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Amazon Mulls $5 to $10 monthly price tag for unprofitable Alexa service, AI revamp

Amazon (AMZN.O) is planning a major revamp of its decade-old money-losing Alexa service to include a conversational generative AI with two tiers of service and has considered a monthly fee of around $5 to access the superior version, according to people with direct knowledge of the company’s plans.

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

How long till there’s a solid project to gut Alexa devices and run them from pis arduinos and pico’s?

smiletolerantly ,

I’ve been wondering this. I have multiple of the older (non-Dot, the tall, cylindrical ones) Echoes. I hate using them. But I do like the form factor and sound quality.

It probably can’t be too hard to gut everything but the speakers, microphone and DC port, then wire in a Pi / Pi Zero, right…?

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

I assume their motherboard is a write-off. The form factor in speaker are probably all we have to start with. For a few bucks you could turn it into a decent Bluetooth speaker. Want to get a little more intense if you want to do anything interesting like voice control.

I’d really like to find a way to drive the display and touch screen on the shows

Drewelite ,

There’s projects that fully replace the Google Home Mini mobo. No reason you couldn’t do that with Alexa

linearchaos ,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah that’s kind of the direction I was thinking. I really want to have access to the screen and the touch controls on the shows though. It’ll all come in time.

There’s another really wicked side project I saw running on pis. You put a Bluetooth enabled device in every room and it tracks where your items are. So you could ask where your keys aren’t to triangulate which room in your house they were in.

corsicanguppy ,

Two things:

  • our alexa units are fine. We manage a half-dozen bulbs and a set-top box.
  • if they want a subscription to keep doing that, HomeAssistant becomes the top job on the queue.

That’s it.

Crashumbc ,

People are missing the point. This was ALWAYS the plan. Get Alexa in hundreds of thousands of homes and get everyone to used to using it. Than charge money.

Even if only a quarter of the users pay, they’ll make a ton of money.

PlexSheep ,

I see you are using than when you should be using then.

  • Then is for time, similar to when. "Back then"
  • Than is for comparisons. “I have more than you”
todd_bonzalez ,

I mean, they accomplished the first part mostly because they are cheap connected speakers, but I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t absolutely loath their home assistants. Got rid of mine (Both Google and Amazon) not just because they are a privacy nightmare, but because they are completely fucking infuriating to work with.

The exact same phrase is never guaranteed to have the same results. The assistant hardly ever answers a question right. It routinely takes repeated attempts to get it to control any of my connected lights. It responds to people that weren’t talking to it. I could keep going…

If they tried charging me for it before I rage quit them, I would have just rage quit sooner.

dirtySourdough ,

Neat, lots more e-waste incoming

demizerone ,

All the two alexas I own were given to me. Fuck no I am not paying $10 a month for a talking weather reporter.

kandoh ,

I never used to understand why Picard and the crew got upset with Data’s long winded explanations until I got a Google Home. Now I understand very well.

Pacattack57 ,

If my Alexa stopped working because it needed a subscription it’s going straight in the trash.

ftp ,

Already there. Finally got fed up with the “by the way” trash prompts

bitchkat ,

Seeing as how I’ve never used it for free …

InternetUser2012 ,

With how garbage Alexa is now, there is no way in hell I’m paying them anything. I’d love a refund for the three useless dots I have now.

Cl1nk ,

. . .

kandoh ,

Those are periods!

lando55 ,

Sorry

• • • ノ( ゜-゜ノ)

flop_leash_973 ,

I wouldn’t be able to find a use for Alexa if they were paying me $10/month to use it.

dutchkimble ,

I’d buy 2, start a neverending conversation going between them, and lock em away in the corner in the attic.

androogee ,

Make it three, call it The Ellipsis

aniki ,

Home Assistant will always be free.

cloudless OP ,

Is it able to use a LLM?

ColonelPanic ,

Yeah, you can plug it into a few external services like OpenAI or even use a local LLM like LocalAI. Not used either, but I know it’s possible.

DJDarren ,

That’s good, because it’s dog shit.

aniki ,

The models? The interface? Spinning your own? Home Assistant in general? What the fuck are you on about?

downpunxx ,

for 20 bones all in, it's one of the most utilized pieces of technology i own, for doing the simplest of shit, it's perfect

Waraugh ,

I’m still getting my feet wet with HAOS. Mainly got it for frigate but I’ve been trying to do more and more with it every week and I think I’m way over my head lol. It seems really cool if you know how to make everything work but I’m still trying to figure out so much I end up having to walk away and come back to it later after getting confused. It’s helped a bit to start writing out what I’m trying to do on paper and tinker with things while keeping notes.

waterSticksToMyBalls ,

Skill issue

FanciestPants ,

Do you have a hook up on some free dog shit?!

DJDarren ,

Download the Alexa app and have at it.

thirteene ,

Any recommendations for a voice tool? It felt like I would need to setup a room microphone on my orange pi when I was reading the docs.

aniki ,

I haven’t done it myself but it looks like you’ll need some esphome devices like a speaker and a microphone

subtext ,

It doesn’t help you if you need something right now, but Home Assistant is looking into building / engineering their own voice satellite device

www.home-assistant.io/blog/…/roadmap-2024h1/

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I’d pay $20 or $30 a year, especially if it meant they’d actually, like, improve the service (which has been almost 100% the same for me for the last 4 years or so).

But $60 to $120 would make me move elsewhere

GooseFinger ,

If you have an Amazon Echo (or whatever they call it) in your home, then you already pay them by letting it spy on you, your family, and any guests that come over. Even if they improved the service (they won’t), why would you pay $20 or $30 a year for it?

ripcord , (edited )
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

What info are they getting from me telling it to turn on the lights?

The service it provides I would expect to either pay a reasonable marginal fee, or do everything locally.

If the Home Assistant voice Appliance stuff can get its shit together and I can get one for reasonable prices I will move to that (or something like it) instead.

Dudewitbow ,

it really depends on how much you trust amazon on what it records as alexa is an always on(in terms of microphone) device.

conciselyverbose ,

It shouldn’t take a subscription to manage turning on lights.

You can very easily do it locally.

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

With voice control?

subtext ,

Yes

www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Which is why I said

If the Home Assistant voice Appliance stuff can get its shit together and I can get one for reasonable prices I will move to that (or something like it) instead.

Unfortunately, when I looked most recently it still wasn’t even remotely close to being ready. Particularly the hardware options.

subtext ,

They say that you can build one for $13.

home-assistant.io/…/thirteen-usd-voice-remote/

They also have on their roadmap that they’re working to see if they can build or engineer out or whatever an all in one, easy to set up voice satellite hardware as one of their next up priorities.

www.home-assistant.io/blog/…/roadmap-2024h1/

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Once the second thing happens, assuming it’s any good, then I will look into switching again.

Until then, there don’t seem to be many great options.

AA5B ,

You could also argue Apple is heading in an interesting direction with on-device AI. Im ready to switch to Apple TV for fewer ads, as soon as they release a new version capable of on-device AI

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I agree. I do keep considering it, but the additional value to me right now vs cost hasn’t been worth it.

Same with moving from Roku to Apple TV.

Also, not having much in the Apple ecosystem is a factor. Down to just one occasionally-used Mac (and other macs that just serve as servers in the homelab)

GooseFinger ,

More than just “ripcord likes to have lights on at 6:00 pm,” surprisingly.

It knows what brand lights you have, who’s interacting with it, who you might be with if anyone speaks in the background, what times and days you’re typically home… it’ll even infer your mood based on how your voice sounds.

Unfortunately, Amazon isn’t required to disclose every bit of personal data they take from you, so only so much is known about it. If you consider though that data collection is a new, multi-billion dollar industry, and how effective hundreds of PhDs in data science and social-engineering can be with near infinite resources to develop tools to extract as much information from these devices as possible, it starts becoming more believable.

Here’s a good paper I found: arxiv.org/pdf/2204.10920

ThirdWorldOrder ,

“By the way, did you know…”

I had around 10 echos and replaced them all with HomePods. Much better.

ripcord , (edited )
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

I agree, although I haven’t heard that for a year.

I have 10 rooms with voice assistants so I havent been motivated enough to suck it up and try to start replacing them with HomePods. I’m still hoping that a good, reasonably priced, fully local, HA-integrated solution (that I don’t have to build myself) shows up.

AA5B ,

HA is making good progress toward a home automation voice assistant, which is definitely cool, but I have read about where it works as a general voice assistant. Siri is a good general voice assistant and Apple is making good progress toward home automation, so I’d go in that direction too. As soon as a new HonePod comes out to support on-device AI, I’m in

ripcord ,
@ripcord@lemmy.world avatar

Unfortunately they still seem like they have a long way to go.

A huge part of the problem seems to be availability of good, reasknably-priced Appliance hardware. I’m looking for something that I don’t have to build, that is $100 or so, and that’s at least reasonably good (like, I’d accept the sound and microphone quality of the 1st gen echo mini which weren’t that great.

But nothing like that seems to exist. Hopefully there’s something now and I’ve just missed it.

AA5B ,

Yeah, mighty tempting, especially since I wouldn’t need anywhere near that many. On the assumption the new improved Siri will need on device ai, I’ll go for it when they release that

cmnybo ,

I wouldn’t put one of those amazon spy devices in my house even if they paid me. There’s no way in hell I’m going to pay to use one.

MeekerThanBeaker ,

Eh … it’s not spying. It can’t even understand me when I’m talking to it.

lolcatnip ,

But the one in your pocket is fine?

BeardedGingerWonder ,

One of the reasons I use pixel phones, Google already knows everything, no point in Samsung knowing it too

Snapz ,

Using free users to train the paid version and then flipping the switch on enshitification of the “free” tier to force need for premium.

Fapper_McFapper ,

LMAO, let me get this straight. You want me to pay for the privilege of being spied on. We really did jump timelines. Fuck all these greedy companies.

exanime ,

Sadly, that’s what we do with phones, cars, tvs, etc

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Fortunately, there are solutions to each of those:

  • phones - alternative Android ROMs and fdroid
  • cars - remove the connectivity module
  • TVs - don’t let it access your network and don’t use the apps

That’s not true for Alexa, you need to allow it to spy for its core functionality to work.

exanime ,

Yeap I’m just saying it’s sadly all too common

I’m actually degoogling at the moment precisely because of all this

downpunxx ,

I bought the device (s), I use it to turn on/off my lights, ask it the time and date every now and then, everything it prompts me for is annoying as fuck. I'm not paying a monthly fee for a device that I purchased to do simple tasks that were included when I bought it.

cloudless OP ,

Based on what I’ve read, you can still do what you bought them for without paying the monthly fee. You just have to deal with the old dumb Alexa.

By the way…

essteeyou ,

One day they’ll want to stop maintaining two systems, and you’ll either have to pay up or lose functionality completely.

cloudless OP ,

Then there will be class action lawsuit from all the owners who paid for the devices.

essteeyou ,

Devices stop functioning eventually. You can’t make Apple support your iPod.

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