
Google is bleeding cash trying to take on Amazon in the smart home - PuffinBlue
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/23/17272748/alphabet-google-q1-2018-earnings-nest-smart-home-amazon-competition
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elvirs
is there really a big market thought for this? Alexa devices are at least 2
years old. How many real people do you know that really use alexa to control
their livingroom? When I saw my boss repeatedly saying 'alexa turn the volume
down' it made him look stupid, he could just grab the remote and turn it down.
I understand it could be useful in kitchen if your hands are covered in food
and you need basic things like set timer, change Pandora station or play a
youtube recepy for whatever but using it to control the livingroom, for video
calling etc. Sounds more like a gimmick that Siri became after Microsoft spent
so much resources building Cortana. We have phones, tablets, smart tv and
smart infotainment systems in our cars, we don't need another device to do
things that we can get done through all of our other devices. May be I am
wrong, bur just don't see it.

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whoisjuan
People said the same thing about personal computers in the early 70s and look
where we are now.

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elvirs
computer did things that nothing else could do. alexa is doing things that
practically every other smart device can do as well

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prawn
Those other methods involve you having your device at hand or getting it out
of your pocket, unlocking it, etc.

The Echo isn't at its full potential, but the basics can be useful and you can
see where it's going. Once they handle a broader variety of things, they will
be a no-brainer for every household that isn't nervous about privacy issues.
(i.e., almost everyone)

I use it to set cooking timers without stopping what I'm doing or needing a
hand free. My kids use it to play music. e.g., my three year old can play a
particular album without knowing how to spell it and without having to nag me
to do it. They also love asking it questions like "how many teeth does a horse
have?" or "how much does an elephant weigh?"

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freedomben
I think Google knows that this is the race for the new platform. It's what
happened with Microsoft in PCs, and Apple in smart phones. If this market is
similar to those aforementioned, once it is saturated there will be high brand
loyalty and very few switch-overs. It takes a long time to win market share
once people have adopted a platform. It's worth bleeding heavily right now to
lock up market share well into the future.

My only sadness is that because of the nature of the tech involved, it seems
like only a race between the big dawgs. Us small guys may be able to ride the
wave with apps, similar to early mobile apps, but the proliferation of walled
gardens and proprietary all-the-things will be unfortunate.

~~~
skellera
I believe it’s only going to be a holdover until the first company to crack AR
(always on, full vision) which will completely change the world.

AR will mix voice but to become the walled garden of a person’s entire world,
literally everything they see, is going to be so insanely powerful.

~~~
candiodari
I think AR display tech is already where it needs to be for a breakthrough.
Problem is input, not output. We need a high bandwidth input device, and voice
is never going to be that.

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imchillyb
> Google parent Alphabet sees shares pop after earnings beat:

Adjusted EPS: $9.57 per share vs. $8.33 per share expected by a Thomson
Reuters consensus estimate

Revenue: $27.77 billion vs. $27.2 billion expected by a Thomson Reuters
consensus estimate

Anita Balakrishnan | @MsABalakrishnan Published 3:25 PM ET Thu, 26 Oct 2017
Updated 7:29 PM ET Thu, 26 Oct 2017 - CNBC

\---

Google is bleeding money in the same way I bleed when I take my glucose
reading, by pricking the tip of my finger. Drip. Drip.

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eitally
This is the stupidest article. The premise is predicated on a wild, baseless
extrapolation that because Nest isn't cashflow positive, then surely the -
totally unrelated and until this quarter separately managed - other hardware
orgs must also be. It also completely ignores the internal org structure
differentiating between hardware, software &
distribution/partnerships/support, which vary wildly based on whether it's
consumer hardware (like Nest), media (Google Play Music/Movies/YT), computing
devices (ChromeOS) or mobile (Android/Pixel/accessories), or non-Nest Home HW
(Google Home/Mini/Max).

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smt88
I'm curious how the products are doing outside of reviewers' contrived trials.
I have a house full of Nest and Google Home, and it's hard to know whether to
laugh or cry when it makes simple mistakes (or just doesn't work) 90% of the
time.

It really feels like a product that hasn't been dogfooded at all...

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petre
If these devices don't clean my home, take out the trash, mow the lawn or
clean my dog's poo then they're quite useless to me. Why pay for having Amazon
or Google bugs in your home?

~~~
elvirs
if you have hardwood floors and not a messy house I would strongly recommend a
robot vacuum. I leave that thing on few times a week when leaving the house
and every time it manages to collect a handful of dust, mostly speck from
cloth

~~~
petre
We were thinking of getting a Roomba, since we have a dust bunny problem as
well. Seems the only useful home automation so far. But even that one sends a
map of your home to the manufacturer which can then sell the data to real
estate agencies?

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elvirs
isnt map (blueprint) of your house already a public domain that was submitted
for approval before construction/renovation?

~~~
5555624
That probably depends on the locality and age of the house. My house it 118
years old. The city's diagram shows a rectangle for the house and two smaller
ones for the front and back porches. They also have no difference between the
first and second floors.

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sunstone
Google just reported record revenues up 26% from last year's quarter and
almost _double_ last year's net income at $9bn. Not to worry, it has plenty of
cash to bleed and it increases every hour of every day.

~~~
HenryBemis
[1]: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/alphabet-
earnings-q2-2017.ht...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/24/alphabet-
earnings-q2-2017.html)

But I have to say, "Of course, Google has the money to spend."

"Bleeding cash" is hardly what Google/Alphabet is doing. At worse, this for
Google/Alphabet is the $10 bill that discovered in a jacket they haven't put
on since last spring. Or to state this properly, Alphabet's
liquidity/viability is not in danger by this effort :)

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fipple
It’s a smart move. We gave away our Alexa’s once we tried Google,

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jacksmith21006
Google reported $9b net income yesterday so not to sure this article is very
accurate.

Plus

[https://www.voicebot.ai/2018/04/16/smart-speaker-adoption-
in...](https://www.voicebot.ai/2018/04/16/smart-speaker-adoption-in-canada-
surges-to-8-google-home-has-double-the-market-share-of-amazon-echo/) Smart
Speaker Adoption in Canada Surges to 8%, Google Home ...

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1024core
Amazon was "bleeding" cash for the first 2 decades of its existence, and
nobody complained.

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toasterlovin
The problem wth home automation is that it’s all about solving problems which
are already solved. And the level of complexity required to achieve the small
delta of improvement just doesn’t make sense for most people.

~~~
jacksmith21006
Do not agree. We have several Google Homes now and they get used all day.

~~~
toasterlovin
What I’m saying is that to experience the improvement of being able to turn on
your lights by talking to your Google Home vs. simply walking over to the
light switch and toggling it’s position, you had to buy a whole bunch of smart
light bulbs, plus the Google Home devices. So, there is a large expenditure of
money and time just to get everything installed. But also, now, being able to
turn your lights on by speaking out loud depends on an incredibly complex
stack of technologies. There are two entire operating systems, networking
stacks, etc. that all have to work in order for you to continue accruing this
benefit.

That might be worth it to you, but it seems like chasing extremely marginal
returns to me.

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ttam
Will this be Google+ v2?

