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Reasonably Accurate 馃馃 Transcript
Good morning, everybody. How are you doing today? Um First of all, thank you very much for the well wishes of the last couple of days. I've been fighting the flu. It hit me pretty hard. And as those of you on the vlog can tell I am not looking my best.
And on the podcast, you can probably hear that there may be some grumbling, some coughing. Um You know, I will try to keep that at a minimum, which is why I pre-recorded this morning's episode before streaming it live just in case. Um, so a lot has gone on in the last week since I last talked to you a few things I think I wanna tackle, um, today or at least one thing that I wanna tackle, even though the list is really, really long, um, was Amazon surprise hardware event last week.
So they ended up, um, leaking out some stuff last week and then, uh, called a quick snap sort of hardware introduction. And they basically introduced everything. New echo show, new echo dot New echo echo sub an amplifier, a microwave, um, a number of things, a smart plug.
Um, and this really illustrates Amazon's Alexa Everywhere strategy. Now, the reason why I want to bring this up because I actually get asked about smart assistants and smart home assistance. Um quite often um because obviously there's a lot of privacy concerns. Now, as always, you guys know, I don't really take sides.
Um I kind of look at it from uh you know, you need to be aware of the risk and then accept that risk or not. So, um as far as uh Siri um Google assistant um as well as Alexa, so Siri on the home pods, the Google home stuff um or uh Alexa devices.
Um and of course, mine are freaking out as I record this video. Um They are always listening. That's true, but they're always listening for a key trigger word so that always on microphone isn't recording. It's looking for that trigger word, whether that be Siri, whether that be ok, Google or whether that be Alexa, once it hears that trigger word or thinks it hears that trigger word, then it starts to record and nowhere is that more apparent than if you go into the Alexa app, you can see actually all of the phrases that it has recorded and what action it took as a result of those phrases now that can be very handy for troubleshooting.
Um that can be handy to figure out why it made a decision, but it does raise that very real privacy concern that because it may have thought it heard its trigger word, it could be then recording. I've heard our Alexa on the main floor here trigger for a number of things that actually weren't a request to the device.
So there is that privacy concern now that um recorded data is actually sent up to the cloud to either Apple to Google or Amaz cloud and then it is then processed and the decision is then taken and executed depending on what it is.
Now, last week's event, um besides the obvious new round of echoes, which are super cool. If you have an echo show V one V two looks way way better. Um Far more useful, far more designed as being like the kitchen. Um Alexa.
Um and again, minds are just freaking out with this video. So uh the um that's obviously, you know, the, the the you can evaluate those devices, whether they fit your needs, whether you have um the last version or just getting in. Those are great choices if that's the way you want to go.
But the interesting one really is the microwave and the smart plugs. Now the smart plugs are not as smart as some aftermarket plugs. You can buy a third party plug for probably about the same price that actually scores multiple assistants which might be a better call.
But for those of you that are in that Amazon ecosystem, that smart plug and that microwave really kind of show where Amazon wants to go with this and they want everything Alexa enabled and an Alexa source. So the idea is to get whole home coverage and of course, it continues to freak out.
So we're just going to call her a if you want full A Alexa, never mind. Always fun. Alexa, stop the music that perfectly illustrates some of the challenges with home assistant. I don't know if you picked up the music on the microphone, but of course, that was playing.
Um the kids were listening to some music before they went to school. Now, um that home assistant, that home utility can be super useful for things like when you walk into the kitchen, you ask what the weather is. Um If you're asking for timers, I use that all the time when I'm cooking, I set multiple timers and uh that's a great way hands free because my hands are dirty, you know, cooking uh food or at least they're, they're, you know, covered in food products.
So there are uses there. But the strategy is obviously everywhere. Now you can't get everywhere coverage through one or two devices. So building into things like the microwave means that you're able to um now control that microwave. I have a sound bar, the thermostats and all these different sources where you can have pickup um means that you have better, better coverage.
So anywhere that you say that trigger word, all of a sudden you can interact with the system and that's really what it's all about. It's about not thinking about it. It's like that Star Trek next generation level computer computer and it responding, which could be super cool and could be what you're going for.
But there's some concerns you need to be aware of. There's no authentication here whatsoever. So if you hook up your personal Amazon account to that device, you're going to be able to make purchases at the credit card saved, which almost always is you're going to be able to um you know, affect the search history and make actions on that account.
Now, that account also is for a lot of folks that link to their aws, their personal Aws stuff. So what you probably want to do is create a separate account, a home account for your house and link that up to the devices so that you can restrict the purchases or you can remove the payment information completely and that you can have that sort of clean um history.
Now, there's a lot of questions there. It's really a personal choice. There's no good, there's no bad for me. As you can obviously tell, we, I have it deployed here in the house. Um but in the basement and on the main floor, I don't have it on the second floor where people sleep.
Um and sort of the more private conversations happen and things like that. Um So down on the main floor, it's mainly in the kitchen for using cooking um and sort of a central home like, hey, what's the weather today? Um You know, what's the forecast gonna be set?
Some timers? Um check some things that kind of deal downstairs in the basement. It's to control the home entertainment system. So very handy, very useful. Um but not deployed everywhere because they don't need it everywhere. And that's just a personal choice, but I think you need to be aware of those challenges.
So be aware, it is listening all the time, but it's not sending it up to the cloud. It only does that once it hears a trigger word or thinks it hears its trigger word and that's a big key, a lot of the time it's mistaken um or in passing.
So uh you've heard it several times activate during this video. Um Also, uh one of my kids is watching uh a great show on Amazon uh Netflix right now that actually has that word in the name. So every time she turns on that show that uh the smart home assistant goes nuts.
Now with Siri and with um uh OK, Google, not nearly as often. Um But still there's the potential there. So not, not bad, not good um interesting strategy from Amazon though where they want um uh a everywhere. Um And I think they'll get it, they're pushing out tons of cheap products.
Um It's very useful that solves um some small needs not any one killer like you absolutely have to have this. Um, but some interesting things. So that's your thought for today. Thank you for all the well wishes over the last few days, as you can see, as you can hear, I'm still not 100%.
Um, but I hope to be uh broadcasting tomorrow despite a trip to Montreal and Friday. And of course, next week is Seor in Toronto where I'm key notting on the Wednesday. Um So I'll have lots of live content from that show um and a few other trips next week.
So have a great day. What do you uh or before I wrap that up, Z I'm not entirely with it today. Uh What do you think about smart home assistance? What are your concerns? Are you worried about putting them in your private spaces?
Um Let me know, hit me up in uh on social at marknca uh for those of you in the vlog in the comments down below and as always by email me@markn.ca, have a fantastic day. I look forward to talking to you online and see you on the show tomorrow.
