It’s the same broken promise every year. All I want is for Siri to set an alarm and open my blinds. That’s enough for me. Makes you wonder how much money Apple has poured into Siri over the years.
A few years ago, the ability to do anything other than a timed walk on my watch with Siri broke. I used to be able to do things like say, “start a 3 mile walk” or “start a 200 calorie walk” and then the latter stopped working and then the former stopped letting me do non-integer numbers of miles and then nothing at all and now I cannot do anything other than start an unmeasured walk or a timed walk with siri and I’m still pissed about that. I don’t want to have conversations with my watch or my phone, I want it to handle simple basic tasks reliably.
“Shuffle playlist _____” broke a few years ago too. Now it consistently takes that to mean “Play other music similar to the playlist.”
If I specify “Shuffle playlist _____ in Apple Music” somehow that works right, even though it’s still using Apple Music in the first example when it plays the wrong music.
We’ll see if they managed to unfuck it with the new Siri update, or knowing LLMs perhaps they’ll make it non-deterministic so sometimes it works and sometimes it plays music you didn’t ask for.
I only really use Siri for music control while driving so I haven't tried those (since there's a physical pause/mute button), but I'll have to try that and see if it's the same for me.
Pretty bad if simple one-word commands to system APIs don't work, we had better voice control capability with "Speakable Items" on classic Mac OS.
I can no longer control my lights with Gemini assistant. It'll tell me "I can't do that" or "here's how to turn your lights on" or, in at least one instant, play Ellie Golding's Lights at 2x speed.
So now I just use the Google home app and it works as expected.
Jokes aside, I have been using siri to control my smart home and set my alarm for nearly ten years now. I haven't really had problems with basic stuff like this.
I'm too paranoid to ever want a home snitch device, so I'm not their target audience, but it always struck me that if it took even ten minutes to debug a problem like that it completely destroys a year's worth of time allegedly saved compared to just walking over to the room and hitting the switch.
It's not about time efficiency more about convince. It sounds trivial but sometimes it's really useful to be able to do things hands free/without having to move - worth spending the time to install/setup all of this once.
I'm in the middle of remodeling a new apartment and all my switches are smart. I won't even have physical switches for some fixtures like window rollers.
true, but also there is no debugging, right? it's apple's software either it works or it doesn't. (i guess other than connectivity issues)
idk if most of my home assistant automations have actually saved me time since i def had to debug them, but the level of satisfaction when they do work is def worth it for me, since i created (and debugged) them haha
Home Assistant automations for me are rarely about saving time, they're about saving mental energy. I no longer need to think about turning off the bathroom lights, my coffee machine is already warm when I go to make my morning coffee rather than standing around waiting for it, and when the washing machine is done I'll get a note reminding me to go empty it.
> Siri turn off the main light in children's bedroom
This is a fascinating example. You would initially assume it's just inconvenient versus flipping a switch--this can't be labour-saving by default.
The only way it makes sense is if you're doing it remotely; from another room, you're putting your children to bed. That's even weirder though, because you're taking what should be a moment of connection/care and trying to automate it. I guarantee your children would value you taking the time.
It's a use-case that is either inefficient or inhuman, and I find it really odd that it's one that you value.
Maybe you want to put your kid to bed, they want the light on while they're falling asleep. Twenty minutes later you're back in your room and you don't want to disturb them, so you turn off the light remotely.
I also have a "go to bed" scene that turns on a couple lights so I can see the stairs and turns off most lights around the house.
I don't really need AI to do it, I can just use the app, but Alexa usually gets the job done and I don't need to look at my phone.
We buy technology for the convenience it gets us. When we can't rely on technology doing what it promised for us then we complain because we spent money on something that doesn't work as advertised. Even worse when it did work before and no longer does.
In any case, OPs reasons for wanting to turn off any light in any of their rooms are unknown to us.
Maybe they took their kids out to breakfast and realized they forgot to turn the lights off while they were driving. Good thing they bought those smart lights that can be controlled with siri! Oh no! It doesn't work the way it was advertised!
There's no reason to imply OP is a bad parent just because they want to turn off a light remotely.
The OP has already given us context that makes your contrived example unlikely: they want to turn off just the main light, and in a specific bedroom. My extrapolation was reasonable, yours is a reach.
There's no reason to hunt for a poor parallel to shut down discussion.
I'm not sure what is being discussed? OP is a bad parent for wanting to turn off exactly one light in his child's bedroom? If so, yes, there is plenty of reason to shut down this discussion.
Its always frustrating when people describe a tech issue, and the response to that is not to discuss the issue itself, but just point out ways in which the person reply doesn't agree with what they are assuming is the original posters lifestyle choices.
Why waste time and effort just picking apart what someone else does with their free time? I can only assume becasue they disagree with the issues relevance, but that only goes to show the intent of the person replying. They dont care about the tech issue and just want to show why they think they are better than the person with the problem.
Tech issues don't exist in a vacuum; the idea that tech--a thing we use to enhance our lives, in a discussion literally about doing that--can only be considered from a purely mechanical standpoint is a thought-terminating cliché at this point.
Considering the uses and impact of tech is part of talking about it; you can't limit discussion just to the wires.
I have dimmable lights I need the main light at 20% to read a book and it's useful to whisper to my assistant instead of walking across the room. I really don't get the comment - just because you can't envision a usecase doesn't mean it's not useful to me. Wife was a total skeptic about smart home stuff but having alexa control the bedroom lights while changing diapers or preparing bottles at night for her to switch to using it constantly.
I would have preferred Siri because one less provider but it's just unbelievably bad for this day and age.
I’ve wondered for years if this is what’s happening. They saw the mad scramble and hype bubble when gpt3 was released, and decided to sit it out until LLM tech was a bit more mature and commoditised.
Huge call if so, given that missing the bus on AGI (if AGI happened) is a universal existential risk, but it turned out to be the right one.
I'm not sure it is, if your primary business is selling hardware. People are still going to need a 5" wide screen and battery in their pocket in order to do things.
I’m using Eve Blinds. They integrate really well with HomeKit. They’re a bit on the pricey side, but the setup is straightforward and they’ve been very reliable for me.
I don't know why they bother. Clearly, nobody using Apple products cares enough to jump ship. Apple is never going to surpass Google, especially now that they are trying to build their own assistant on top of Google with one hand tied behind their back.
There's never going to be a situation where a heavy Google Assistant user switches over to Apple for Siri. Anyone who would have switched from Apple to Google for their assistant likely would have done so by now. Siri just isn't a very important feature. It doesn't bring people to Apple's platform nor does it steer them away. It might bother users that it sucks, but it doesn't bother anyone enough that it hurts Apple's bottom line. Frankly, continuing to pour money into that bottomless pit does more damage. I wonder why they do it.
All I want is for iPhones to have physical keyboards. That's enough for me. Makes you wonder how much money Apple has poured into touch screens over the years.