One year with Alexa

Having used Amazon’s Alexa now for over a year, and also integrated it with Samsung’s SmartThings, my Sonos, and a Harmony Hub (attempted), I thought now would be a good point to review how well it handles my daily Use Cases.

Let’s start with what I have in the apartment. My Apartment has two Amazon Echo Dots, each located so that you are within earshot from all but the farthest reaches of the apartment. The Smart Home devices I have connected in some manner to the Echo, include Phillips Hue bulbs, A Logitech Harmony Hub, one Sonos Play 1 (non Alexa), And a Samsung SmartThings Hub connecting up motion sensors, temperature sensors, light sensors, open and close sensors and integrated with the Hue Hub, Sonos and Harmony.

Now for Alexa. After one year what do I find most annoying? Well a few things irk both my partner and me. Probably the worst is the fact that Alexa fails to understand us at least 20-30% of the time. My understanding when I purchased the Echo was that Alexa was a learning AI, which also as time passed learnt specifics around your pronunciation. Truthfully I cannot say I have seen evidence of this. Especially considering that 90% of the time we use the same commands over and over again. The use case for turning on and controlling lighting becomes useless when you need to repeat the command three times, making it simpler to pick up your phone or walk to a switch! In fact it got so annoying that I have purchased Hue switches and placed them around the apartment. Second most annoying is that the commands are very specific. Having coded a helper function for SmartThings and Alexa I see that the command structure is very rigid. Not really “fuzzy” or intelligent. For example unless you tell (i.e. Code or Configure) Alexa to understand, that Guest Bedroom Lights are the same as Guest Room Lights, she will not for example ask you if the device is not found if you actually meant something similar and then add that to her vocabulary. On the contrary she just says device is not found (or something to that effect)… over and over again. So you have to go in and code or configure every permutation.

I also find the skills very annoying. I don’t want to ask Alexa to ask or tell another helper to do something. For example, I coded a helper skill to provide more integration with SmartThings than the standard Skill allows. I called this helper skill “Gideon”. Now when I want Gideon to do something I have to say something like “Alexa, tell Gideon it’s Bedtime”. If I just said “Alexa it’s Bedtime” she would not understand. Or I have to say something like “Alexa, ask ‘skill x’ to do ‘y’”. This is just not convenient, in my world, from a Smart Home AI.

Skills are another thing, there are loads and loads out there, but I am yet to find more than a handful of much use. Most are just play things, a little fun that gets very boring after a while, or the ones that could potentially be good have so much missing that they just become annoying. Logitech’s Skill for its Harmony Hub is one such skill. Annoying beyond words the last time I tried it. One a completely separate thread, I will review the Harmony Hub later, but in my view it is useless – do not waste your money on it. Especially to integrate with Alexa. It needs specific devices to make the use case work well and due to limitations I find I use it 0%.

Alexa also uses Bing as the search engine, and comparing using Google Assistant and Alex and asking a straight forward question, Google Assistant responds and Alexa just does not know. An example I used was “Alexa/ Google what are the opening times for Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen”. I think the search and answer capability that Alexa has is very very limited.

So what about as a speaker, well I have a Dot. I find the music underwhelming and not something I want to listen to. Maybe I have gotten used to my Sonos, but I wouldn’t want to use it apart from maybe in a smaller room. So speaker wise for music not a go.

After one year, would I buy another? No, probably not. It is a novelty. But for daily use it is not there yet and I think one being the cost it is, and having at least a couple strewn around I would rather spend that money on something more useful and pleasurable.