I was visiting my friends in NYC and it seems that everyone has at least some version of these things. Living in a beach town in Thailand I have only heard of these things but never seen one with my own eyes.
In case you don't know what this thing is I'll try to explain but keep in mind that I know none of the technical details, just what I saw with my eyes. Basically, you can say the word "Alexa" out loud from anywhere withing shouting range and follow that with a search query and "she" will respond to you. With various add-ons you can get remote control of various aspects of your house, such as lights and music, tv, etc. There are many styles of Echo and Google manufactures one as well that i guess functions in a similar fashion.
another style of Echo
At first I thought it was cool but then it dawned on me that it wasn't really saving my friend any time, in many instances the things that Alexa could do for him it actually took longer than to just stand up and flip the lightswitch that was directly behind where my friend was sitting. Other times Alexa couldn't understand what he said and apologized, other times "she" did the wrong thing. My friend actually got annoyed with me when i got tired of him saying something louder and louder to a tube on the other side of the room and I just turned the light off. At this point he said to me..
if you turn it off manually she can't turn it back on the next time
Awesome.
Another thing he kept doing was ask Alexa really complicated questions and 80% of the time her answer was at best somewhat related to what he was asking. In the meantime I just pulled the information up on my computer, which is was currently sitting at.
There are a lot of add-ons you can buy for this thing, but of course they all cost extra money so here is my opinion of this somewhat new piece of technology: We don't need this.
There is a good chance that all the stuff that Alexa can answer for you, you already have multiple devices that can do it faster. This is just more consumer crap in my mind. I don't think anyone actually needs this. For my friend anyway, i think it may have actually made the things in his life take LONGER.
If you but it just for fun or to show off then I say perhaps, go ahead. As Sheryl Crowe once said "if it makes you happy, it can't be that bad"
However, in my mind, this is a massive waste of money and they will just find a way to convince you that you need a new one, or the upgrades such as not needing to touch the buttons on your microwave despite the fact that you are standing in front of it because you just put food in it.
I will not be purchasing one of these things.
If you have purchased one of these things and found it to actually benefit your life in some sort of productivity way I would be interested in hearing about it. For me, it seems completely redundant and is just for showing off. I own 3 computers and a smartphone. I think that is enough. :)
