2

Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

 2 years ago
source link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29561452
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.
neoserver,ios ssh client

Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa? 7 points by spir 25 minutes ago | hide | past | favorite | 4 comments 95% of the value we get from Alexa is automatic turning on/off of lights and simple functions like cooking timers.

We've had Amazon Alexa for five years, since the gen 1 device, and now find it to be an increasing invasion to the sanctity of the home.

We find it particularly annoying that nowadays, when you ask Alexa to do something, several times per week it will suggest some annoying upsell crap you don't care about. It used to suggest things once per quarter tops, that was fine.

HN, what private alternatives to Alexa may exist?

For example, does anyone make a system that's relatively polished and operates entirely in the home, with no audio sent to the cloud? I'd be happy to run a hub/box for the system.

I was wondering the same thing yesterday. It sure would be nice to have something that worked completely on-prem. Would be cool if it could run on something power efficient like an old smartphone. Then you could N old devices, install your app add to wifi, duct tape them to the wall near a power outlet.

Would probably be easier with Android as I imagine you could push apk files OTA if you wanted, which would come in handy.

Maybe this is an obvious answer, and therefore not one you're interested in, but there's Siri.

Although audio is sent to the cloud, you can choose whether it is stored or not, and whatever you pick, Apple's privacy policy is very strict.

HomePods are mostly advertised as music playback devices, but I mostly use mine as a HomeKit control device.

Homebridge allows you to control non-HomeKit devices via Siri: https://homebridge.io

I'm not aware of any private alternatives, but I've been annoyed by the same issue, and since switched to using Siri.

So if you've got a few apple devices such as a homepod / apple watch / iPhone, consider the homekit ecosystem, its been working well for me.

mycroft.ai appears to be one option. I heard of them at MakerFaire (2018) and they appear to still be around. I believe they supported installation on a raspberrypi/similar around that timeframe.
s.gifGuidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search:

report

Recommend

About Joyk


Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK