And now we have all the building blocks, looks like I’ll finally return to Project: Replace Alexa
I will call my Alexa replacement Mr Homn, because it will never talk back after I tell it to do something. By the way did you know that you request an extension to this comment by saying, “Alexa, please shut the fuck up.”
Why do you say “please” to Alexa?
Gotta be on the record as being polite, for when the robot overlords take over.
But in seriousness, it doesn’t hurt to add cordiality with voice assistants. It helps teach youngsters how to interact with others (they often don’t fully register that this isn’t a normal conversation) and can help foster manners. There’s also the fact that eventually the voice assistants will get proper emotional responses, and you’ll get more out of them with honey than vinegar. 😜
you’ll get more out of them with honey than vinegar.
I do not want to have such robots.
I do not want such robots to even exist.
They are more than likely where virtual assistants are heading, for better or worse.
It is not the extra performance that bothers me, but the implicit possibility of underperformance that follows from it.
I want to have an assistant whose performance doesn’t start showing gaps and flaws just because he doesn’t like my feelings or the way I express myself.
Have you seen that one South Park episode where they go to the future and Alexa is like an annoying Wife? If not, you should, it’s great.
Watched that only for a while, back when it was new and scandalous.
I’m going to top that… I thank whatever assistant I’m talking to. After I get the answer. And they’re not listening anymore.
Real or not, it just feels wrong not to thank after I asked for something and received it.
You will be the last to be minced in the robot uprising
Having some word or phrase marking the end of a request makes the voice recognition a little more reliable. It doesn’t have to be polite, but being polite when it’s totally unnecessary is a good habit to build.
“Do X please” makes it unambiguously clear (to a machine) where the end of the request is, whereas “Please do X” is mostly pointless.
Our personalities are just a series of habits we have built up. Ultimately, my monkey brain doesn’t really understand that the voice it is talking to doesn’t belong to a real person. If I get into the habit of being rude, that will spill over into my interactions with real humans. It’s honestly less effort to be polite to an AI than to be rude to an AI, but polite to fellow humans.
I will admit though, I do sometimes drop into dog training mode. Short, clear commands with controlled tone. It improves reliability, but requires more mental effort. I generally wouldn’t use them to a real person, outside of emergency situations. Overriding this uses mental effort.
They are recommending the Anker PowerConf S330, that is about 100eur. Can any one recommend a more budget friendly option?
I have not yet set it up (though I did test it for a bit, and recognition was great), but used PlayStation Eye webcams (I might now have 5 of those in my drawer :D) apparently have amazing microphones, so if looks are not as important, you’d just need to add speakers.
How do actually enable the voice on Android? I’ve got just the chat interface
Settings > Apps > Default Apps > Digital assistant app
(But you need to have Voice Assistant configured in HA.Additionally I have this activated:
Settings > System Settings > Wake Google Assistant with Power button
Has anyone tried this on a Pi3?
I also have some Pi Zeros with mic boards, so might try them as satellites and give this another go
The important thing is the main server, that’s the advantage of satellites.
Now I haven’t tried it yet, but with Rhasspy, you had the choice between the satellite doing wakeword recognition (which means that a pi zero 1 would be too slow), or doing it on the server (which would mean permanently sending all audio the satellite picks up to the server, and the extra latency that adds)
A pi3 is really powerful enough for wakeword recognition
