General public has probably been sold on the potential & novelty of the device, without realizing how little there is to it (feature wise). It feels like it is similar to VR and personal drones; it sounds exiting, but it isn't that practical in everyday setting to replace other activities, and setting it up can feel tedious.
I have had a Google Home Mini since they came out and use it daily. Controls lights, multiple outlets, the Chromecasts through out my house, I used it to add stuff daily to my calendar, add items to my grocery list and much more. So I think its pretty practical in an everyday setting.
>General public has probably been sold on the potential & novelty of the device, without realizing how little there is to it (feature wise).
There is an outrageous amount to it, feature wise. Voice is the holy grail for a pretty large amount of the public, and it is finally there.
The setup is surprisingly unintuitive (even the simple step to connect to a specific wifi network is beyond many users, and it is notable that Google Home on the same device just does it by itself), but I'm sure the techie niece will do it for most.
I was impressed by how easy it was to connect to WiFi, download app, hit connect to WiFi. All instructions were included on a piece of paper the size of a business card
> but I'm sure the techie niece will do it for most.
For most it would probably instead be a techie nephew. Very cool that you (I’m assuming) have a techie niece though! Always great to see that sort of thing.
I'm all for that, but the parent/GP took it a step further by stating a niece - the non-"typical" - would do it for "most", and I just don't think that's an accurate implication for most at all, based on anecdotal experiences in real life & on the internet, and also based on statistics.
I suppose that's a valid interpretation, but again, the purpose of the phrasing is to (slightly, help) change the status quo, so most of us are not batting an eye if it doesn't 100% reflect the status quo; the commenter may or may not have meant to collude 'most' with the non-typical, but it literally makes no difference.
If it doesn't really make sense, it does make a difference, and certain wording can actually have the opposite effect and turn people away from the cause - even if they support it, like I do. I'm a huge proponent of "girls can do anything guys can do" and not pushing gender stereotypes on girls, but the GP's very presumptive wording came across as trying really hard to change the status quo, as well as exclusionary, when it could have been done much more naturally and subtly:
> "the techie niece/nephew will do it for most"
(being inclusive of both genders when obviously only the one gender, male, really reasonably applies; doesn't tend to offend anyone and brings them over to your cause because you're not making it look like you're trying to unreasonably exclude - this is probably the most ideal choice of wording)
or even just removing the "for most" (since it's completely inaccurate and very presumptive)
> "the techie niece will do it"
But I mean, techie girls do exist, but they're pretty rare. It's like saying "if most people simply asked their plumber, she'd agree to use more environmentally friendly chemical to unclog your drain". It's like really? Literally only 1.4% of plumbers are female [1], c'mon, stop trying so hard to push your agenda, it just turns people off and hurts your otherwise very worthy cause.
I think you underestimate how useful it is. After our phones our Echo is probably the second most used consumer tech gadget we have (laptop is used more for work, but less at home).
We have a Harmony remote, so we turn on/off our entertainment center and lights with the Echo. While I make breakfast I get my news update from it. My son plays music with it while doing little projects.
I'm actually surprised at the number of people who have them who really like them.
Yeah I'm actually really sad about that, a good friend of mine just told me "AR is way better, I'm going to buy magicleap" while he's never tried AR in his life but just had a pretty bad experience with VR (did a VR park in Japan and was nauseous the whole time).
I thought the new iterations of the Vive had fixed most problems but seems like some people are just not going to experience this thing any time soon :/
Not all new technologies hit the ground running. Not that vr is necessarily new at this point. Look at early video games versus now. Look at early office home software versus now.
These things have come a long way in 20-50 years.
Yes, many vr games are still little more than tech prototypes and the hardware still needs improvement. But if you haven't used a decent brand system and can't appreciate how much potential it has. I don't know what to say to that.
You shouldn't take vr just at face value for being awesome but also some of the potential it has in next few years. That is what's freaking awesome to me(and I'm not op)
To be honest we've been told about the potential for VR for the past 3 or 4 years at least and I still can't see any killer app to justify the investment. Yeah, it's fun for cockpit games and simulations in general, but... there's not many games "made for VR" that are really interesting. Maybe business applications will be more appealing in the end?
