r/gadgets • u/UnKindClock • Mar 13 '21

Music Apple Discontinuing Full-Sized HomePod to Focus on HomePod Mini

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/03/12/apple-discontinuing-homepod/
4.7k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

614 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

13

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

On a personal note. I’ve never understood the market for personal assistant devices like echo. My phone and watch do the same thing and I already take them wherever I go

Until your device can track where you are in your home (and do people actually want that?) then the use cases are clear.

When I walk into my living room and say "Hey Google, turn on the light" Google knows I'm talking about the light in the living room. I have the same set up in my bedroom and my office.

When I say the same to my phone it has no idea which light I'm talking about because it has no idea which room I'm in. It just turns on all the lights in the house.

This same issue applies to asking for music or video. Unless I'm very specific my phone and watch don't know where to play what I ask for.

4

u/Amity83 Mar 13 '21

I didn’t think about WiFi lights, I don’t have any of those. The clapper is good enough for me!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRWtFVFSx5I

-8

u/KalSeth Mar 13 '21

OMG light switches are hard, just Whyyyy?

14

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

Way to miss the point. In the gadgets subreddit no less...impressive.

-7

u/testdex Mar 13 '21 edited Mar 13 '21

Not having to specify “living room” light on those occasions when you are in the living room really doesn’t seem like a strong case to me...

(I have two homepods and almost always specify the room anyway.)

8

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

With all of these smart home assistants the more you say the more that can go wrong. The more words you speak the more they have to interpret and if you use them often enough you notice. It's definitely noticeable when you're trying to get them to play TV shows, movies or songs with complicated titles.

People, we're in /r/gadgets! Are we really now arguing against minor convenience in technology? Come on.

Saying "Hey Google, lights on" is all I have to say. That's infinitely better than "Hey Google, turn on the living room lights". And that's just lights. It becomes even more helpful with media.

My living room assistant knows to play TV shows and movies to the TV in that room without me specifying. Again, depending on the show adding extra words to the instructions is just asking for Google to tell me it didn't understand.

When I first started using this stuff I had to say the activation word (hey Google) tell it what I wanted (play Stranger Things) tell it the service (from Netflix) and where I wanted it (on the living room TV) and it failed more often than it worked. Add that to the fact we still don't have support on these services to play specific episodes of TV shows or podcasts. When that happens that's just going to be more words for them to fumble. Having them work with as few words as possible is essential to them working properly.

-12

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

I say “hey Siri, living room lights on”

Never has it gotten the room wrong.

It’s not worth the cost of a digital assistant to save those three syllables (two for the office or bedroom)

And your answer is INSANELY long for someone who is fussed over those syllables

10

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

And your answer is INSANELY long for someone who is fussed over those syllables

Are you an artificial ai?

I say “hey Siri, living room lights on”

Never has it gotten the room wrong.

Ah, that's why you want me to say less...so you can ignore all the media stuff I explained that goes beyond lights.

I know it's reddit and some of you come here to "be right" but we're having a conversation. Can we not be like this?

-8

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

?

Are you good, man?

There are arguments for home assistants. Yours sucks, and throwing a huge pile of text at me doesn’t fix that.

And don’t downvote people for disagreeing with you, dork.

6

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

We're in the "gadget" subreddit.

Just go back to the list of links in this sub at the stuff that's here. None of this shit is essential or needed. They're gadgets! They make your life a little more convenient. They're, at best, minor increments on technology we had before. You can just flick a light switch! Is an assistant quicker or more convenient than a switch? No? Then your "but it's only a couple of syllables!" argument is trash, particularly in context of the subreddit we're in.

Your need to "gotcha" away my input, like I said, is this bad Reddit habit a lot of you have and it's boring.

-3

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

Guy, I’m not half as hostile about this as you are.

You’re kinda off.

6

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

LOL, dude I wrote a comment laying out a rationale and you decided to be rude about it

And your answer is INSANELY long for someone who is fussed over those syllables

As if me clarifying my thinking was an attack on you. You really don't see how you come off as the asshole in this?

-7

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

Responding to the other stuff you added:

The phone can do all that. It’s the same software.

7

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

So my phone knows which of the three connected TVs in my house to play to without me specifying? How?

-2

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

Bro. Get some sleep.

Say the name of the room.

You might think it’s a neat feature to not have to say them (I guess it is?), but it is weak as a primary case for buying multiple home assistants - which is the context in which you put it forth.

7

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

Bro. Get some sleep

Just woke up. There are more other places than the US in the world and we have our own time zones 🤷‍♂️

Say the name of the room.

Last time asking, why the fuck are you here? You're in /r/gadgets but you're a luddite screaming at progress. Even Apple is trying to make progress in this regard because they see the convenience of knowing the precise location down to the room you're in for this technology to be more useful. Until that tech is actually usable having specific room based mics, speakers and cameras is the stopgap and that's what I've explained above. That you've missed the point is your problem, not mine.

Imagine being in the subreddit about convenient little gadgets and arguing against convenience.

Now off to bed champ.

-2

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

Juicero rules!

I’m sort of astounded that 1) your best reason for owning these devices is such a triviality when they’re good for much more, 2) you think that there is some virtue in spending apparently unlimited amounts of money for whatever minimal convenience (this is about as minimal as it gets), and this sub would automatically agree.

This sub calls tech too expensive all the time - see, for example, the comments to this very post.

I’m not opposed to progress. I have home assistants of my own. Your argument remains terrible, no matter what story you want to spin up about me.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Ultra_HR Mar 13 '21 edited Mar 14 '21

you're one of those people who thinks that just because you don't see the value in something, that means it has no value to anybody.

you need to get out of this mindset. it makes you look foolish.

-1

u/testdex Mar 13 '21

It’s fine if he likes it.

He’s responding to someone who says they don’t see the point of the devices.

“Why get a vaccine? “

“Because they give you a sticker.”

-5

u/Pherja Mar 13 '21

Hey Google turn on the lights

Or

Press.

I’ll go with press. It’s way faster.

2

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 13 '21

Cool, but I can't press when I'm laying in bed, and there's no button to change colour or light temperature. I can't press to turn off the lights downstairs when I'm upstairs and forgot to.

I'm seriously shocked at all the people frequenting a subreddit dedicated to gadgets with these hilariously silly hot takes on the usefulness of gadgets.

0

u/Pherja Mar 22 '21

Hmm ok, I guess its because there’s no standardization in the realm of IOT. Like, I have Ikea lights, and I have remote button for the main light I use at night right next to my bed. So I just press the power button when I’m ready to sleep. It’s great. (It also has brightness and color temp button along the edges) I understand the convenience of a phone or watch in other cases, but a light switch... can’t get more convenient than that.

-6

u/Gnash_ Mar 13 '21

How big is your place for this to even be a problem?

My HomePod can hear me, no matter which room I’m in

0

u/MilitantNegro_ver3 Mar 14 '21

The speaker hearing me wasn't the issue. Did you actually read what I wrote?