Gray Brooks

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Amazon Echo/Alexa Notes

Why I Decided To Buy A Smart Speaker

Three recent realizations occurred to me:

1) How many things my partner and I do that a smart speaker helps with.
2) The modest, yet real utility to servicing a need by just asking for it rather than reaching for a device and navigating to a resource, and typing the request.
3) That this dynamic (speaking to the ambient ‘computer’ in the room) is going to be the norm in the near, not distant future.

The last part, in particular, won me over. There’s good reason to think that the future we’ve seen presented in Start Trek, with the omnipresent assistant, always ready to respond to “Computer: …”, will quickly become a major norm. In 5-8 years, we’ll all be accustomed to this user interface, just as smartphones have become so thoroughly a part of our lives over the past decade. It’s worth thinking through what a smart speaker can do for you, but it’s also worth becoming acquainted with an up-and-coming technology ahead of the time, to better know and understand it (more on this).

Commands I use with my smart speaker

These are some examples of commands I find useful so far:

Tasks I hope to soon use with my smart speaker

Many of these already exist and I just haven’t documented the correct query yet, but what’s great is that even if they aren’t yet available, they will be soon.

Tips

Which Devices Are Out There?

Why not to use a smart speaker…