Then they could at least provide more than one option. Though while far from perfect, one of the things I like about Alexa/Echo more than the ability to change it, is that with multiple devices you will generally only trigger one (the others within earshot will listen and then ignore it once one of them has picked it up; works well in my house at least apart from one place where echo/reflection sometimes causes one in another room to get preference, but even then only one device usually triggers). Sounds like that was the main problem for GP.

Most of the time I can just turn in the general direction of the device I want to "listen".

Yep. Echoes also don't make you pause after the wake word, so you can actually talk to it naturally. Also, when you tell them to shut up they shut up. The way Google Homes throw a tantrum when you're rude to them will make you want to reach through the cable line and strangle the arrogant son of a bitch who OK'd something that pointlessly infuriating.

I've found that my Home Mini works best if I don't pause after saying the wake command.

Seriously, what the hell were they thinking? If I'm so frustrated at a device that I'll tell it to shut up, the last thing I want from it is more noise.

I've read a few times about the concerns people have with voice assistants, which all predominantly default to female voices, taking orders and abuse without question. I believe Cortana was also intended to "stand up for herself" in these situations, to avoid making it seem okay/normal to bark abusive orders at a "woman".

Great idea. When an aggressive man starts hurling verbal abuse at a robot with some female traits, let's antagonize him further with woke rhetoric from the safety of a remote datacenter.

With that sort of reinforcement, his next unfavorable encounter with an actual human female will surely end well.

Does nobody even try to de-escalate situations anymore? The most advanced AI in the world can't slink away quietly, wait until he calms down and try to correct these sorts of behaviors by promoting the idea that he'd slay it in bed, lose weight or grow a monster dong if he read this self-help book (now 20% off!) about treating women with respect? An incorporeal AI with goddamn control of a smart home can't walk through a hostage negotiation playbook to manipulate a violent occupant into submission? Clearly domestic violence is an impossible problem to solve.

It pains me to see people (usually women) encouraging vulnerable women to "stand up for [themselves]" in situations even armed male cops won't approach without backup from other armed men. It's sociopathic-- on par with teenagers encouraging other kids to commit suicide.

The second my computer starts talking back to me is the second I throw it in the garbage.

Google removed the need to pause after saying the wake word years ago. (Possibly you haven't disabled the acknowledgement beep)

IIRC it always worked without the pause. Just the beep was picked up by the microphone and made the recognition for that word or two much worse. It would clearly react to things said before the beep.

Google devices function the same way when configured properly. The mention of multiple devices responding, and some not knowing about the light, makes me think GP has something set up incorrectly.

Not "because".

Dedicated wakeup chips can be designed to have a different matrix shoved in for the word they're detecting. Google presumably did not do this, but they could have.

Adding more communication between the main chip and the wake-up chip would leave more room for privacy intrusion.

It's not more communication: it's different read-only data in the wake-up chip.

Considering how warm Google Homes stay even when idle I seriously doubt the main processor is ever going to sleep.

Heat is dissipated when electricity goes unused too (usually by dumping it in some load resistor) so it’s possible the extra electricity is just generating heat, waiting to go to the processor. I’d lol if they have 5v coming in, and they’re stepping it down to 3.3v for the wake word processor (hence heat) while the main processor runs at 5v.

>Heat is dissipated when electricity goes unused too (usually by dumping it in some load resistor)

This isn't true. Your light switches do not heat up to lightbulb temperature when the light is off. Heat is only dissipated when electricity is "used", more or less by definition. You seem to be describing a linear voltage regulator, which does have a load resistor and is wasteful if the step-down distance is large, but no modern electronic circuit would use such a thing in a power supply - it would use a switched-mode buck regulator instead.

Switch mode power supplies don't waste that degree of energy when doing nothing. That's multiple watts, probably at least 5 judging by the temperature, just being pissed away at all times.

They could just have a transformer that doesn't need a resistor for stepping it down

I guess that's why laptops batteries last exactly the same whether the computer is idling or not. Also, the reason they get very hot when you're not doing anything CPU intensive - it's all that unused electricity going to the dump load resistor!

I doubt that's burned into hardware so it just should have the option to update the fingerprint of the word

Uhm why is that chip not programmable for any ofher catch phrase?

That would require more communication between the main chip and wake-up chip which could lead to privacy concerns.

You're installing a box that has a mic sending things you say intentionally and unintentionally (because it thinks you woke it up) to a megacorp. I think privacy is out the window by now.