In Al Williams’s marvelous rant he factors out a lot of the issues with chatting with computer systems. Apparent issues with voice management embody issues like a number of folks speaking over one another, discerning instructions from background conversations, and so forth. By some means, not like on the bridge in Star Trek, the place the pc appears to grasp everybody simply superb, Al typically can’t even get the darn factor to play his going-to-sleep playlist, which ought to be effectively throughout the system’s capabilities.
Within the feedback, [rclark] suggests making a single button that performs his playlist, no voice interplay required, and we’ve got to confess that it’s an awesome answer to this one explicit downside. Heck, the “bedtime button” would make enjoyable venture in and of itself, and it’s such a restricted scope that it might most likely solely be an weekend’s work for anybody who has touched the internals of their dwelling automation system, like Al definitely has. We love the simplicity of the concept.
However it ignores the largest potential good thing about a voice management system: that it’s a one-size-fits-all answer for every part. Think about what number of different use instances Al would wish to make a single button system for, and what number of coin cell batteries he’d be signing himself as much as change out over the course of the 12 months. The trade-off is that the overall goal answer tends to not be as strong as a single-tasker just like the button, but additionally that it will probably probably simplify the general system.
I endure this in my own residence. It’s far more a loosely-coupled internet of particular person hacks than an total system, and that has execs and cons. Every particular person half is simpler to keep up and hack on, however the total system is much less coordinated than it could possibly be. If we alter the WiFi password on the house automation router, for example, I’m going to should individually log into about eight ESP8266s and alter their credentials. Yuck!
It’s most likely a matter of desire, however I’ll nonetheless take the unfastened, MQTT-based system that I’ve obtained now over an all-in-one. Like [rclark], I worth particular person system simplicity and reliability above the general system’s simplicity, however as a result of our stereo isn’t even hooked as much as the community, I can’t play myself to sleep like Al can. Or at the very least like he can when the voice recognition is working.
