
Amazon enables free calls and messages on all Echo devices with Alexa Calling - ziszis
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/09/amazon-enables-free-calls-and-messages-on-all-echo-devices-with-alexa-calling/
======
FullMtlAlcoholc
> The one that has jumped out at me first is called “Drop In” — which lets you
> make a call to someone without them even answering the phone first.

I wish that the product person who pushed this as an "innovative" idea lives a
short, brutish, and painful life where he/she dies alone.

EDIT: That's too mean spirited.

If you want to peer in on your elderly parents, webcams are a better idea
because you'll put them in a position that captures a wide angle or buy a 360
degree camera as opposed to this which only seems to pick up video in the
direction it's facing.

What person would ever want this "feature"? We have webcams for people who
don't mind exhibiting themselves. People overwhelmingly prefer to text others
rather than talk over the phone or facetime when given the chance. Even when
you visit someone in person, you don't drop in, unannounced like a peeping
tom. You knock on the door to announce your appearance, exactly analogous to
ringing the telephone before listening in and watching.

I don't like it because the world's largest retailer has the marketing and
advertising muscle to normalize this behavior by preying upon our fears, our
irrational behavior, and our cognitive biases. Look at the social stigma one
faces if you don't have a facebook account and you're under 35. Not just that,
but you will get harassed by border and customs agents if they ask for your
social media account and you don't have one, setting off red flags.

In the near future, I can see this feature becoming a requirement for remote
workers with insecure managers.

EDIT: This will definitely become a feature on sites like Upwork so that
buyers can make sure developers are billing them the correct hours, even
though the prices are dirt cheap already.

~~~
cpcb
I just placed a pre-order for 2 of the Echo Shows mostly for this Drop In
feature.

My wife and I are about to be first-time parents and for us, this is a pretty
exciting product for parents compared to the other devices out there in this
space.

For the "drop in" feature specifically, my plan is to leave one Show in the
nursery and one for my parents. They like to call us a lot, and with this
device, I should be able to whitelist their device and let them "drop in" on
the nursery and whatever we're doing at the time. I think a lot of people have
a problem with the privacy aspect, but for us, I don't see why we would have a
problem with my parents seeing the nursery at any given time, esp with the
10sec window to decline. And then once the baby is older, we'd move the Show
to the kitchen for music, looking up recipes, etc.

I think there's going to be a lot of parents looking hard at this device. The
intro video Amazon made is mostly for this use case as well:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQqxCeHhmeU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQqxCeHhmeU)

~~~
ionwake
am I the only guy in this thread worried about hackers and what they would do
with such a trove of data? I simply would be more comfortable considering this
product if I had a good report detailing how secure the system is first.

~~~
colemannugent
You're not alone. I am very surprised that people on HN of all places are so
accepting of this when they are the first to tear others apart for their lack
of security.

A detailed technical guide to the security features of this device would
almost be enough for me to buy one if their methodology was good and their
security sound.

~~~
ionwake
I don't understand how an advert for a product like this does not have atleast
30 seconds dedicated to showcasing its security. Is it simply that no big data
breach has ever occurred? So no one is concerned? Am I being too concerned? Is
it just a matter of time before security and privacy is the priority ? Or will
it never be a priority - even if a breach occurs?

~~~
colemannugent
It's not a priority until it affects customers enough to seriously harm their
bottom line.

Even if it cost them 10% in sales they are still saving money since having
solid security would cost way more and take more of the little time they have
to bring the product to market.

------
dtien
Apple (and Google) really dropped the ball on the connected Home 'smartbox'
that Amazon popularized with Alexa.

We received one as a gift this past Christmas, and I'm now a full believer in
this tech after being a very big skeptic during the first couple years of
Alexa's existence. Add to the fact, that we primarily use it as a smart
connected radio, and the benefits are still beyond clear to me.

Essentially, you've now opened up the possibility of exposing a lot of the
latest tech to a new demographic of people that probably were 'too old' to
'get it', or not tech savvy enough to use it. The combination of a voice
interface (not perfect, but improving) with access to all the latest web
services spanning music, telephony, email, todo lists, home automation, etc is
huge. I can now actually envision my parents, or even grandparents using
services like Spotify, Podcasts, Connected Calendars, VOIP, and any number of
things that the tech savvy take for granted through their phones or other
devices.

Circling back to my first statement about Apple; the quintessential consumer
oriented tech company. The company that's supposed to make all things nasty
and complicated into things that are simple and accessible. How did Apple who
already had Apple TV (home box), Siri (voice interface), Itunes (music and app
ecosystem), Icloud( ugh.. but still integrated personal mgmt) and FaceTime
(VOIP) not come up with this sooner. Or at least, once they saw Alexa gaining
popularity not just bundle up their services and release it. Apple typically
is late to the party with a more refined product, but Amazon is executing at
an impressive rate these days and it's getting harder to see how Apple can
close the gap.

~~~
ehsankia
I'm not sure how Google dropedp the ball? I see your argument that Apple was
also well situated to create this, but other than starting a bit late, what
has Google done wrong?

They are catching up very quickly, since like Apple, they are in a much better
position to create this technology as they have most of the ingredients
already. Google Home has managed to mostly catch up in 6 months to a product
that's been out for over 2 years. 3rd party support is growing very fast, the
new SDK opens many doors, the IFTTT/Actions support allows tinkerers to hack
up cool new features, and when it comes to conversational AI, most agree that
Google is far ahead.

That being said, the competition is still fierce and I'm loving the
innovations each side brings.

~~~
smokinn
The Nexus Q was Google dropping the ball:
[https://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-
nexus-...](https://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/the-google-nexus-q-is-
baffling/)

I have a couple of friends who still have one in a drawer somewhere and it was
just poor execution all around. They could have been way ahead of the curve
but now they're playing catchup. They're definitely still very well positioned
and catching up fast though. Google's AI capability and straightfoward
integration with exclusive market-leading products (Google Now, Google Maps,
etc.) will likely make them a leader eventually unless they drop the ball
again.

------
wan23
This seems like the biggest feature these devices have been missing. Some use
cases off the top of my head:

* Alexa, call my phone (because I can't find it)

* Alexa, call for Chinese food (okay everyone call out what you want)

* Alexa, send a message to my son -- "I've fallen and I can't get up"

~~~
t0mbstone
You can enable "Alexa, find my phone" by installing the skill and android/ios
app called "Trackr"

Once it is set up, you can say, "Alexa, tell Trackr to find my phone", which
will tell you the address your phone was last seen. You can also say, "Alexa,
tell Trackr to ring my phone", which will make your phone ding even if it is
on silent.

The "Help! I've fallen and can't get up!" functionality can be had by
installing the "Ask My Buddy" skill, which will let you designate emergency
contacts which you can notify by voice.

It's not chinese food, but both Dominos and Pizza Hut now have Alexa skills
available which will let you order by voice, as well.

~~~
simcop2387
I strongly suspect that the Chinese food problem is going to be solved by
Amazon restaurants once it gains more areas and traction. Since they have the
menus already they can handle the entire ordering process.

------
accountyaccount
This effectively makes the Echo Show a circa-1995 video phone for remote
grandparenting.

~~~
intopieces
I was only 8 in 1995, can you link me to a such a device? I'd like to compare.

~~~
accountyaccount
Sure, I was thinking of: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULX-
omgUzIc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULX-omgUzIc)

But in general the product has been around in some (generally expensive) form
since the '70s.

------
asciimo
I wonder who's providing their telephony backend. There was some speculation
that Twilio was powering Amazon Connect. Twilio's Jeff Lawson was an original
AWS product manager...

~~~
Eridrus
Does this actually make real telephone calls? I got the impression that this
only connected the Echo products and app.

~~~
blastofpast
According to the article, it's not real telephone calls, yet.

------
kylec
I wish we could just get some standardization and federation across VoIP
providers. I would love to be able to use whatever device I want to call
someone else, who can use whatever device they want to answer. Mac, PC, iOS,
Android, Alexa - it should all just work together.

~~~
sceew
Apple is very hostile about this, especially when it comes to iMessage.

------
AlexandrB
This is "free" as in Amazon is free to record your calls and messages and use
them either as training data for AI or targeting data for advertising.

~~~
Mtinie
Do you have a different level of expected privacy with Amazon's services than
you do with Apple, Google, or Microsoft?

Alexa Calling will compete with FaceTime, Google Duo, and Skype (amongst
others). Do you feel the same way about those other services or is your
concern specifically related to the Echo platform?

~~~
j_s
My gut feeling is that FaceTime is encrypted client-to-client (or at least
primarily p2p direct connections) but I don't have time right now to look into
this in detail.

Google / Skype are both assumed to be MitM'd; Microsoft in fact purposely re-
did things to centralize Skype. If I recall correctly, Google Voice was pretty
clearly used for training data.

~~~
dandr01d
Then how come only Amazon gets shit on when they announce new products, while
no one blinks an eye at new Google or Microsoft communication-related
releases?

~~~
wmeredith
Are you kidding? You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy
for product launches than that which is HackerNews. It doesn't much matter who
is launching. The bigger they are, the more piss and vinegar you'll find in
the comments. Apple and M$oft are certainly not immune to this.

------
technofiend
Yet another missed opportunity for Google who purchased Grandcentral all those
years ago. They already have call metrics for android devices. They could have
had it for all the folks who would have dropped their PSTN lines for a Google
Voice appliance as well as call history for anyone they called. Thought they
wanted that kind of information but apparently not that much. Must be low
value relative to web searches?

Would love to see a hack for Google home / Amazon echo that just turns them
into dumb SIP devices. :-)

~~~
searchfaster
Plenty of 3rd party devices support Google voice though.. I have been using a
ooba (not sure about the name) for 4 years now as my home phone.

~~~
technofiend
Oh yeah there are plenty of hacks to make it work, but Google worked to remove
native SIP support from their service, which was originally there in GC. It's
too bad, because it was handy as hell.

------
JamesUtah07
> You can call or message any contact who also has the free Alexa App, an
> Echo, Echo Dot, or Echo Show and has enabled Alexa calling and messaging.

Just to be clear for others that can't/didn't read the full article, you can't
make full calls to anyone, they have to have at minimum the amazon alexa app.

------
asafira
Can you make phone calls with a Google Home yet? If not, it seems like an
oversight. (Google has lots of VOIP infrastructure, right? They have Google
Voice, which seems to have risen from the dead over the past 6ish months...)

------
gdw2
If I call a friend, what number shows up on their end? Does it have its own
phone number or can it use your cell number?

~~~
blastofpast
Title is probably misleading many people. This new feature does not do
standard calls to phones. From what I can tell, it's more of an "in-amazon-
network" voice chat, between amazon apps/devices.

------
pm24601
Is it just me - or does anyone sympathize with every woman/girl with the name
Alexa or Alexandra?

------
CodeSheikh
...except state monarchies with telecom monopolies banning Whatsapp, Skype,
Facetime...

------
chayesfss
Call/message anyone with the alexa call app? Won't get out of the gate

~~~
jbigelow76
I think Android users would be more open to adopting a new call/message app.
Apple users however are pretty well anchored to the iMessage/FaceTime combo.

~~~
dogma1138
Besides the hordes of Apple users that seem to use WhatsApp/FBM/Signal etc
without any problems?

If anything Android might be worse off, if it's like Prime Video the app won't
be available on the Google Play Store and you'll have to install Amazon
Underground or w/e they call their app store now manually then download Amazon
Prime Video for your device.

~~~
jbigelow76
_Besides the hordes of Apple users that seem to use WhatsApp /FBM/Signal etc
without any problems?_

All three of the examples you laid out have specific use cases that propelled
their popularity

WhatsApp: free SMS which was a bigger deal, especially internationally when it
hit the scene. The Echo Show is US only for now.

FB Messenger: access to the walled garden of people that live in FB

Signal: secure private communications.

I'm not saying that Apple users won't use other message mediums if there is a
compelling reason but I am saying for Apple users that are in predominately
Apple-centric family/social circles the Echo messaging/video chat app doesn't
offer meaningful differentiation from iMessage/FaceTime.

------
guyzero
Announcing an unreleased major feature the week before Google I/O? What a
surprise.

------
ethn
"If they're not selling something to you, they're selling you" -Anonymous

~~~
bearcobra
Well they are selling you the device...

~~~
ethn
Services cost money, that's why all phones don't offer free calling. The
'free' calls will eat away at the margins. I don't understand why this quote
is controversial. It's quite obvious that they want the free data to at least
train their machine learning algorithms, if not to also 'provide targeted
ads'.

------
fredley
> Meanwhile, users of that newest Echo, the Echo Show, which has the screen
> and video feature, will get added services, it seems. The one that has
> jumped out at me first is called “Drop In” — which lets you make a call to
> someone without them even answering the phone first.

I wonder if this is opt-in or opt-out. Honestly if it's opt-out I think Amazon
could have a huge backlash on its hands. Not from privacy-minded folks, but
from ordinary people who suddenly have people listening to them/viewing them
when they don't expect (unless Amazon really makes an effort to make that the
expectation).

~~~
bshimmin
The very next paragraph:

 _Alas, this is not being positioned as something mildly intrusive, nor as a
creepy big brother-style service (which is the worst case scenario and one
that Amazon has been taking pains to avoid in all of its Echo and Alexa
products). Rather, Amazon emphasizes that it is opt-in, and a way to
communicate with only the very closest members of your family._

~~~
skummetmaelk
Until the first zero day is discovered.

