I’m curious of who in the level1techs community uses an assistant, which one you use, and why/why not you use it.
0 voters
I’ve been anti and assistant for a long time now because of data collection. But the abilities of it do grows constantly and is making me want to start using some sort of assistant.
Having managed a kitchen, there’ve been lots of times where using a phone for a second isn’t an option, and often my hands would just not be available because of other things. Bumping an button and starting a call, or dictating a message, or setting a timer…all super basic stuff that Siri would be able to accomplish to keep things moving, rather than having to completely pull off, wash stuff off my hands and dry them to use the phone for a second, then wash them after handling a phone to keep doing things.
The most sophisticated I ever get is like selecting podcasts, but I don’t like doing anything other than the super-direct commands because they just go wrong.
It’s often faster to type and search for what you want then using some assistant. Also all the privacy concerns when using one applies.
I want to use mycroft In the future. Its open source and less creepy. Mix it with something lime a home assistant and it can be something powerful. The downside is, its sh*tty right now but it only gets better over time. Also I am slowly setting up my server.
Plus side I IIRC, Mycroft is voiced by Alan Pope a.k.a Popey, a Brit linux podcaster I listen to and former Canonical dev. He has an okay pleasing voice.
I feel that since we are a bunch of turbo nerds we often forget that Digital Assistants fulfill a niche.
Privacy concerns aside; they are some of the only widely available and viable tools to complete tasks for disabled/elderly/impaired persons.
For example; people with arthritis in their hands and it hurts to type or shake too much, but they can speak and get their message across.
Personally, I find them most useful for when my hands are full and I would desire to do something that requires my smart phone. Such as driving, or cooking. Settings reminders, checking timers, or asking a question.
Yeah DA’s are not as fast or efficient, but that is not the focus.
I used to use Google but have switched to Siri for my mobile. It’s not as nice tbch but it does the job.
I use a Gen 1 Alexa in the kitchen for settings timers and checking the weather and turning my Hue lights on/off. Works well enough.
Me too, but sadly it seems they’ve run out of money. Check their last blogpost from 2023-01-31. Almost a year without commits on mycroft-core.
I had such high hopes!