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I have a few smart devices in my home. A smart plug that connect to my better halves electric blanket, my Hive heating and now 2 sonoff light switches. Siri cant do anything with them but Alexa can switch all them on and switch them off again, from anywhere in the world. As far as I can see Siri is a gimmick that can answer a few questions and tell a few jokes, but Alexa can actually be useful and do the things I wish Siri could do. Siri finds it hard to understand the Scottish accent (granted its getting better) but I have no problems with Alexa.

Anyone want to add anything or even defend Siri.

Gary.

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Gary.

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"Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." Douglas Adams.

Siri can only interact with HomeKit enabled devices. I went for Philips Hue and they work a treat with Siri. I also got Hive but I didn't want voice control on that. Whether hardware works with HomeKit or whatever Android uses is up to the manufacturers. Whether you use Amazon, Samsung or Google's devices rather than Apple's depends on how much you trust the companies behind them as to which are always listening or dumb until you make the relevant command.

OK, having said that, I think Apple took their eye off the ball with Siri and were caught out by the other, newer products. How long before Siri catches up? I wont speculate. I've mentioned Siri is cloth-eared at times when it comes to the HomePod. She (I use a female voice) can not find some albums and can't get the correct words. When I ask for a song and then ask from what album it is taken, she can tell me. When I ask again using her mangled English, she still has no clue, even though she just told me. I hope Apple pulls out the finger from wherever it has been lodged and polish it up. It is getting slowly more able, but then so are the others.

I haven't used Alexa so can't comment on that but Siri is pretty crappy on the whole. I have a fairly flat neutral accent and it has a hard time understanding what I say. It then gets sarcastic when I tell it to f**k off because it's being an arse.

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I'm never wrong, I'm just less right on occasions.

I can now use my firesick with voice control to control my lights and switches so thats another bonus.

Hive cant work with HomeKit as I think home kits needs you stuff to have some sort of authentication chip fitted, but I am sure I read that with the iOS 12 update apple will allow this chip to be bypassed, but Allas I no longer need that as Alexa is now doing a good job for me.

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Gary.

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█████████
-- RANGERS FC --


"Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." Douglas Adams.

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"If it ain't broke, we can fix it" (© Tim Cook, Jonny Ive)

Core i7 2011 21.5" iMac 12,1 2.8 GHz 16GB RAM OS X 10.9.5 1TB SSD & 128GB SSD

I haven't used Alexa so can't compare. I use Siri for a number of things and it works quite well such as;
Setting reminders
Opening apps
Setting a timer
Checking the news and weather forecast
Calling my contacts
Getting directions
Reading texts out when I'm driving. But not replying or phoning when driving though even hands free.
Checking addresses of contacts
Playing music.

It does go very wrong sometimes. I asked it to set a reminder to 'Tell the Chief Officers about the strategy day' which ended up as 'Tell the Chief Officers they are gay.'

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iMac Retina 5k 27"
iPad Pro 128Gb
iPhone 5SE 64Gb
Apple TV4
AirPods
plus several other Macs around the house

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Gary.

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█████████
-- RANGERS FC --


"Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." Douglas Adams.

Yup, Siri is annoyingly wrong far too much of the time. Alexa is like magic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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i had a Amazon tv box and a waste of time that was. Not Amazons biggest fan but do have Prime as I reckon I get my money’s worth from it and the Prime Video service works much better through Apple TV.
I do give voice commands to my tech gear and find it a very mixed bag to be honest. With the 3rd party map apps now available on Carplay I am finding good and bad with both Google and Waze. I would currently place Waze ahead of both Apple and google maps. Siri on my home pod has improved since ios 12 as well. Not really interested in controlling my lights through a speaker to be honest and prefer the better quality sound of the Homepod over the really poor sound of the Amazon speaker.

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i phone 13 pro, 2008 Mac pro,i Pad pro 9.8 in , ATV 4
Canon 6D, Canon 1Dm2, 17-40L, 24-70L, 70-200Lis, 300f4L,100F2 and loads of other stuff.

For music I use my UE Megaboom. I only really use voice control with my Firestick remote, otherwise its through the app on my iPhone. I have 3 IR controlled table lamps as this makes it easier that switching them on and off individually.

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Gary.

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█████████
-- RANGERS FC --


"Macintosh - We might not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end." Douglas Adams.

I wouldn't want Alexa in my home for fear of it evesdropping on conversations, it is Google remember. Siri I turned off years ago for all the reasons above. When you think Siri is doing the same eavesdropping as Google. Same reasoning for not having a smart TV, just a normal one no eavesdropping. Suites you Sir, well suites me too. I just got pissed off with Siri opening when it heard certain words on TV, thinks this is wrong.

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Power to all Mac users all over the world.

Alexa is from Amazon, not Google.

I now have Echo products in my home and they only occasionally incorrectly activate, usually when the TV advert is on but not every time.

I have never had Siri incorrectly activate ever since it was introduced.

As for smart tv eavesdropping. If you don't connect it to the internet then it can't.

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I'm never wrong, I'm just less right on occasions.

TVs can indeed be naughty with listening. I refuse to buy Android powered TVs or ones with Google/Alexa voice activation. My only choice in 'smart' TV is Samsung*, who put their assistant in with Tizen. It can only work if you sign in to your Samsung account. I don't. The other apps keep working - Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV+ and the others I don't use.


* I've seen muddled specs for LG's bundles so for now, no Lucky Goldstar for me.

Is that what LG stands for? You learn something new...

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"If it ain't broke, we can fix it" (© Tim Cook, Jonny Ive)

Core i7 2011 21.5" iMac 12,1 2.8 GHz 16GB RAM OS X 10.9.5 1TB SSD & 128GB SSD