Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by Johnny555 on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:06AM
(#18843363)
I found that small positioning changes can make a big difference with my Echo -- it used to be on the a kitchen counter in a small corner formed by a beam, I had to be close and very clearly enunciate "Alexa" to get it to wake up. One day after cleaning the counter, I put it out in front of the beam instead of the corner, and it was a night and day difference, it could suddenly hear me across the room.
Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by mitgraduate on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:07AM
(#18843152)
Even Amazon's music search sucks. It can never find the song unless you provide an accurate name. Its fuzzy matching sucks too, doesn't even account for regional trend in songs.
Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by m0zg on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:24AM
(#18843220)
Apple's music search sucks too, especially if your music tastes are even slightly outside the mainstream. It simply doesn't personalize per user, so when I search, I have to wade through a list of unfamiliar band and musician names until I type almost the whole thing. For a company whose motto once upon a time was "design is how it works", this is inexcusable.
The Google device I can talk to from any room in my apartment and it hears me correctly 95% of the time, it even triggers and understands me if I am brushing my teeth with an electronic toothbrush at the same time. It is impressive.
The Amazon device on the other hand has a 50/50 chance of triggering, and I often have to walk right up to it to clearly enunciate "computer" before it wakes up. Not sure if this because I speak en-gb instead of en-us.
(I have both only because the Google one does not reliably work with Samsung smartthings any more (it used to work fine!) but the Amazon one does. Amazon one is also good for music but Google tries to sell you a YouTube subscription. Google one is hugely better at random day to day questions/queries/translation/usefulness etc - I guess that is b cause they are a search engine and not an e-commerce site)