
Very few owners of Alexa-powered devices use them for shopping - confiscate
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/06/surprise-no-one-buys-things-via-alexa/
======
npunt
Why make a habit of buying things in this method when you're always unsure of
the price, and you're often unsure of the authenticity?

The only use case that makes sense is I can see it being used for is reorders
of brand-name consumables you've already vetted. But even when you trust
you're getting a product actually made by Tide (or whomever), its unclear
you're getting the exact match as a previous purchase - the brand may have
decided to repackage it into something 6 ounces less than before. This happens
a lot. Prices also tend to fluctuate quite a bit, enough that occasionally
you'll get a price way outside normal range and would benefit from looking at
other brands.

Lots of room for error, and voice as a channel is too narrow to deliver an
efficient experience that corrects for these issues. These are fixable by
Amazon, but judging by what little policing there is on the authenticity of
items, I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.

~~~
Pxtl
Not just that, but every respectably large brand other than Apple will have
fragmented their product into a zillion overlapping SKUs that will mean that
ordering the correct product will require a list of qualifiers comparable to
an elaborate Starbucks order.

Alexa, I want the tide high-efficiency unscented cold-water large box of
detergent please.

~~~
vm
I was skeptical about buying through Alexa until I finally tried it. I found
out that I value convenience more than detailed selection, at least for
reorders and staple products (kitchen and bathroom soaps, etc).

~~~
heavenlyblue
Or you could just buy 3 soaps every once a year and you wouldn’t need to speak
to Alexa at all.

~~~
VLM
You have subscribe and save and amazon dash buttons as non-voice alternatives.

I've never had the slightest problem with my dash button WRT counterfeit and
SKU foolishness... push button next to empty kitchen trash bag box, receive
kitchen trash bags tomorrow, it really is that simple.

~~~
Symbiote
Frankly, I'm disgusted.

I couldn't be part of the electronic, energy, packaging and transport waste
that this approach contributes to.

If I run out of trash bags, I buy more next time I'm at the supermarket. If
I'm likely to forget to do that, I'll leave the empty box somewhere visible
until I do remember, or if it's urgent write a note on a scrap of paper.

"Alexa, next time I'm at the supermarket, remind me I need trash bags" would
be far more reasonable.

~~~
WorldMaker
"Cortana, next time I'm at Kroger, remind me to get trash bags" is something I
use all the time still. It really is the best approach, and something I don't
think Cortana gets enough credit for, as one of the key "personal assistant"
workflows that they made sure they got right.

~~~
VLM
Notification spam on my phone makes that unusable. In between google asking my
review of a gas station and some mobile phone game bugging me for not playing
enough and a notification about an email that I handled on a desktop six hours
ago and a missed call from a suspected spam number there might or might not be
an important shopping list notification but I'll never see it buried in the
reflexive clearing of spam notifications. And I have it relatively easy...

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
One of the first things to do is to switch off and actively refuse all
notifications unless you find one that is really very, very useful to you. It
makes no sense to leave the defaults.

~~~
WorldMaker
There are entire apps that I've found alternatives for simply because I didn't
like their notifications. I'm also very quick to deprioritize and/or block
notifications for apps that don't need notifications. Notification management
is a real concern.

I still think that the Windows Live Tile approach to notifications that don't
need immediate attention is still one of the best, and wish Android and iOS
would both offer something much more similar to that as a good option to help
clean up the notification world.

------
jasonhong
FYI, we recently published a study of how people use their Alexa, based on
interviews with 7 families and an analysis of log data from 75 participants.
Here's a link to the paper (PDF):

[http://www.cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/192/hey_a...](http://www.cmuchimps.org/uploads/publication/paper/192/hey_alexa_what_s_up_studies_of_in_home_conversational_agent_usage.pdf)

One thing that really surprised me when we did this work is that people
actually own more than one Alexa device. One family we interviewed had 7
devices, though they used it primarily for controlling lights and asking the
time.

The number one command from the logs was "Alexa stop". The number two was
"Alexa". Number three was "stop".

Like the original posted article, we also saw very little use of shopping.

The funniest story we heard (which didn't make it into the paper) was how one
family used Alexa as a timer for their children, for timeouts. A parent might
say "Alexa, set timer for 5 minutes". One time, once the parent left, the kid
said "Alexa, set time for 1 minute."

~~~
PascLeRasc
Interesting! Will you be continuing the research and comparing Alexa use to
Siri/Google Home+Assistant? And do you personally think CUIs are good or bad
for children to grow up talking with?

(I'm at CMU and I'm a GHome user if you need subjects!)

------
gav
The only time I ordered something with Alexa is when Amazon offered a $10
credit to do so.

It's a terrible interface for one, but the biggest hurdle is that I really
don't trust Amazon's pricing. Between add-on items, pantry, and third-party
merchants, I always feel that I have to double check if I'm getting ripped
off.

I think a lot of this would be alleviated by better integration with the
mobile app so I could go "Alexa, order AA batteries" and it would add to an
order in progress, so that I could then verify the items later on and
complete.

~~~
melling
I reorder paper towels all the time. It’s the fastest solution.

When I get around to it, I’ll find a few other things that work well.

~~~
monkmartinez
I wonder tho... are you better off buying paper towels at Costco if you have
one available?

~~~
paulcole
Depends on what you mean by better off. I mean how much can you “save” on
paper towels by going to Costco? $10-20 at most? Not even factoring in the
cost of the membership and the hassle of going to the store.

~~~
sigfubar
$10-20 saved across dozens of product categories times 53 weeks in a year...
Man, I grew up dirt poor, so my mind automatically calculates these angles,
knowing that this is how I'll pay for my next vacation. However, I can see
that not everyone thinks this way.

~~~
Nition
It does seem a little crazy/wasteful (fuel, packaging)/expensive to make an
order for _just_ paper towels, delivered.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It made sense when I was living in China, along with maybe TP and bottled
water. Here on the states it seems like shipping/delivery would make it
uneconomical.

~~~
freeone3000
Amazon doesn't charge for shipping - it's one of the key selling points for
Prime, your free delivery being 2 days instead of 5-7.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
But in China it was like a few hours from order to delivery. And even if it is
technically free with prime, it really isn’t....it just doesn’t feel
sustainable.

~~~
garmaine
I think whatever basis you have for that intuition is off. You're saying it's
more efficient and sustainable for everyone to drive to the store in their own
personal gasoline-powered vehicle, taking time out of their own busy days,
than to have a little bit of cardboard wrapped around the paper towels and
dropped off by a shared delivery truck dedicated to the task and taking an
optimal route?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Each point of drop off ya substantial costs, so you would get dinged fuel for
the delivery of paper towels even if they had other deliveries in the truck.
In China, it only works because there are no trucks, heck, it could just be a
kid from the corner store with a hand truck.

When you go to the store and buy stuff, you are usually getting a lot of
things together going point to point with other things that need getting done,
or you are walking to the corner grocery store with a shopping cart if you are
lucky enough to be urban. Personally, the fuel cost for having paper towels
delivered is substantially more vs me going to get them by myself (since I’m
walking to the store with a stroller/cart anyways).

------
slededit
The people designing this are too wealthy to emphasize. People want to know
what those Oreos will cost before buying. If they took panes to address the
price anxiety there's no reason people won't start ordering from it.

People were worried about freshness with produce delivery. Amazon tackled it
head on by literally calling the service "Fresh". They're going to have to so
something drastic here too.

~~~
gkoberger
I don't think that's true. Bezos isn't sitting there designing Alexa from his
gold-plated desk.

Rather, I think Amazon realized they're a huge tech company that missed the
lucrative phone game (despite trying with Amazon Fire). They realized they
could be first to market with home automation, so they jumped on it. But
they're still an online store, so they obviously had to include "buying stuff"
as one of the main features.

Basically, my point is: I don't think their premise ever was "the best way to
order stuff is via voice", but rather "we need to let people order stuff since
we're Amazon, and we're doing the best we can with the medium".

~~~
flukus
> I don't think that's true. Bezos isn't sitting there designing Alexa from
> his gold-plated desk.

No but the people that are working on Alexa (the engineers) are probably too
wealthy to empathize as well, a poorly paid one is probably earning more than
at least 80% of the population. They might have financial pressures of their
own, but they're unlikely to care if the the oreos cost $2 or $3 today.

Software Developers, particularly in Silicon Valley are out of touch with most
of the world.

Edit - Just to demonstrate, how much RAM would you say the average desktop
has? If you said anything over 4GB you might be out of touch with most people
even in a field you know:
[https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/](https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/)

~~~
projektir
I'm an "engineer" but I am still concerned with the prices of things and
dislike overpaying. It's not that uncommon for engineers of some product or
other to not personally use it. And, generally, engineers don't design things,
they just build them.

I'm perplexed as to why your target is, specifically, engineers. Why not
product managers? Designers? VPs? CEOs? They tend to be much closer to making
actual decisions and, as well off as engineers are, CEOs are on a whole other
level.

> too wealthy to empathize as well

This is not a thing. Wealth doesn't reduce someone's capacity for empathy.
What wealth is likely to do is simply make the individual less acquainted with
a certain range of situations, which is something a person can rectify if they
wish. Many people don't, and are clueless, but that's another matter, and not
limited to wealth.

I don't think it's fair to say that, say, a person who's pushing accessibility
at a company is unable to empathize because they're too well off. You're
basically blaming people for not having worse lives. How dare they have more
GB than most people. This is just crabs in a bucket syndrome.

And Seattle is not in Silicon Valley.

~~~
annabellish
Sure, but, do you know how much a packet of oreos is, without looking it up?
Despite having bought them more times in the past than I'd be willing to
admit, I only have a vague perception. I know they're under my "this is too
cheap for it to be worth me agonizing over the price" filter.

~~~
projektir
I don't buy Oreos, but I pretty closely know the various /lb prices of some
potato varieties. And also that asparagus is surprisingly expensive.

I am not saying that the group of people whom it influences more will not be
more aware of things, I'm saying engineers are not really yet the group where
ignoring prices to the point of letting a computer arbitrarily buy things
makes sense, and I think the "this device is just out of touch because it got
designed by rich engineers" holds little water. It seems, rich or poor, nobody
really likes using the device that way, and I concur with some of the other
posters that maybe this wasn't the ultimate purpose of the device.

------
VLM
Narowcasting to the rich child-free urban hipster segment. First thing I did
was disable voice ordering, or my kids would have ordered 75 xbox consoles by
now.

Its worth considering that buying an echo doesn't necessarily show up in
toilet paper sales; it might show up in amazon music, or audible audiobooks.
My amazon music purchases went from zero to a very small amount. Alexa does
audiobook reading better than my phone apps, and obviously doesn't drain my
phone battery. I've spent more on audiobooks than I have on echo dots.

~~~
2sk21
Good point - until it can distinguish voices, this is potential problem.

~~~
gervase
It has been able to do this for some time.

[https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/10/11/16460120/amazon-
echo-multi-user-voice-new-feature)

------
gourneau
I have Google Home, and Alexa. To my girlfriend's great dismay I like to talk
to my devices and tell them inane things. I once told them both that "I love
my dog".

Google Responded: We love dogs too woof woof!

Amazon Responded: Would you like to buy dog food?

~~~
Johnny555
I tried that with my Echo, and it responded "Hmm...I don't know what you
mean".... nothing about buying dog food.

But I think you just didn't ask the response that the developers anticipated
-- I asked "Alexa, do you like dogs?" and it responded "I don't have a dog,
but if I did, I would name it Astro".

------
yalogin
Amazon’s web site is its main drawback. They have way too many options with
many different prices. I can’t just order a USB cable because I don’t know if
it’s the best option or not. I have to look at, at least, a few of them to see
if it’s a genuine one and some thing I want before I order. Something like
that does not lend itself to be ordered on the voice interface.

~~~
mrweasel
I was going to ask, I don't own any Alexa devices, so I was wondering about
discoverability of products. Amazons product search is notoriously bad and
subject to hijacking by creative sellers, so how is it even possible to order
anything using Alexa?

~~~
yalogin
Unrelated, but I don’t own Ann a Alexa or any of Aamzon’s Hardware because
once Bezos tried to remove all security from their phones. Even though he
reversed it later on it just shows you their thought process.

~~~
justwalt
Any more info on this? I’ve tried finding articles but can’t seem to.

~~~
yalogin
Here you go - [https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-
switch/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-
switch/wp/2016/03/04/amazon-quietly-stopped-supporting-device-encryption-on-
its-own-products/)

------
jjeaff
I have an Alexa in every room of my house. But ordering things is too
cumbersome by audio only. And even reordering is a no go. I need to see what I
paid last time and compare a bit. I've found that a lot of items I might want
to reorder can go way up in price.

I think the vin diagram of Alexa owners and those with lots more money than
time, that don't care about a good deal has little overlap.

~~~
cgoecknerwald
If you don't mine me asking, what do you use an Alexa in every room of the
house for?

~~~
psergeant
Mine provide a stereo service and control my aircon and lights, housewide

~~~
VLM
You can enable a nice intercom feature if you want "Alexa call kitchen"

She also makes clocks obsolete "what time is it" also arithmetic and spelling
is near 100% accurate, although obviously very slow because of the speech UI.
"Alexa what time is it in Brisbane?" "The time in Brisbane is 11:27 pm" uh OK
I'll call client tomorrow.

~~~
psergeant
It’s been a bizarrely good talking point with dates who make it back to my
place, too.

------
jfasi
As someone who works in ads, I'm not sure this is such a bad thing. CTRs and
conversion rates in the low single digits can be significant businesses at
scale. Search ads, display ads, and mobile phone games all run on minuscule
conversion rates and yet drive huge revenues off of a combination of a large
number of interactions and a head of users who purchase a disproportionate
portion of revenue.

Also, consider the converse of this: 98 percent of users use Alexa for
something other than traditional shopping. That's huge! Playing music? That's
revenue. Playing a movie? That's revenue. Asking a question? That's traffic
not being sent to a traditional search engine.

Also don't discount the value of having a toehold in someone's home. At the
end of the day, this isn't a shopping play, this is a platform play. That
device can be leveraged to sell new products, push new services, and enhance
loyalty to the Amazon brand and ecosystem.

------
CamelCaseName
I sell on Amazon and a huge issue I see is that my items frequently get their
Alexa keyword changed.

This is partly because I am not a leader in my niche, but it is frustrating
because I cannot advertise the fact that you can order through Alexa. (My
guess is the ROI would be negative, but it's something I want to test)

This leads me to believe that you could say "Alexa, order diapers" today, and
again 3 weeks from now, and get completely different brands, sizes, etc.

~~~
icc97
I can't believe that someone would just trust Alexa to order 'diapers', at the
very least you'd specify the brand and the size, "Alexa order pampers for a 10
kilo child".

~~~
mrweasel
Someone else mentioned USB cables and I don't think I would trust even that to
Alexa. "Alexa. Order me the cheapest 1.5m USB cables which isn't of
questionable quality, but keep it below $5."

~~~
icc97
Here again I think brand is important, you order things without looking when
you have confidence in the quality.

------
zitterbewegung
I was an early adopter to Alexa. (I even made a skill called history facts). I
have also purchased things with it . The things I have purchased are mainly
consumables that I have purchased before.

Note that even if you don’t buy anything from Alexa it gives you notifications
if your packages are at the door .

~~~
throwawaymath
_> Note that even if you don’t buy anything from Alexa it gives you
notifications if your packages are at the door ._

How do I enable that?! I've had four Echos since they were first released and
I've never had them notify me of an Amazon package delivery.

~~~
gh02t
They added it a while back but I think it was default disabled. If you go to
settings in the Alexa app->notifications->shopping notifications, the toggle
is in there.

------
icc97
The "Alexa buy me expensive headphones" is a bit unfair towards Amazon. I'd
guess the intended purchases are those where you know enough about the product
that you don't need to look.

So if you order a certain brand of coffee or toilet paper regularly, you can
order those without being too concerned.

Things that you realise you're out of when walking around the house and want
to re-order them before you forget.

------
Retra
Let me just hand my credit card to the car salesman and tell him "buy me a
car." I mean, the only thing advertisers want more than your attention is the
ability to make your purchases for you.

People shouldn't buy things through Alexa because they shouldn't trust the
people who made it. They made it to make a profit, and it'll do that or die
trying. It's not there to make your life easier.

~~~
stryk
I'd take it even one step further and say people shouldn't even have an Alexa
(or Google Home, et. al.) in their home at all. There are so many downsides,
and after you get past the "cool new technology" factor there are relatively
little upsides.

It would be better, more worthwhile, and a hell of a lot more interesting to
research and figure out how to create your own "voice assistant" type of
device that's hosted locally and doesn't transmit everything that's said in
your home back to some company's servers. [and don't give me any of that
'they're not listening to everything' crap -- that's bullshit. if things _can_
be abused they _will_ be]

~~~
sturgill
First world problems, but “Alexa, broadcast ‘dinner is ready’” is just
amazing. Or, “Alexa, drop in on [child’s] room” to remind them about X.

Also timers, light switches, and playing music to the surround sound from a
Bluetooth connection to the receiver...

We didn’t own one when we lived in Brooklyn, but they are all over my house in
the suburbs. I don’t apologize for my love fest. But I won’t use it to order
anything. Add something to lists? Definitely. Make a purchase decision? Ha!

~~~
Bizarro
Alexa is worth it just to turn off/on light switches, get the time and weather
occasionally.....really turning on and off the lamps in various rooms is very
convenient though.

~~~
stryk
You're willing to give up the personal privacy of you, your family, and any
guests in exchange for turning off light switches without getting up?

~~~
sturgill
With three kids, a two story house plus basement? Yes.

And I imagine you probably carry a listening device with built-in locator that
surveillance states can use to track your every move any way. All for the
convenience of being able to make phone calls (or, more ironically, check
Facebook).

At this point in the game, privacy is an illusion. So I might as well enjoy
telling Alexa to “turn off the basement lights” on my way to bed every night.

~~~
bopbop
The answer to stopping ubiquitous pervasive surveillance probably isn't
installing more ubiquitous pervasive surveillance.

It's clear many people feel there are benefits to owning one of these devices,
but it does seem all of the benefits you are listing can be achieved without
making such a sacrifice to a giant multinational conglomerate with a poor
history of user rights and privacy.

With your comment “Alexa, drop in on [child’s] room”, the point that
immediately came to mind is that Alexa doesn't drop in. Alexa is always there.
I guess a lot of it will come down to whether you believe that:

a) Amazon will honour whatever promise they have with the consumer not to
monitor them/keep records of your communications safe

b) That normalising such devices will not lead to their expanding use in
direction you do NOT agree with in the future

c) That the device, system and amazon servers your and your families
information is stored in is secure from being taken control over by third
parties.

Personally, I think b is the biggest concern, as I believe arguments similar
to yours (you already carry a smartphone) will be replaced in the future with
(you are already recorded by alexa) to justify further things I would consider
to be beyond reasonable in a free democratic society (whats wrong with a
little facial recognition, etc).

------
PaulHoule
I only shopped with Alexa once because there was a special deal if I did.

What I do find helpful is that Alexa notifies me when my orders are delivered.
Often UPS leaves packages at the other end of my long driveway, and near-
immediate notification means I go out there and get them before they get lost,
stolen, covered in snow, etc.

------
vivan
I don't trust a "smart" device to spend my money. The first thing I do when I
get a new Echo is disable the ability to make purchases.

------
eropple
I really like my Echos, but yeah, I have never bought anything over it. It's
the first thing I turned _off_ and I've never missed it.

------
twothamendment
I use echos all the time and order from Amazon all the time. Those are almost
complete separate. Twice those paths crossed, but only because Amazon did
something crazy like sell a box of Cliff bars for half what Costco does. They
got me to try ordering by voice, but I can't see myself doing that again until
they sell me some more stuff at cost and ship it free.

------
slantaclaus
Yeah because it only allows Amazon pantry/fresh for a lot of stuff and adds
the most expensive items it can find to my shopping cart

------
chibg10
I had always assumed the default user behavior was to use Alexa to add things
to your cart when you realized you ran out of e.g. paper towels. I've used it
that way since I bought it and I've been satisfied so far with the convenience
that my Echo adds.

I wonder if they survey accounts for this. If not, seems like a misleading
headline.

------
mcintyre1994
I'd probably occasionally use it if I could say order me xyz and it'd order
the exact same xyz I bought last time, warning me of any price change and
asking me to confirm if it's increased. I'm guessing it's about as consistent
as an Amazon search though, so I have no trust that it'll do that.

------
ppeetteerr
I'm always suspicious of companies simplifying the process of buying luxury
goods and services (snacks, headphones, gadgets, boxes, etc). Glad to see that
despite Amazon's greatest effort, most people are sensible enough not to order
from an e-commerce speaker.

------
cm2187
I am not sold on voice recognitions UI. Not self discoverable. Also very
unreliable.

It’s funny to watch Leo Laporte and his colleagues on twit.tv triggering their
devices by mistake all the time, or having to repeat pretty much all their
commands at least twice. These are podcast professionals with a crystal clear
diction in a sound proof studio. If it doesn’t work reliably for them, try
with a strong spanish or french accent or anyone who doesn’t articulate
perfectly.

If you had to make several attempts every time you want to switch on the
lights with a button, it would make anyone mad. I don’t understand the success
of these devices (if there is success indeed, never sure with the hype).

~~~
grkvlt
Of course, and that's why you _don 't_ have to make several attempts each time
you want to turn on the lights. Sure, sometimes it misunderstands you, but the
error rate is similar to that of normal conversation. I never thought I'd like
voice control until I got an Echo Dot, but now I'm 100% sold. Of course I
don't buy things with it, but I don't buy that much with Amazon anyway...

------
rickyc091
While I don't ordinarily use Alexa for shopping purposes, I use Alexa on my
Amazon Dash for groceries all the time. The dash is magnetized onto my fridge
so while I'm cooking, I'll hold onto the record button and add some items to
my shopping list. I was down to my last egg just yesterday, so I said "eggs"
to Alexa, and it automatically got added to my Amazon shopping cart. The dash
also has a feature that allows you to scan the barcode and add it to your cart
which I've found useful for replenishing commonly purchased items.

------
ronreiter
Like with everything, I would be very careful and jumping to conclusions from
a TechCrunch article on new initiatives. Behavior patterns don't just suddenly
start. It needs work, market education, etc.

------
anonytrary
Surprise, 99% of people aren't in the 1%.

Jokes aside, all of the people I know who are in the 1% are the types of
people who do at least a few minutes of research before buying things like
Bose headphones. Do people actually order things like headphones on Alexa? I
imagine something like "Oops, this isn't what I wanted, time to wait another
few days for a better set" happening.

------
packeted
Not very surprising, voice is a terrible interface for buying random products,
even more so when you're talking to a dumb computer. It's what people used to
have to do decades ago before e-commerce became widespread. That said I can
see Alexa being used as a replacement for Amazon Dash style interactions for
those who don't care to shop for price.

------
droopybuns
I put possible orders on my shopping list with Alexa.

But I'm reluctant to trust it to order Aeropress filters or batteries at a
reasonable cost.

------
sgillen
Can’t be too surprised, audio just doesn’t feel like a very good interface for
browsing even a few different items for quality and price. Especially
considering that just about everyone who has an Alexa also has a phone or
computer that offers a much better and already learned and setup interface to
do the same thing.

------
jkaptur
It took time for people to start buying things on their phones, too.

------
deegles
I think the real news here is that 50 million devices number... shopping with
Alexa can only go up if you have a device first.

~~~
jerf
It says 50 million "users". I'd be curious how that's counted. 50 million
dedicated Alexa devices in current use would definitely be something. But I've
got 3 non-dedicated devices that I nominally _could_ use Alexa on, but they're
all off. Are they counting me as a user, or possibly three users? Because I'm
not.

(I don't want a voice assistant anyhow, but the devices in question are two
tablets and an Android phone with the Amazon shopping app. I'm not sure how
"Alexa-y" the latter is, I've never fully experimented with it. Hitting the
microphone icon says I can order things.)

------
paulie_a
I will use a voice assistant to add items to a shopping list, but there is no
way in hell I am using one to actually order things.

------
dxxvi
It's inconvenient to use Alexa for shopping, but I use it because returning is
free for stuff bought through Alexa.

------
dreamcompiler
50 million Alexa users. Wow.

I remain astonished that so many people would _choose to install_ an always-
on, cloud-connected listening device in their most private spaces, with
utterly no accountability or auditability.

Especially since there's no technical reason for speech recognition to require
cloud connectivity.

~~~
raxxorrax
I have 4 different Alexa devices on 2 different accounts. Developed an IoT-
Solution for some devices. Was really fun and I really liked developing
against Alexa. Amazon also has some neat solutions for user management and
overall AWS services are pretty extensive. Would recommend.

That said, I never ever would use Alexa or Alexa-capable devices at home and I
doubt many users will use the IoT-functions of the devices in question. It is
mostly for marketing to have a voice-interface. But the development was still
very fun.

> Especially since there's no technical reason for speech recognition to
> require cloud connectivity

Never opened the boxes but I think Alexa devices are cheap w-lan capable
microphones with very basic speakers and software.

Having a lot of samples definitely helps for voice recognition. And you need
some processing power, additionally to as much memory as you can press into
that box.

~~~
dreamcompiler
The kind of processing power needed for good-enough speaker-independent
recognition at home has been cheap for several years. For speaker-dependent
recognition, it's been cheap for decades. Amazon, Google, and Apple like to
sell the myth that the cloud is necessary (because processing power!) but it's
simply not so. The real reason they say these things is to get your data.

~~~
raxxorrax
Sure. that is probably very possible to have an offline solution and I would
heavily prefer that too. Common smartphone hardware would certainly be enough
and then some.

------
something2332
Alexa, buy toilet paper.

Yeah, you're not going to buy a computer via Alexa but for everyday items, it
is fine.

