Echo & Alexa Forums
General Category => Amazon Echo Discussion => Topic started by: Opieos on March 11, 2016, 12:47:36 pm
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Anyone else have a spouse or significant other that are resistant to using echo or any of the home automation devices that are voice controlled?
Currently my wife is be pretty stubborn and using the system and knock on wood I have it pretty locked in as far as controlling the TV and some lights as such.
Short of hiding the remote control not sure what else to do..... Hoping that she comes around eventually. Need the support for this addicting hobby
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That's interesting. I had the exact opposite experience - my wife hated using almost all of the home automation stuff until we brought an Echo in. Said she much prefers telling the lights to turn off than having to pull out her phone.
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Tech-savvy wife had aversion to using shopping list, ("It's all in my head.",) but (after she forgot things once or twice) I insisted she try it once or twice. Never complained again, she is always adding to list, and checks it when shopping. Even calls me to say add anything to app I think of while she's shopping.
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I always know when the other half adopts any of my tech in everyday life it has been a successful one. Alexa was initially regarded with snorts of disdain.. Now it's rare that we listen to music or switch lights using any other method!
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I always know when the other half adopts any of my tech in everyday life it has been a successful one. Alexa was initially regarded with snorts of disdain.. Now it's rare that we listen to music or switch lights using any other method!
the same happened with the first galaxy note.
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I am the techy one, my husband is not!! He took to the Echo reaaallly fast... He loves her! He's looking forward to moving into a new house where I plan to setup smartthings. He says he's gonna like not having to get out of bed to turn fan on/off.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
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I'll have to keep my fingers crossed I'm hoping she'll come around. I've dumped a lot of tech on her a short few weeks, Roku (because Time Warner is going all digital in our area) A new "fancy" cycling computer and of course the Echo. Harmony hub and smartthings
It was bad enough that the first thing she asked it when I begged her to try it out was "Alexa, Why is my husband so stupid" thankfully there wasn't a good answer for that ::)
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Whoa, your wife's comment is TMI!
The Roku is easy and a good product; have had one since the first week it was introduced, and kept upgrading them. Our favorite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Livestream, etc. platform. Some, (but not all) would say I was an "early adopter" of the new product back then.
So, what's the problem of Time Warner going all digital? Our Comcast has been so for years. "Pulling the plug" on cable is not an option in our house; especially for live sports and our few favorite TV shows.
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Whoa, your wife's comment is TMI!
The Roku is easy and a good product; have had one since the first week it was introduced, and kept upgrading them. Our favorite Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Livestream, etc. platform. Some, (but not all) would say I was an "early adopter" of the new product back then.
So, what's the problem of Time Warner going all digital? Our Comcast has been so for years. "Pulling the plug" on cable is not an option in our house; especially for live sports and our few favorite TV shows.
don't roku havej several live sports channels now? may not be free but...I am a cord cutter and don't miss a favorite tv show episode like sleepy hollow, flash, arrow, legends of tomorrow, agents of shield, supergirl, lucifer, etc :-) just gotta know where to look :-)
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Good questions, renegade,
I'll begin by saying I love the internet and streaming, my home is optimized for it in lots of ways, but when push comes to shove, we both prefer cable TV over internet streaming of same material, and for quite a few reasons..
Yes, Roku does have live sports, but not like the TV networks do. I got up early this fall to watch a free NFL game on Roku coming from England. Was not impressed. My Roku is wired to a gigabit home network, I pay extra for premium internet bandwidth (over 100mbps) and I get great signal on Roku. Nevertheless, the picture was not the quality of Comcast TV, and worse yet, the internet stream kept stopping and stalling too often. This does not happen with cable TV. The Super Bowl was free on Roku stream this year, too. A few minutes with it on Roku, and we decided to watch game on cable TV.
Local sports: My wife is a big baseball fan. We have the pathetic Seattle Mariners on TV most every game; and most all games are broadcast here. If we had MLB stream, we would not see local games, because the MLB blacks out all streaming of local games, in all markets. to force fans to watch on local TV and put up with all the commercials. We can only watch Mariners on MLB if it is an Away game. Then, we can easily compare streaming via Roku with cable broadcast. Again, no contest regarding quality of picture. Over the past years, the picture quality of the stream has improved, but there is a noticeable jerkiness to the picture that tells us "this is not cable TV quality". We have had MLB stream from time to time, mostly near end of season when the price drops and we get emailed about a "deal". Since my wife is a long time Yankee fan, she gets the MLB stream for that team alone.
I am sure we would face the same situation if we had NFL internet stream, and our beloved Seahawks would be blacked out during local games, too! Anyway, enough about live sports.
Other TV programs. We really only have a few we tap into and we always record them on DVR, and most always watch show after recorded so we can skip commercials. If we watch live, we wait long enough to start watching so we can be for enough behind to skip most commercials, but if we don't, there is always the mute button toward the end of the show if we need to "go live". Try using a mute button with an internet stream.
COSTS: So, what is a confirmed cable user to do about the "high prices"?
1. Only buy what you want, so we buy Premium digital for all the ball games and other channels we like, but no premium channels like HBO, etc.
2. I negotiate with Comcast to get the cost down, and it works! Plus, they throw in free stuff, like HBO at no cost!
I got fed up with the bill a few years ago and called Comcast, and told them they cut all these deals for people who switch all the time, so I wanted to know what they will do for long-time Comcast customers. I was switched to another department where the person fell all over herself cutting a deal for me. I got switched to the Customer Retention Dept. They are the people you immediately connect with if you ever press the phone button choice: "I want to discontinue my Comcast service!" One ring and you are in there!
OK, when we were finished making the deal. I ended up with a reduced rate on our DVR, second cable box and given free HBO and their version of Amazon Prime free movie streaming. Total cost now is $40 LESS a month for a year. She said I would have to call back in a year to renegotiate. Yep, a pain, but she told me to just hit 3 button and I would be back in her department again. The next year I did, and this time I agreed to a 2-year contract to reduce the hassle of every year negotiating. This time we got another freebee, and price was reduced $40/mo for all services again. In fact, I think my two years is about up, and I better go through this again this week; wife says our bill has not yet jumped back up yet.
There are programs we like that are only on the internet, e.g. from Livestream, and Roku has an app for that.
So, I like internet streaming of stuff I cannot get otherwise. I like the quality, wide choice and convenience of cable TV and programs. I find paying a monthly bill for excellent video service easier than buying piecemeal, shows on internet streaming to be a waste of my time, and maybe even money. I wonder as this cable-cutting gets more popular how many people will buy streaming shows individually and maybe not cancel some they have, so that in the end they pay as much more than cable will cost. In some ways it can be a false economy kind of a practice.
Now, aren't you sorry you asked me this question after my long-winded answer? Hope somebody got something out of this.
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My wife wasn't so much "resistant" as she was just generally eye-rolling at what she viewed as a waste of money on just another expensive toy (which is, admittedly, a bit of a bad habit on my part). She slowly began to come around...just a bit...when I got her used to setting timers while cooking (a feature I use a lot myself), playing music and all the other usual stuff. But since I'd made serious progress on building a "smart home" around the Echo (as part of a SmartThings ecosystem) she's gotten so used to doing things with voice commands that it's habit for her now, and she's come to view Alexa as a valuable convenience no different from a dishwasher, or a microwave, or....well....me. ;)
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And so it begins.
I heard the wife using Alexa to put carrots on the shopping list this morning.
And looking back at the history when I was in bed last night she used it to turn off one of the Smartthings automated lights! ;)
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My wife talks to Alexa like it's a stick.
For example: When she wants the dining-room table light on she just says "Alexa turn on table". It works but she refuses to think of Alexa as a robot.
I try to set a good example but it falls on deaf ears.
not sure what is wrong with using table as keyword when turning on dining room table light but I think the shorter the word is, the less likely of a misunderstanding. I use names as short as possible. for my computer desk light, I ask for desk, for my computer table lamp I say computer. for my sparebed room bookcase, I just say spare book. for the light over the sink, I say turn on sink.
I found when I have a sinus cold, just waking up, or whatever when my voice is not totally awake, it is harder to turn on devices when the device name is too long. I had to go back and rename things to make them simple.
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No I don't mean it like that..
I say: "Alexa, turn on the dining table light please".
My wife says: "Alexa, turn on table"
I spent time going through the training routine and found it very successful. It enhanced the Echo understanding me better.
I talk to Alexa as if she's an intelligent person (I know it's not). Both of these result in the same successful action. I just think normal speech and good manners are never out of place. It's just my upbringing I guess.
My wife talks to Alexa like it's a stick.
For example: When she wants the dining-room table light on she just says "Alexa turn on table". It works but she refuses to think of Alexa as a robot.
I try to set a good example but it falls on deaf ears.
not sure what is wrong with using table as keyword when turning on dining room table light but I think the shorter the word is, the less likely of a misunderstanding. I use names as short as possible. for my computer desk light, I ask for desk, for my computer table lamp I say computer. for my sparebed room bookcase, I just say spare book. for the light over the sink, I say turn on sink.
I found when I have a sinus cold, just waking up, or whatever when my voice is not totally awake, it is harder to turn on devices when the device name is too long. I had to go back and rename things to make them simple.
but do you thank alexa? :-P
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My wife was the same way for a little while, until we found that speaking in complete, natural sentences...as though you were speaking to an real person...actually improved recognition accuracy when issuing home automation commands. Besides, half the point of this technology (for me at least) is the semi-illusion that you're interacting with a HAL-like artificial intelligence. Sure, it requires a little willing suspension of disbelief, but that's half the fun.
After I started doing all this I had an mini epiphany where I realized that a large part of my motivation for spending all this time, money and effort making this stuff work together was that I grew up reading and watching sci-fi and other media that promised a future of interstellar travel, automated homes, intelligent machines, flying cars, etc. Well, I'm not going to live to see man travel to the stars, nor do I think I'll make it to the flying cars. But now I'm able to make at least some of those futuristic prophecies a reality before I croak. Something to cross off my techie nerd bucket list. 8)
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but do you thank alexa? :-P
My wife thanks her every time my SmartThings automation turns our lights on 30 minutes prior to sunset, even though I keep telling her that Alexa has nothing to do with it. I guess thanking the little white hub upstairs just doesn't have the same feel to it.
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but do you thank alexa? :-P
My wife thanks her every time my SmartThings automation turns our lights on 30 minutes prior to sunset, even though I keep telling her that Alexa has nothing to do with it. I guess thanking the little white hub upstairs just doesn't have the same feel to it.
alexa says you're welcome several different ways. sometimes it is fun just to try to guess how :-)