifically for providing context for how they
might impact the music world.

and tbh I'm not really ready to talk to a plastic puck either. It's pretty
weird, not to mention the uneasiness of having some poorly secured hacked up
version of Android running 24/7 in my house with a big fat microphone attached
designed to pick up as much as possible.

...and who knows, maybe his friend did tech it about ambient by writing an
Alexa skill to organize her ambient playlists.

~~~
jib
Voice control of lights, AC, music is great when doing things that involve
using both hands (cooking, baking, maintenance work), as is note taking.

It’s not about talking to, it’s about proper hands free control.

95% of things are better controlled with hands, but there is a significant set
of things where voice control is superiour (usually due to your hands being
otherwise occupied).

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neya
Question to HN community: How much would you really like to see a company that
purposely doesn't focus on any of the "smart technology" BS, but just on
delivering pure, faithful audio. In other words, a "dumb" speaker company.

Because, I think speaker is one of the few industries where you can still add
layers of smartness to an existing "dumb" speaker box simply by just
connecting it to such a device.

With the gradual shift in strategies of companies like Bose and Sonos, to
focus more on smart technologies, I think there is a void created which audio
companies were originally known for - good, faithful audio without the buzz
words.

As a personal disclosure, I'm interested in this because building loudspeakers
is my passion and I would be more than delighted to get my feet wet.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I just buy studio monitors and be done with it.

Can speakers possibly sound any better than appropriately sized studio
monitors plus maybe a sub?

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thesumofall
Emphasis on appropriately sized as near field monitors might be inadequate for
a large room.

However, there is anyway no rigid line between studio monitors and regular
speakers. Plenty of hifi firms try to optimize for a true representation of
the music. Hence, you might actually overpay because you pay for studio
“extras” that you might not need at home (e.g., an extra solid build)

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smileypete
For some reason I find the 'full range' bluetooth speakers (Tronsmart T6) are
better for background music while doing stuff than a more immersive 2.1
system, maybe because the sound is from a single point source so less
distracting?

Also I like to record favourite radio shows using curl then play them back,
makes it easy to repeat tracks or skip overly intrusive ads, though I find the
non-targeted advertising quaint these days. :)

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briandear
My HomePods + Apple Music are extraordinary. “Hey Siri, play Delta Blues.”
Bam. Play music I would like. Bam. Play Kind of Blue in the Living Room, play
the Harry Potter Soundtrack in the kid’s room. Bam.

HomePod and Siri may not order pizza yet, but it does what it does incredibly
well. I even replaced a sound bar for the TV with a stereo pair with a minimal
footprint. There was a lot of lamenting Apple Music’s not being Spotify, but
now, it’s pretty clear that in my house, Spotify fails to compare — especially
when you use Apple Music with CarPlay. The next five years is going to be
really fun I think!

~~~
mirimir
I hate being spied on. I don't even use music streaming services. Maybe if I
could manage it all anonymously, I suppose.

But damn, the possibility that I could say "Play that song that goes like this
[hums a few bars]" would be very cool. Or "Play that song with [some lyrics]."
Or "I liked that, but wasn't there an older version?"

~~~
briandear
HomePod doesn’t “spy.” The Siri stuff is anonymous. Apple doesn’t know that
you asked Siri for directions to a porn shop: unlike Google and Alexa where
their business model is based on “spying.”

You can actually use Siri to identify songs (thanks to the Shazam
acquisition.) “Hey Siri, what’s this song..” it then listens and identifies
the song.

~~~
mirimir
That's good news. I've been coming around to Apple, I admit. They've given me
no hassle about having a pseudonymous Apple Store account, funded from Bitcoin
via giftcards.

I was blown away when I discovered Shazam. Waiting in line, I heard a song
that I vaguely remembered. So I asked this guy if he knew it. He pulled out
his iPhone, waited a minute, and then told me. Very cool! Although also a
little frightening ;)

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Crontab
I am not interested in "smart" speakers or televisions. Like my refrigerator
and toaster, I prefer these devices to be "dumb".

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pbreit
I listened to Sirius XM’s U2 channel today and it was so much better than an
algorithmic run through their library.

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rsync
Echo/Home/Alexa devices are the modern day equivalent of winXP systray icons
... their number is inversely correlated to the intelligence of the user.

~~~
smt88
These are two of the most idiotic biases I've ever seen on this site, and
that's saying something.

As someone writing software on my family's PC 15 years ago, I tended to add 5+
systray icons over the standard ones my parents had. If only I'd known how
stupid they made me...

Regarding speakers, you're likely referring to the privacy tradeoff. People
could say the same about someone using a credit card, grocery loyalty program,
or any wireless carrier. We all make privacy tradeoffs on a daily basis as a
cost for having a modern, convenient life in a capitalist society.

~~~
User23
Do you really believe that having an always on Internet uploading microphone
in your private domicile is equivalent to using a grocery loyalty card? Also
phone carriers have well established restrictions on lawful intercepts.

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sigi45
Your smartphone is easier to hack as the isolated Hardwarechip in a smart
speaker which listens to you.

~~~
User23
No doubt phone can be compromised, but listening to everything one says isn't
its designed purpose. It's the intended use of the "smart" microphone that's
fundamentally untrustworthy. Even if everything works exactly as intended,
recordings are available on the owning company's servers and they are subject
to discovery, lawful or otherwise.

