Google Assistant Is Basically on Life Support and Things Just Got Worse
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You got to love the author of that article. If you want the lights to turn off and on normally, maybe people should use light switches. Those aren't going to break due to software downgrades, those don't require Gemini or internet connections.
And I understand, there are rare situations when throwing the internet at your home appliances can make sense for solving niche problems. Those situations definitely exist, but for almost everyone almost all of the time, but it's pretty fucking easy to turn lights off and on.
I turn several lights on and off with a single command. The smart thermostat is the killer app for me though.
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Don't put extra internet connected microphones in your house.
I just ditched my nest camera after 6ish years. Fuck the spys
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Found the one in the picture in my office while I was cleaning. I just threw it away
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My how things have changed over the years! Why, when I was a young girl, we didn't have the internet. When we wanted to turn a light on, we had to write a letter to Ford Motor Co. (They were the tech of the day.) I'd write, "Dear Mr. Ford, please give us permission to turn on our light in the dining room." Of course then we'd have to find a stamp, then walk the letter down to the nearest post office. (That was faster than waiting for the mailman to pick it up from the neighborhood mail box.) Sure enough, 6 weeks later we'd receive a reply saying, "Fine, turn on the light in the dining room." The postman delivered mail in the morning, so we had to wait until dark to all gather around in the dining room and turn on the light with great ceremony.
We never understood why we needed to get permission from a company far away to turn on a light switch, but we were patriotic Americans, so we knew better than to question the process.
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5 years ago voice assistants were being promoted with all the breathless excitement that "AI" is receiving today. I imagine in 5 year's more time Google will be giving the same listless attention to their AI products that they are giving to their voice assistants now. Well, actually to just about every product they've ever made, except maybe for Google Mail.
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So Google half baked a product, pushed it to the public whether they wanted it or not, and now it's giving up on it replacing it with another half baked product nobody asked for...
Seems par for the course for Google
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I assume this is going to arrive at the solution of "Upgrade to Gemini-supported devices today!" Yeah, no thanks.
I wish I could get Home Assistant working with my nest minis.GitHub - justLV/onju-voice: A hackable AI home assistant platform
A hackable AI home assistant platform. Contribute to justLV/onju-voice development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
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I just ditched my nest camera after 6ish years. Fuck the spys
I do wonder, is it possible to flash custom firmware onto the nest cameras? I don't have any, but it would be a pity for alright hardware to go to waste.
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So Google half baked a product, pushed it to the public whether they wanted it or not, and now it's giving up on it replacing it with another half baked product nobody asked for...
Seems par for the course for Google
Killed by Google
Killed by Google is the Google Graveyard. A full list of dead products killed by Google in the Google Cemetery.
Killed by Google (killedbygoogle.com)
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Cool, I've come across this before. I have been looking for a more open thermostat, preferably esp32 based, that I can have good local control over. I have started to do the board layout for one with some air quality sensors built in.
If you don't mind me asking whats more complicated about your hvac setup? Multistage? Heat pump? Multizone?
Not multistage, but it's a heat pump with auxiliary heat. I have multiple zones controlled by dampers, too, soni have two of these thermostats.
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Don't put extra internet connected microphones in your house.
I work for an un-named company that makes stuff that has google assistant on them. Initially we put hardware mutes and piped the microphones to physical hardware that monitored for wake up words locally and would then start piping the microphone data to the mother ship once it was heard. Google told us to stop that, only way to certify the product as compatible with Google Assistant was to pipe the raw microphone data to the mother ship 24/7. That was 5 years ago and I removed all devices from my house.
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I work for an un-named company that makes stuff that has google assistant on them. Initially we put hardware mutes and piped the microphones to physical hardware that monitored for wake up words locally and would then start piping the microphone data to the mother ship once it was heard. Google told us to stop that, only way to certify the product as compatible with Google Assistant was to pipe the raw microphone data to the mother ship 24/7. That was 5 years ago and I removed all devices from my house.
I s2g i will set my house on fire before i allow a unmodded google device in it
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I have a fan plugged into a smart switch that I’ve set to turn off when I fade up my mic while doing my radio show. It’s the most glorious use of throwing the internet at a home appliance I’ve yet come up with.
We have smart switches set to turn off floor sitting electricals if the leak sensor picks up a flood in the basement brewery. It also alerts us through HA there's a beernami
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These just dont need to be online. 90% of the use I have seen is timers and lights, like a half step above hello world.
There is a market for voice assistants that are local.
Hell, win Vista used to support it. I built a very very stupid jarvis years ago on a bored weekend with win VR and some zigbees
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So Google half baked a product, pushed it to the public whether they wanted it or not, and now it's giving up on it replacing it with another half baked product nobody asked for...
Seems par for the course for Google
In all fairness, in the early days of Google Assistant it really was useful. It actually worked. Somehow in the last 5 years it plummeted. As in it stunningly and noticeably kept getting worse year after year.
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If they kill Home. I’m done with Google products. I’m heavily integrated into nest and Google home. If they kill it further. I’m out.
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If they kill Home. I’m done with Google products. I’m heavily integrated into nest and Google home. If they kill it further. I’m out.
If you really do swear them off, you will have dodged the next many bullets. They have made a solid pattern of killing off things we want. Generally, things we want don't make them enough money.
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My how things have changed over the years! Why, when I was a young girl, we didn't have the internet. When we wanted to turn a light on, we had to write a letter to Ford Motor Co. (They were the tech of the day.) I'd write, "Dear Mr. Ford, please give us permission to turn on our light in the dining room." Of course then we'd have to find a stamp, then walk the letter down to the nearest post office. (That was faster than waiting for the mailman to pick it up from the neighborhood mail box.) Sure enough, 6 weeks later we'd receive a reply saying, "Fine, turn on the light in the dining room." The postman delivered mail in the morning, so we had to wait until dark to all gather around in the dining room and turn on the light with great ceremony.
We never understood why we needed to get permission from a company far away to turn on a light switch, but we were patriotic Americans, so we knew better than to question the process.
Totally read that in Abe Simpsons voice
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Not multistage, but it's a heat pump with auxiliary heat. I have multiple zones controlled by dampers, too, soni have two of these thermostats.
Ahh, makes sense. Multizone is something I'll probably end up doing in my house soon, thankfully all my ductwork is exposed in the basement which makes it easy. Thanks appreciate it, I'm going to try to get a prototype board spun in the next week or two, test it out for a bit, and then see if other people are interested in them too. Appreciate the info, I should consider being able to control dampers also.
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In all fairness, in the early days of Google Assistant it really was useful. It actually worked. Somehow in the last 5 years it plummeted. As in it stunningly and noticeably kept getting worse year after year.
Amazon Alexa has followed the same trajectory.