The roadblocks, potholes, etc. The things I’m having trouble getting past!
Echo Dot/Pop. I have two left. One of them I could let go, the one in my bedroom i could sacrifice, but the one in the kitchen gets daily use, it’s my voice-activate timer for tea, baking, cooking, etc, and the price of getting rid of that one might be burned baking and oversteeped tea (gross!). When my hands are full, it’s so easy and convenient. Once in a while I ask for measurement conversions, how many tablespoons is in a quarter cup, etc. But most of the time, it’s a timer that talks back.
As for the rest of the things Alexa does, there is an alternative!! It’s called HomeAssistant, an open-source privacy-focused smarthome system. It would be a small investment of money ($100ish), and more investment of time, figuring out how to make it all work. I may go with that.
or there are other similar products that are more work and setup on my own, like Jasper or Project Alice. i actually have nearly all the pieces for that project laying around, it would just involve me doing the work myself.
There are also options that involve a little gadget that sits on top of your echo dot, and generates white noise that overwhelms the mic on the echo until it hears the wakeword, then it turns off the whitenoise and you access your echo device. that seems more practical if i want to keep using the two that I have.
Ring doorbell/cam. I believe I’m stuck with these, until or unless there comes an inexpensive option. With the state of the world and the state of this town, I need my security features. I don’t think there’s another feature-rich option for that. But I’m looking. There may be an option attached to the above Home assistant BUT it’s not likely to be as good…or maybe i’m wrong? Experiments will continue.
As you can see, I’m learning things at a ridiculous rate, i didn’t even think about it until i expounded at length with my supervisor at work during our one-on-one. it’s interesting…
