Alexa and Google home mini hub

mikeq,
We got an Alexa for similar reasons. Once you work out what it can do and how to give the commands in a way it understands (my brain doesn't work like an alexa so takes me a while!) it's brilliant! Also a nice cheap way of listening to music. You can stream almost anything via Alexa and Amazon sounds.
Really good for venting a bit of existential angst at too - I often hear Peter getting cross with Alexa instead of me!!

Just one thing to be aware of:  All of these voice recognition technologies (i.e. Apple's Siri, Google, Alexa) send your speech back to the company that developed it.  This is called out in the user agreements from each company with respect to their technology.  This is done to make the software perform better.  When you use this stuff, you're voluntarily being surveilled.  I'm not saying don't use these technologies, but you need to be aware that you have no privacy with these devices active.

Hello Ray

Yes, I’m aware that I’m being surveyed when I use these devices. I don’t use them for shopping. They are useful for turning on lights and plugs and regurgitating information. I also use them to telephone people and broadcast messages, send a message to all devices in the home. When using them to telephone people, I don’t discuss anything that I might regard as being very private. They are not ideal for communicating in this way, so telephone calls are usually succinct. Overall, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Google and Alexa must be storing billions of megabytes of absurdly boring communications. But here’s the rub. They have algorithms that over time can gradually build up individual profiles of people. Big Brother is watching. My wife doesn’t like it. The law should be a lot more stringent on information gathering. I think the high-tech companies may be reaching a tipping point. Public outrage has made them think deeply about what they’re doing. Will governments around the world clamp down on them? But the problem is governments are involved in all this snooping too — Edward Snowdon, the American whistle blower, shocked the world when he revealed how the National Security Agency had set up a global spying network. GCHQ in the UK were doing the same thing. Then we had security problems with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. Soon our DNA will be mapped the moment we are born. Everybody will be labelled. We will all become part of the matrix. The future is at once exciting and bleak. I'm waiting for the experts to perfect a sex robot with seamless communicative and physical skills. "Michael ... how can I be of assistance?"

Interesting Tetra. How do you know? LOL