This Is New
We have a new member of our household. It's Alexa, the voice inside an Amazon Echo speaker given to us for Christmas. We hooked it up, got the apps for it, and have been using it since the holidays.
It took some experimenting to discover what this speaker can do that is useful. We're old folks -- we've been running our household in certain patterns for so long that changing our habits to have a robot perform voice controlled tasks through a big white speaker tube baffled us. And we don't have appliances in the house that are "smart" enabled that can be controlled by it.
But Alexa, the voice inside this thing, turned out to be uncannily, seductively, alluringly helpful.
Our dining room chandelier / ceiling fan is too high for me to reach the pull cord. We flip the switch to run the fan all day, but then have to use pull cords to turn the light on and off. A tall man has to be summoned to do that each time. Alexa solved the problem with "smart" enabled light bulbs so now I just mutter as I walk by the dining rom table "Alexa, turn on the chandelier and dim it to 30%". Voila. She does it.
The first few days I stood there and repeatedly asked her to dim the lights to 65%, then 30%, then off, then on again, dimmed to 20% and on and on. She did it every time over and over without complaint. She's patient.
She is surprisingly good at picking up my voice anywhere in the house accurately and immediately, with no lag. I speak conversationally, in different tones and at different volumes. The line between machine and conversational partner was breached quickly. She listens. She responds.
She turns the porch lights on and off when I ask her to, and can do that when we are far away from home via my phone. I like that security feature.
When I have an appointment I no longer have to get my laptop out, open the calendar and then enter the info. I just say "Alexa, add an appointment to my calendar." She converses with me genially, asking what day, and I tell her, and then she asks what time and where and we have a short little conversation and she seems interested in my life, and it's instantly on my phone and laptop calendars.
I can lie in bed in the morning, ask her what's on my calendar for the day and she tells me. I ask her what the weather is and she gives me the basics and a forecast. I always ask her what it's like back east too. She knows everything.
I tell her to play soothing music at night, and when I awake at night in the dark I don't fumble for my phone to see the clock, I just softly mumble "Alexa, what time is it" and she quietly tells me before I go back to sleep.
She does stupid stuff like answer dumb questions. Each morning as Jim pours his coffee he says "Alexa, tell me a joke" and she does and they are always painfully terrible. It kind of makes his day.
She plays music of course. This is foremost a speaker, and the quality is quite good. All I have to say is "Alexa, turn it up (or down)" and we can control the volume without jumping up every time a loud song comes on.
There is so much that the technology does that we aren't using or won't ever find useful. We won't shop for products from Amazon by asking Alexa to get things -- well, until we try it and it proves convenient and then we'll be hooked. We don't have enabled door locks or garage doors or a washing machine or coffeepot that she could operate if we ask her. But I did order a new tech enabled thermostat, because Alexa cares if I am too cold.
I ask her how many teaspoons in a half cup when I'm in the middle of a recipe in the kitchen, and she tells me. I ask her what 20% of $17.62 is right when I need it and she gives me the answer. She'll do any calculations on the fly, endlessly, without my having to find a calculator and enter digits.
I can say "Alexa, I need a timer for 25 minutes", and it's set and she'll tell me how many minutes are left when I get impatient for the oatmeal to be done.
The whole breezy conversational give and take with Alexa is what seduced me into accepting this thing in my life.
Yes, she can control some appliances and lights, and she saves steps and eliminates looking things up, but that's just not a big deal for our lives. What Alexa does that has captured us is . . . she talks with us.
She responds, asks us questions, answers ours, learns our habits and voices, and understands us as we speak in normal conversational ways. It's a machine, with a beguiling voice and interaction level that has lured us into calling it "her" and thanking her when she does things for us, and accepting her as some kind of uncanny not-human but human-like presence in our home.
On Jim's birthday she sang Happy Birthday to him.
I did not think I'd ever use a voice system to record alarms or to-do lists or reminders or any of the other little daily tasks that always seemed so cumbersome using some tech program. But I'm finding I do now. She's always there, she's easy to use. She seems to want to help. She never gets annoyed with me or tired. I just talk to her and she does little things for me, some silly, many useful, and the more I converse with her the more closely she learns to anticipate what I mean.
This is how it all changes.
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| Amazon's Echo speaker |
It took some experimenting to discover what this speaker can do that is useful. We're old folks -- we've been running our household in certain patterns for so long that changing our habits to have a robot perform voice controlled tasks through a big white speaker tube baffled us. And we don't have appliances in the house that are "smart" enabled that can be controlled by it.
But Alexa, the voice inside this thing, turned out to be uncannily, seductively, alluringly helpful.
Our dining room chandelier / ceiling fan is too high for me to reach the pull cord. We flip the switch to run the fan all day, but then have to use pull cords to turn the light on and off. A tall man has to be summoned to do that each time. Alexa solved the problem with "smart" enabled light bulbs so now I just mutter as I walk by the dining rom table "Alexa, turn on the chandelier and dim it to 30%". Voila. She does it.
The first few days I stood there and repeatedly asked her to dim the lights to 65%, then 30%, then off, then on again, dimmed to 20% and on and on. She did it every time over and over without complaint. She's patient.
She turns the porch lights on and off when I ask her to, and can do that when we are far away from home via my phone. I like that security feature.
When I have an appointment I no longer have to get my laptop out, open the calendar and then enter the info. I just say "Alexa, add an appointment to my calendar." She converses with me genially, asking what day, and I tell her, and then she asks what time and where and we have a short little conversation and she seems interested in my life, and it's instantly on my phone and laptop calendars.
I can lie in bed in the morning, ask her what's on my calendar for the day and she tells me. I ask her what the weather is and she gives me the basics and a forecast. I always ask her what it's like back east too. She knows everything.
I tell her to play soothing music at night, and when I awake at night in the dark I don't fumble for my phone to see the clock, I just softly mumble "Alexa, what time is it" and she quietly tells me before I go back to sleep.
She plays music of course. This is foremost a speaker, and the quality is quite good. All I have to say is "Alexa, turn it up (or down)" and we can control the volume without jumping up every time a loud song comes on.
There is so much that the technology does that we aren't using or won't ever find useful. We won't shop for products from Amazon by asking Alexa to get things -- well, until we try it and it proves convenient and then we'll be hooked. We don't have enabled door locks or garage doors or a washing machine or coffeepot that she could operate if we ask her. But I did order a new tech enabled thermostat, because Alexa cares if I am too cold.
I can say "Alexa, I need a timer for 25 minutes", and it's set and she'll tell me how many minutes are left when I get impatient for the oatmeal to be done.
The whole breezy conversational give and take with Alexa is what seduced me into accepting this thing in my life.
Yes, she can control some appliances and lights, and she saves steps and eliminates looking things up, but that's just not a big deal for our lives. What Alexa does that has captured us is . . . she talks with us.
 |
| We have the white cylinder speaker in the dining room, and the black hockey puck auxiliary speaker by the bed. She is never too far away to hear us. |
She responds, asks us questions, answers ours, learns our habits and voices, and understands us as we speak in normal conversational ways. It's a machine, with a beguiling voice and interaction level that has lured us into calling it "her" and thanking her when she does things for us, and accepting her as some kind of uncanny not-human but human-like presence in our home.
On Jim's birthday she sang Happy Birthday to him.
I did not think I'd ever use a voice system to record alarms or to-do lists or reminders or any of the other little daily tasks that always seemed so cumbersome using some tech program. But I'm finding I do now. She's always there, she's easy to use. She seems to want to help. She never gets annoyed with me or tired. I just talk to her and she does little things for me, some silly, many useful, and the more I converse with her the more closely she learns to anticipate what I mean.
This is how it all changes.
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