[BryanLegend]

The new Alexa+ is super great, if you've been invited to it.

The voice recognition is at a whole nother level, much much faster. Controlling lights is easily an entire second faster.

The TTS upgrade is a trip. She sounds younger and speaks faster.

[diggan]

> Controlling lights is easily an entire second faster

How long time did it used to take VS how long time does it take now? I'm not sure "an entire second faster" is sarcasm here, big improvement or what.

[BryanLegend]

There used to be second or two between finishing a command and it getting executed. We easily use Alexa 20x a day at my house. Announcements, kitchen timers, lights & music.

I think the voice recognition is async now. It's streaming the data to a model. Before it would wait until the command was finished then send the .wav file off to a model.

[WalterBright]

> Controlling lights is easily an entire second faster

I just use the Clapper from the 1970s.

https://www.amazon.com/Clapper-Activated-Detection-Appliance...

[BryanLegend]

We easily use Alexa 20x a day at my house. Announcements, kitchen timers, lights & music. Even checking store hours or weather.

Replaces a phone in many cases.

[WalterBright]

More like the phone replaces Alexa, as Alexa cannot do phone calls.

[BryanLegend]

Alexa can do calls. We usually only use that to find a lost phone.

[WalterBright]

LOL, I didn't know that.

[otterley]

That works great if you're in the room, but not so much if you're not home (or aren't even in the same room), or want to control landscape lighting and want it to automatically adapt to the seasons.

[WalterBright]

1. I have no trouble at all hitting the light switch when I enter a room, and hitting it again when I leave. Even when the power goes out for a few days, I still reflexively hit the switch.

2. I tried landscape lighting once. The local fawna chewed it to bits. I decided I didn't need it.

3. I don't need to control the lights when I'm not home.

4. I have seriously no need to light according to the seasons.

Sure, a more automated system would be great for disabled people. But I'm not disabled, and intend to lift my sorry heiny out of the chair as long as I am able to.

[nsonha]

is it "ChatGPT in a box" level yet? If not why has that not been a thing?

[PartiallyTyped]

The problem with ChatGPT in a box and similar is that they are not made for live interactions. If you've tried chatGPT or claude on your phone with voice conversations you will see that it takes a while to think.

Humans on the other hand start processing the moment there's a response and will [usually] respond immediately without "thinking", or if they are thinking, they will say as much, but still respond quite quickly.

[throwaway314155]

Surely whatever solution they came up with amounts to "ChatGPT in a box" (using an llm with fewer parameters for speed).

[nsonha]

Not unlike voice mode on the ChatGPT mobile app, pretty responsive to me. Existing voice assistants do not set a high bar.

[BryanLegend]

It is. It will make up a story if you ask it to. Answers questions with it's own knowledge now instead of using the amazon answers site.