Amazon working on touchscreen Echo speaker with higher-quality audio - report

Is this any real data in the market to indicate how successful Amazon and Google's home hub/voice control products have been?

They just do not strike me as a realistic step forward in home automation. A single device that just sits in one place is no better or more useful than any iPhone or iPad that is laying around plugged in at the time. As an Apple Watch user, I don't need to shout across the house for Siri, I can say it quietly to my wrist.

So is there really a great need for another separate device that sits around waiting to process requests? It's not something you're going to walk up to and ask a question. The commercials show people that just happen to be in the vicinity of the device, and busy doing something else, that call out questions or commands. I feel like they have to show it this way, because any other use case is ridiculous. They aren't going to show people getting up from across the room/house and walking up to it to ask a handsfree question.

I remain at a loss for what these devices are.

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Is this any real data in the market to indicate how successful Amazon and Google's home hub/voice control products have been?

They just do not strike me as a realistic step forward in home automation. A single device that just sits in one place is no better or more useful than any iPhone or iPad that is laying around plugged in at the time. As an Apple Watch user, I don't need to shout across the house for Siri, I can say it quietly to my wrist.

So is there really a great need for another separate device that sits around waiting to process requests? It's not something you're going to walk up to and ask a question. The commercials show people that just happen to be in the vicinity of the device, and busy doing something else, that call out questions or commands. I feel like they have to show it this way, because any other use case is ridiculous. They aren't going to show people getting up from across the room/house and walking up to it to ask a handsfree question.

I remain at a loss for what these devices are.

Well said.  Maybe we're supposed to stick these devices all over the house.  "Alexa, we're out of toilet paper."

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Is this any real data in the market to indicate how successful Amazon and Google's home hub/voice control products have been?

They just do not strike me as a realistic step forward in home automation. A single device that just sits in one place is no better or more useful than any iPhone or iPad that is laying around plugged in at the time. As an Apple Watch user, I don't need to shout across the house for Siri, I can say it quietly to my wrist.

So is there really a great need for another separate device that sits around waiting to process requests? It's not something you're going to walk up to and ask a question. The commercials show people that just happen to be in the vicinity of the device, and busy doing something else, that call out questions or commands. I feel like they have to show it this way, because any other use case is ridiculous. They aren't going to show people getting up from across the room/house and walking up to it to ask a handsfree question.

I remain at a loss for what these devices are.

You don't walk up to it. It hears you clearly from across the room at normal voice levels. Alexa is much faster to understand and respond than Siri in my experience (especially true when compared to the Apple Watch), with better recognition as well. I rarely have my iPhone plugged in and it's typically in my pocket and locked so Siri won't work...so a bunch of these around the house with omnipresent listening is kinda compelling...and at $50 a pop you can cover your whole house for cheap. But yeah, I've been buying these as gifts bc they are cool, yet I don't have one myself. Not because I can just use my iPhone/Watch, but because I just don't see the use case.

Alexa is everything Siri was supposed to be. It might be hard for you to understand if you don't own both....

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Is this any real data in the market to indicate how successful Amazon and Google's home hub/voice control products have been?

They just do not strike me as a realistic step forward in home automation. A single device that just sits in one place is no better or more useful than any iPhone or iPad that is laying around plugged in at the time. As an Apple Watch user, I don't need to shout across the house for Siri, I can say it quietly to my wrist.

So is there really a great need for another separate device that sits around waiting to process requests? It's not something you're going to walk up to and ask a question. The commercials show people that just happen to be in the vicinity of the device, and busy doing something else, that call out questions or commands. I feel like they have to show it this way, because any other use case is ridiculous. They aren't going to show people getting up from across the room/house and walking up to it to ask a handsfree question.

I remain at a loss for what these devices are.

Obviously you've never used either one on a day to day basis. You never have to shout or get up and walk to it to ask a question. It hears you clearly as if you were having a normal conversation with anyone else in the room. You can have multiple around the house as well for cheap. 

I can ask Google Home to play any music I want through my sound system around my house, play YouTube, turn down/up/off/on any of my lights in my house, change the temperature in my house, get my daily schedule as I'm getting ready in the morning with weather and traffic on how long it'll take me to get to work and a ton more. It's actually pretty amazing what it can do. I petty much have almost everything automated. It just can't make me coffee yet.