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Topic:
It’s all going to be voice control
This thread has 43 replies. Displaying posts 31 through 44.
Post 31 made on Sunday November 12, 2017 at 15:55
Dean Roddey
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Voice control is really bad for various things, so it won't ever completely take over. Among the things you wouldn't use it for are:

1. Are you going to browser your movies by voice and remember which of the hundred movies that it (took an hour) to tell you are available you want to watch?
2. It's good for announcements at the time but very bad for getting an overview of status after the fact. A touch screen can show you a lot of information very quickly.
3. Any guests that come over will have no clue what to do for a voice control interface because you have to know the commands before you can invoke them. A well designed touch screen can allow someone to quickly find what they need.
4. Administrative or sensitive tasks. Until we have high quality voice recognition (as opposed to speech recognition) it won't be possible to do any of these types of tasks via voice control unless you live completely alone. Touch screens easily allow for password protected and discrete control over such functions.
5. You can put a touch screen out of the reach of a small kid, but you can't prevent them from accessing voice commands.
6. Some things you neither want to know about when it happens, nor want to sit around and listen to a long list of things read out to you after the fact. For these, touch screens are obviously far better. You may not want to know every time a window is opened. But you may want to know which windows are open, which you can trivially and quickly determine on a touch screen but waiting for two minutes while a voice control system reads out the list would suck.
7. Would you rather take 5 seconds to see the next ten days of weather forecast data laid out visually, or listen for 2 minutes while the information is read out and you try to remember what the conditions were on the days you are interested in?

I'm sure that there are other examples, those are just off the top of my head. Of course some people have voice control fever and will claim that none of those things make any difference at all and why would anyone want to ever pick up a touch screen or walk to a touch screen. But I think that, clearly a pure voice control system will have limitations and annoyances.

And of course what a lot of the above implies is that automation systems aren't just about control, they are also about feedback and information, and that pure voice control solutions are really bad at certain types of feedback scenarios which visual systems handle perfectly.
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
www.charmedquark.com
Post 32 made on Sunday November 12, 2017 at 17:47
buzz
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In many respects, going all voice is similar to going blind.

With respect to passwords, it may be possible to develop reliable voice identification. In this case vocal passwords would not be needed. Im not sure how well this will work if the authorized person has a cold. Alexa seems to do a decent job of recognizing commands.
OP | Post 33 made on Sunday November 12, 2017 at 17:58
Fins
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Both Alexa and google advertise the ability to now distinguish between voices, allowing you to personalize features like calling contacts. Has anyone tried to set up the separate voice recognition? I’m curious to how well this works.
Civil War reenactment is LARPing for people with no imagination.

Post 34 made on Sunday November 12, 2017 at 18:29
Tom Grooms
Long Time Member
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129
Google home works extremely well distinguishing my voice from my gals. When I asked her the news I get my news, when she asks for the news she gets her news. Same thing with calendar events. I'm not sure Alexa has the same capabilities. Google home is Far and Away the better device in our home except for shopping :-)
Post 35 made on Sunday November 12, 2017 at 19:28
Dean Roddey
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It's fairly easy to distinguish kids from adults based on frequency, and reasonably well for males vs. females probably. But I'm doubting you'd want to trust any sensitive access to it at this point.
Dean Roddey
Chairman/CTO, Charmed Quark Systems
www.charmedquark.com
Post 36 made on Monday November 13, 2017 at 05:22
Mario
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Google is definitely better than Alexa.
Since Control4 decided to go with Alexa, I'm making it work.

I use natural commands like:
- Turn off all Music
- Turn off the castle
- Set master bedroom shades to 50%
- Turn off Great room TV
Post 37 made on Monday November 13, 2017 at 12:53
Ranger Home
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On November 13, 2017 at 05:22, Mario said...
Google is definitely better than Alexa.
Since Control4 decided to go with Alexa, I'm making it work.

I use natural commands like:
- Turn off all Music
- Turn off the castle
- Set master bedroom shades to 50%
- Turn off Great room TV

not to argue one is better than another, but those exact commands can be used in Alexa.
Post 38 made on Monday November 13, 2017 at 13:52
buzz
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I can setup a touch remote that anyone, even with the most tentative association with modern technology, can simply pickup and go. Maybe this will be possible if enough people watch enough episodes of science fiction movies, but we are not there yet.

What happens when a "foreign" (with respect to my program) language speaking relative comes to visit?
Post 39 made on Monday November 13, 2017 at 21:26
Ranger Home
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On November 13, 2017 at 13:52, buzz said...
I can setup a touch remote that anyone, even with the most tentative association with modern technology, can simply pickup and go. Maybe this will be possible if enough people watch enough episodes of science fiction movies, but we are not there yet.

What happens when a "foreign" (with respect to my program) language speaking relative comes to visit?

Voice control is a convenience ADD ON. I would NEVER want it to be the ONLY way to control a system. Thats a recipe for disaster.
Post 40 made on Monday November 13, 2017 at 23:18
GotGame
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As soon as Alexa will answer, "no, FU7c you!", I am buying one for the whole family.
I may be schizophrenic, but at least I have each other.
Post 41 made on Tuesday November 14, 2017 at 02:48
Mario
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On November 13, 2017 at 12:53, Ranger Home said...
not to argue one is better than another, but those exact commands can be used in Alexa.

Tucker, those are Alexa commands.
Control4 natively only works with Alexa.
Post 42 made on Tuesday November 14, 2017 at 02:57
Mario
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On November 13, 2017 at 23:18, GotGame said...
As soon as Alexa will answer, "no, FU7c you!", I am buying one for the whole family.

I so wish that someone at Amazon would have the balls to add sassy responses to phrases such as:
Alexa, why you so stupid?
Alexa, go f@%k yourself.
Alexa, you're a whore.

I tried those and others and the worst I got back was "that's not very nice". It pissed me off even more.
BTW, I would so sign some sort of waiver stating I would not sue them if she started cussing me out. 😁
Post 43 made on Saturday November 18, 2017 at 15:06
Anthony
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On November 12, 2017 at 15:55, Dean Roddey said...
Voice control is really bad for various things, so it won't ever completely take over. Among the things you wouldn't use it for are:

1. Are you going to browser your movies by voice and remember which of the hundred movies that it (took an hour) to tell you are available you want to watch?

This is somewhere where I think voice can have a bit of a benefit.

Now personally I don't use any DB or anything for my films. I find they all slow down the process. MY BILL still says every time we sit for a film "I can't believe it, you have thousands of films and before I finish with the title bane you already pulled it off the shelf"

but I think voice could be a bit faster then typing a title out and there will be less issues with 3/three, exactitude of titles....



3. Any guests that come over will have no clue what to do for a voice control interface because you have to know the commands before you can invoke them. A well designed touch screen can allow someone to quickly find what they need.

for me that is one of the biggest issues. It is not as much the big things (i.e. "lights to 50%", "Turn off Great room TV") those can be dealt with (i.e. what's wrong with "light's off" if the guy does not know there is the 50% option or "Turn off TV" coming from the mic in the great room). But terminology (do you pause / freeze frame, do you rec / record / tape /DVR /PVR... and language (this spring I had my cousin and his wife from Greece, a few weeks ago I had a francophone friend that needed stayed at my place


---
there is also "I DON'T WANT ANYONE TALKING WHILE I AM WATHCING A FILM OR TV SHOW"
...
Post 44 made on Saturday November 18, 2017 at 17:35
Hasbeen
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5,273
I'm not jumping on the voice control band wagon any time soon, but it's clear that the Big 3 (Amazon, Google, Apple) are deeply invested in it, so it will only get better and more prevalent.

I think back to all of the posts we had over the years about guys looking for a reliable solution for disabled clients...(and unfortunately there was never anything that worked very well)....These units must be an absolute God send for the disabled community.
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