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Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Changing your volume for your TV is rather stupid (using up/down at least, "set TV to X%" might work well but I love my remote so I always use it). For controlling lights I LOVE alexa. That plus things like daily briefing, weather, alarms, timers, and more make me VERY happy with my amazon units. And this is coming from a huge mac fanboy. Smarthome is where Alexa really shines IMHO.

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And all of this has become even better with Routines, it seems Amazon is continuing to expand on them and make them better and better.

In the morning, I say "Alex, Good Morning." My lights turn on, my coffee maker turns on, Alexa tells me the weather, how long the commute currently is and a little morning news. She then switches to play Spotify while I take my shower.

When I leave, I tell "Alex, Good Bye" She turns off every light in my house, verifies the door I let my dogs out of is locked, and triggers my thermostat to go away.

This is undoubtedly cool, but seems like a red herring. Not knocking your experiences and all, it’s great that you like it. But it is reminiscent of every cartoon ever where the bed makes itself and brushes the protagonists’ teeth. Or the Earnest movies from the 80’s where he has a Rube Goldberg machine rigged up to make him breakfast. All of this ‘automation’ is feasible with simple wiring-50’s technology. And much more ‘smart’ with x10 tech from the 80’s/90’s. The premise then is that there is a huge, unknown, pent-up demand for this type of thing from non-technical people who wouldn’t have been able to rig up a home automation system in the past. Anecdotally I’m not sure I see it, and more analytically it seems like the less ‘techie’ you are, the less you crave this type of automation. In other words, there is a diminishing return by making this type of thing more accessible. I’m not sure if this level of automation is a game changer. However, put a generation or two more advanced tech in a robot and you have Judy from the Jetsons, and that I think may change the picture. But we’re not quite there yet

Saying “xBox play television” was 10x faster than finding the controller and then figuring out how to navigate the always changing home screen.

Thanks for mentioning this. This is one of the first use cases where it seems to be solving something more than insignificantly annoying to me. Especially for my non-tech friends who I am always having to adjust their TVs for.

Gonna set up my family's Alexas now. But it's a 1 time investment. :D

Ya, volume is dumb, until you can't find the remote. Which happens to me so often I glued a Trackr to it.

Remote is usually better, but I like having tv control ability on Alexa for when I can't find the remote or don't want to get up and get it.

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