Alexa, how useful are you?

Cool little gadget…. A lot of hype. And not sure how much value it still adds… but at 50 Sterling Pounds it is a cool little gadget. And I do like my gadgets.

So why do I say I’m not sure how much value it adds? Well for one thing, voice recognition is good but still has quite a few faults. Especially if your accent is not quite American or proper English orr one of the dialects they have obviously trained Alexa for. So my accent is a mixture of various accents from all over the world. I enunciate, but sometimes I don’t pronounce certain words exactly as Alexa would expect… and off she goes doing something else.

Another bug bear I have is that Amazon have chosen to use Bing as the search engine of choice and sometimes the simplest things I can ask “Ok Google”, Alexa has trouble finding. This is seriously frustrating knowing that the answer is there from Google and if I was to move away from Alexa it would most likely be for this reason mainly if Googles offering comes to Europe soon.

Saying this Alexa still is a pretty cool toy J

Her integration skills with a lot of home automation gadgets is pretty good though limited for the key ones I use such as Smartthings and the Sonos. For example I would really like to be able to ask Alexa if the front door is closed and for her to check with Smartthings and respond. Or for me to ask “Alexa, are all the windows closed” or “Alexa, are lights in the Living room still on” or “Alexa, is the TV in my sons room still on”. And at the moment all you can do is ask to turn stuff on and off. Sonos integration is also limited and via IFTTT and Smartthings, but I hear this may change soon.

So hopefully in this year there will be more skills added that will make the Echo Dots I have more than just cool toys.

Samsung's Smartthings after eight months

It’s been nearing 8 months now since I first installed Smartthings in my home in the Netherlands. It’s not perfect by any means but it’s been sufficiently good that I’ve bought a second hub and components for my apartment in Copenhagen.

I guess that means it must be reasonable from my perspective.

The biggest positives I have found with the Smartthings system have been the ease of set-up and the fact that it works with a bunch of the most common smart components.

At home in the Netherlands I have almost every light fixture now moved to the Phillips Hue system and Smartthings so far plays well with this. I’ve also integrated open close sensors from Samsung themselves, Fibaro motion and smoke sensors and motion sensors from Aeontec. There’s a smart plug from Belkin and the Sonos system is also attached and connected up and along with a Siren I can hook up a fairly nice alarm system to give any would be intruder quite a fright.

The apartment in Copenhagen is a little smaller and I’ve include Hue here with just a couple of sensors. But what I have started to use more and more in Copenhagen is the Amazon Echo (Alexa) connected to Smartthings.

Alexa, works with Smartthings but probably the most frustrating things with this is that the voice recognition really uses correct and proper enunciation or using standard names for things – which have obviously been provided more input and variety of pronunciations. For example Alexa will understand almost every time if I say “Alexa turn on the living room lights”. However if I say “Alexa, turn on Mr. Skinny” she won’t understand 50% of the time. So giving your lights and appliances fun names is a little tricky.

Saying that though, I still like the combination and possibilities and have started to experiment adding IFTTT to the mix.

I still think there are quite a few things that Smartthings could do to make integration much better. Especially with appliances such as the Sonos or Robot Vacuums. But saying that there are quite a few user created device handlers from the Smartthings Community that add significant amounts of added functionality to some components. So though officially supported these device handlers and the community is on good reason I stay with Smartthings. For those not comfortable with messing around with device handlers and the like it still offers a good core basic solution I feel for automating your home and when you put it together with systems such as Hue and the Echo is really at this stage pretty good.

I’m still continuing to experiment and add to my installation and plan to integrate a Logitech Harmony Hub, Arlo Pro and trying to figure out a way to establish some sort of Miro Presence Detection so I can start including automation rules for such things as I’m up and about but my partner is still in bed so wake her up in 30 minutes :-D

Will try hard to keep everyone updated on progress here…. but I see I am falling behind on various aspects of my blog,… especially on the promised insights into my move to Copenhagen!

One Month on...

I guess the fact that I have stopped writing every day and even every week is a sign that perhaps I am settling in.

Maybe I'm getting complacent, just accepted my situation, just too busy with work or perhaps it's actually not that bad? The jury is still out on that point. What I have decided to do is to try and summarise my experiences into topics which may assist other expats moving over to Copenhagen.

At the moment I'm thinking of a few blogs on;

• Arriving in Copenhagen - your first days
• Finding a place to live - a brief overview of areas on first impression
• Public Transport - how not to get shouted at or fined!
• Keeping the costs down - how to live reasonably in Copenhagen at the start and still have a little fun :)

If anyone has ideas or requests please let me know and I'll try my best to oblige!

At the moment I am flying back to the Netherlands, which I still look forward to and yes - I still feel like Netherlands is my home and not Copenhagen.

The Bose QC35

New Toy! 

Oooo… first impressions… nice, good quality build, noise suppression is as good as the QC25, but I seem to be getting some breaks in the music from the Bluetooth connection in my phone. But this could be more to do with the Huawei phone I have rather than the headphones (I’ll review that a different time).

It’s only been a week now since I have had the phones. But so far I’ve used them on planes, busy sidewalks and crowded metro’s and they seem good. I haven’t had a chance to try the mic yet in any environment so will probably update on this after a couple of months.

The battery life seems good and the 20 hours billed in the marketing seems to be true.

All in all so far I would recommend this especially for frequent travellers. One of my complaints with most phones was the cable, especially getting long cables tangled on seat handles and in my jacket. This total removes this.

Look for a further more detailed review soon!

Week 3 - Should I start scratching off days on the wall?

Three weeks and it's still feeling a bit like a prison sentence and I can't help but thinking it shouldn't. I'm still disappointed at every turn. From finding out that you need to "earn" vacation over a year before you actually get your vacation entitlement the next year to finding out that the online banking uses an archaic paper based code system.... seriously!

I am also starting to learn that for a Scandinavian country there is a little more racism than I expected to see lurking in the shadows. You can sometimes feel it in the background and it's not a comfortable feeling. By contrast I have never felt this in 15 years of living in the Netherlands.

There is more and more that surprises me here and I wait everyday to finding out more. The apartment hunting and specifics to renting here are also quite interesting and probably worth a separate article when I get a little more time and complete the process. First and foremost it is expensive. Expect to have to provide 3 months security deposit, plus at least the current months rent in advance. Heat and Water are on top of any rental quoted, but you pay that at a fixed amount with your rent and the account is reconciled for these up or down yearly. Like I said a separate article for any fellow expats coming over.

I'm flying back to the Netherlands today for a weekend visit and can't say I am too upset. I am really hoping I grow to like it here.... but I find that difficult to believe at the moment :-/

2 Weeks - (Sunday) OMG the cost!

I'm in shock! I am used to going out at least for a drink on weekends and this weekend I have fallen off my chair almost twice!! On Friday two glasses of wine came to 110DKK which equates to nearly 15 Euros... for two small glasses!!!!

Then on Saturday we went to a restaurant we would consider mid range and a little trendy anywhere else in the world. Two glasses of wine, two pizza's and some tap water ended up costing 90 Euros once the tip was factored in at 10%....... so looks like life in Copenhagen will consist of work, metro and drinking in the confines of the apartment. Can't say I am overly happy about this.

Still considering that this life move has not been my best decision to date.

What I am really very interested to understand is how wine in these Supermarkets is the same price roughly as in the Netherlands but how a drink in a bar or restaurant is like 100% more!

At the moment I can not understand (a) How the Danes actually live here and (b) How they came out as the happiest people...... something is not computing... perhaps I am missing something?

Enjoy the Pizza (below)

Day 4 - (Tuesday) Getting used to it

Tuesday morning and the daily morning shower ritual in the dinky bathroom which soaks the entire place doesn't seem so bad anymore. 

I'm even getting extra exercise, squatting afterwards to squeegee up all of the water and wipe off the floors and tiles around the sink. The cleaning is down to a 5 minute after shower process that I now do without a thought. 

I can understand a little now - if you've lived with this kind of bathroom your entire life, how you would not even see the problem... people adjust and adapt I guess.

Time for work... let's see how today pans out. I think I may need to start cutting back on Blog Posts soon when I start running out of things to complain about :-) :-)