Alexa, I’ve got suggestions for you
A newbie’s random thoughts on using Alexa
I’m no nerd, but like you, I’ve read a lot of the positive reviews by pundits and experts about Alexa. So I decided to get one for Christmas.
Now, I’ve not gone Alexa crazy — yet. I already had Hive thermostat, and Bluetooth speakers, so I bought a few Phillips light bulbs and one Echo Dot. So far, I’m loving the experience and can see why it got the rave reviews.
However, below are my suggestions on what Alexa needs to get even better:
There should be a Night mode
Take alarms for example. My two year old usually deserts his bed and finds the way to ours at night. He’s a very cheeky and naughty fellow. He will crawl in and promptly start doing crazy stuff like pinching your ears or sticking his fingers in your nose, all the time, smiling like a real-life Chucky!
So imagine my horror to realise that telling ‘Alexa, stop’ might mean he can wake up as well! What I think will be extremely functional is simplify the command while the alarm is ongoing only to say a particular phrase like ‘Alexa’ or ‘Stop’.
Ability to suggest your own phrases and sentences
Alexa learns as it goes along which makes it smarter. For instance, it provides a simple yes or no option, to provide feedback on how well it answers your questions. Amazon should go further by allowing you to provide the questions to Alexa in the first place. (This will be useful for the ‘night-mode’ as well).
For instance, I use Alexa to control the temperature via Hive thermostat. When I say ‘Alexa, set the house temperature to 23 degrees’, it works perfectly. But it throws a blank if I deviate too much from that structure. So what will be good is if I could give her a bunch of phrases and sentences — especially pragmatic for my 4yr son — like instructions for carrying out tasks. For instance, he typically starts sentences with: ‘can you please’. Alexa gets hopelessly lost in cases like this, which is avoidable.
You should be able to correct Alexa
If you listened to the voice playback, you would hear that my request was actually: ‘Alexa, what’s the weather tomorrow’. My feeling is that I should be able to let Alexa know she’s heard incorrectly instead of just answering “No” to ‘Did Alexa do what you wanted’ feedback question.
Surely, it’s more important to let her know why she’s wrong than relying on data crunching of what’s the optimal response to a ‘wrong’ question.
Get to work on Sonos integration
Okay, I get it. You’re working on it already. At least according to Verge which reports that you have plans to enable Alexa work with Sonos in 2017. Well, it’s 2017 — we need it now.
That’s it. Don’t mention, Alexa — you’re welcomed.
