Here's a few dozen use cases based on my own use of smart home devices:

- Hands are full or dirty while cooking. Voice activation is more convenient. True for not just timers, but every other aspect - music playing, controlling home devices like lights, watching something on YouTube, etc.

- The above also applies to any case where my hands can't readily access my phone, such as wanting to listen/change music when showering.

- As the other commenter said, sometimes the timer needs to be "room-specific" rather than on my phone (which stays with me)

- The device has a decent speaker, so makes a convenient Spotify device. The voice activation is sufficient, though I can also control the device via Spotify on my phone if there's occasional blips.

- Combined with smart light switches, I have convenient control over various aspects of lighting in my home

- Combined with Chromecast / Google TV, it provides voice activated access to pause/play/change what I'm watching.

- Basic internet queries, such as how long it will take to drive somewhere or when a certain place will close, work well also.

None of these use cases _individually_ is so amazing I'd spend $100+, but the combined total value is great for me.

Alexa is also very convenient for kids queueing up music or asking quick animal/etc questions that I couldn't answer (what sound does x make, how many teeth does a y have, etc). In both cases, I'd prefer they do this briefly by voice rather than sit down with a phone or tablet and get distracted on screen by millions of songs or the rest of the internet.

But yes, even just setting timers while washing dishes or hands covered in flour is worth it. My retired parents have a kitchen timer stuck on the side of the fridge and still use Alexa for cooking timers. There is literally no interruption to your flow.

This sounds like the dudes who said the iPod was pointless because they already had MP3s on their computer, or wondering why they bought Macs instead of PCs. Other people are allowed to have different priorities than you, and it’s okay for products to find a niche which isn’t universal – very few things have smartphone levels of ubiquity.

It’s generally quite useful to react to other people persistently buying something you don’t feel the need for by learning what they value. For example, smart speakers are quite popular with parents who either have their hands full (literally), don’t want the distraction of a screen, or want something for the gap measured in years where a kid can talk but does not have a personal computer. That’s certainly not universal, but if you think about similar contexts or needs you might come up with some good product ideas which could be worthwhile even if they never ship in the billions of units.

The irony here is that the iPod was literally made redundant by the smartphone.

This comment reads like the type of arguments people used to make about cell phones versus standard computers. Why is convenience so bad?

Also maybe try a longer shower or a bath. Its usually the most relaxing part of my day and I would hate to be in and out in 5 minutes

Convenience isn't bad, it's just that minimal convenience is oversold.

If I'm in a bath I can use my phone. A regular bluetooth speaker is sufficient. There is no need for a voice assistant.

A long shower is not relaxing, that's the opposite. It's not relaxing to stand in the same place for a long time. I can't even hear the music that well in the shower through the speaker, there is water in my ears.

Yes - this is the guy that should decide for everyone...the guy that uses a multi hundred dollar device to replace a $30 amazon puck..

Someone on HN recently compared AI to a really buggy GPS.

People will still use it, since it mindlessly gets you on the road and looks like it knows what it is doing, which makes it the path of least resistance - and that will beat out better results for most people most of the time.

The same applies to Alexa and ilk - if you have it than it is easier to use than to do things any other way. Even if there are all sorts of mess ups on the way, it still will become the default action of anyone who tries it.

As they say - "Even a bolt of lightning will follow the path of least resistance, and it's not combating laziness or lack of focus"

Don't ever dismiss the power of inertia [or whatever this is called]. A listening AI agent that can perform tasks takes advantage of inertia.

We build the most sophisticated AI in the world to open Spotify app instead of pressing Play on a phone

Exactly. People are acting like putting some music on is so damn hard, and that it's critical that we spend 100% of our time listening to it.

OMG if I can't control my music in the shower I'll literally melt.

I love watching HN commenters absolutely refuse to understand that other people are different and have different preferences and that's OK.

I acknowledge that other people have other preferences, but my criticism mainly relates to the way assistant and smart speaker companies have sunk so much money into a product that has limited utility and helps people in such a mild way.

People are willing to spend <$100 on a smart speaker and then never pay again. Meanwhile, Amazon is trying to make providing a free cloud service make sense by bundling it into Prime in hopes of being able to raise the cost of Prime as much as possible.

So I acknowledge that some people prefer this, but I think it's dumb enough that if I was a hypothetical investor back when these technologies were new I would not have gone anywhere near them.

Both can be true at once. I am not backpedaling.

I was additionally referring to my previous comment in the thread, which was not just about the users of smart speakers but the functions they perform. My overall opinion is that smart speakers have limited value. I was pointing out how everything you might prefer to do on them has an existing or easy alternative or just isn’t much of a solution.

I acknowledge that people are allowed to have their own preferences but I still think they’re a dumb preference and I’m exercising my preference to dunk on that preference just like I’ll prefer to criticize anyone who says the Jeep Grand Cherokee is a good purchase.

I'm not especially big on smart speakers, but phones as remotes for home devices are even worse.

You ignored setting timers while cooking.

Thanks, my thoughts exactly.

Do you have cchildren? My kids yell at every device in the house. play bluey! turn the lights blue!

Sounds terrible.

I don't have my phone on me at all times. More, it is often the case that I will set the timer for whatever I just put in the oven and let the kids know to take it out when the timer goes off while I go take care of something in the yard/other. That is, the timer is often specific to the room I set the timer in. Not to me.

I feel like you decided the speakers are stupid and therefore anything someone might use them for must also be by the transitive property. My voice "assistant" runs on my NUC via HomeAssistant. The only thing I needed to buy was a USB mic. I was already using HA and had some old computer speakers lying around.

It works great and I'm not tempted to get out my phone as much. Being able to call out multiple timers while cooking and change the music is so nice.

Did you read the rest of my post? As hands free and stays in the room when I leave are pretty big deals. I confess being able to turn the oven off or switch to warming temperature would be nice.

I can buy timers that stay in the room on Amazon for $6 for a two pack. Physical timers. Timers already exist as a standalone product.

I just have this hilarious picture in my mind of all these smart speaker users constantly balancing random objects in their arms as if they are not allowed to have their hands free or else they'll melt. Setting a timer on the microwave or stove you already own is fucking impossible. No way I can do that! I gotta install an Internet-connected microphone and speaker in my house for that!

The timer you linked is more expensive than my kitchen Alexa device that's exclusively a timer.

"Hands free" is sorta the point? I already have several things, including the oven, that have buttons to do this sort of thing. I don't use those because I have my hands occupied.

I get that not everyone would want this. I'm ok with that.

If you already have one the utility is obvious in the kitchen. You don't want to touch your dirty hands to your phone and you definitely don't want to touch your food after touching your even dirtier phone.

I don't think that is useful enough to allow Bezos to listen to everything in my home, but will absolutely enable this feature in a product like Home Assistant.

> absolutely enable this feature in a product like Home Assistant.

It's been there for half a year or so; just add either OpenAI or Anthropic LLM integrations to Home Assistant, and you'll get a better personal assistant than anything Apple, Google or Amazon ever released.

The magic really is 1) SOTA LLMs that are good at understanding what you mean, and 2) no commercial bullshit that's degrading functionality (like having to say brand names to do stuff).

Massive lack of insight. The lady in the box on the kitchen counter is a "groupware timer". The timer on my watch is of no use to my wife in knowing when to turn off the oven when I'm in the bathroom.

The Echo Clock is really excellent in my kitchen - anyone in the kitchen can visually see how much time is left on multiple timers.

I'd switch to a comparable Siri or Home Assistant clock if such a product was available.

I set time on my phone by voice (which is the only thing I use Siri for), because it's way quicker to say "5 minutes" than to try to set it through the app even with shortcut. But I have a kitchen timer (big, fat buttons and big digits) which I prefer to use in the kitchen because it's distinctly loud. My homepods are mostly for music.

It's convenience. I have a device in my kitchen that's hands-free, can set timers, show recipes, etc, that's always there when I'm cooking.

I don't usually have my phone on me, but even if I did I need to at least unlock it to enable voice commands, which instantly kills any notion of it being truly hands-free.

Obviously nobody finds it excruciatingly difficult, but you have a severe lack of empathy and imagination if you can’t see the utility here. Timers while cooking (hands dirty and/or full), measurements while woodworking/crafting/making, etc. and more as detailed thoroughly in other comments

would be nicer if there was a cheaper / simpler alternative (offline voice recognition, just timers and clock, possibly weather)

but it's nice to use your voice so you don't contaminate your phone. (preparing chicken and such)

the kitchen is pretty much the only use-case for voice assistants imo.

the timer getting dirty is not the only issue.

you don't always have hands free to fiddle with a watch.

more often than not, both hands are doing something, and setting a timer is... timely.

You don't need both hands free to set a watch's timer.

You can still hold something in the hand that the watch is strapped to.

you need a few fingers free to touch the watch on your wrist.

sometimes you're putting something in the oven, sometimes you're mixing something (holding the bowl and whip)

tons of instances where two hands are in use and voice commands help.

On the rare occasions I watch TV, I'm incredulous at the adverts for technology that create these almost utopian looking lifestyles. I think to myself "who is taken in by this?". As it turns out, these are the people who are taken in by it.

This is so disingenuous. Echos are nowhere near $100 at the baseline, no one is buying it JUST for the timer, and no one finds setting a phone "excruciatingly difficult". Calm down.