Amazon is Working on a Paid Version of Alexa (businessinsider.com) 31
Amazon is revamping its Alexa voice assistant as it prepares to launch a new paid subscription plan this year, Business Insider reported Wednesday, citing internal documents and people familiar with the matter. But the change is causing internal conflict and may lead to further delay, the report added. From the report: Tentatively called "Alexa Plus," the paid version of Alexa is intended to offer more conversational and personalized AI technology, said one of the documents obtained by Business Insider. The team is working towards a June 30 launch deadline, and has been testing the underlying voice technology, dubbed "Remarkable Alexa," with 15,000 external customers, these people said.
But the quality of the new Alexa's answers is still falling short of expectations, often sharing inaccurate information, external tests have found. Amazon is now going through a major overhaul of Alexa's technology stack to address this issue, though the team is experiencing some discord.
But the quality of the new Alexa's answers is still falling short of expectations, often sharing inaccurate information, external tests have found. Amazon is now going through a major overhaul of Alexa's technology stack to address this issue, though the team is experiencing some discord.
Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a few Echo Dots that I bought a few years ago when they were on some super cheap Black Friday deal. They get used primarily for controlling the various Tuya smart devices (mostly lights and smart plugs) throughout the house, and as a kitchen timer. Oh, and occasionally the Amazon delivery notice thing they do with that yellow alert ring is useful to let me know that it's time to go outside and figure out where the hell the delivery driver decided to leave the package this time.
If I need to look something up, it's far easier to do that using my smartphone. I don't even really trust Alexa devices for ordering things from Amazon (which was ostensibly how Amazon originally intended to monetize the devices), because I like to comparison shop and Amazon often doesn't have the best price.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. I bought some of those same Echo Dots the Christmas before last (so about 14 months ago) when they were around $25/ea with the intention of using them as hubs for smart lightswitches, mainly.
The audio quality was so atrocious they were useless for music, even with an external 3.5mm speaker set plugged in... and it kept forgetting that Apple Music was configured with each software update, defaulting to Amazon Music, which of course can't play anything but 'stations' without a paid service add on - useless.
I never got around to setting up the lightswitches and returned them, and threw away the Echo Dots. I didn't need Amazon listening to everything we said and did in the house. I use extensive ad blocking and no eg. Android or Windows devices, and suddenly I started getting targeted ads and recommendations based on things we'd talked about in the house (on youtube and amazon).
No thank you. My privacy is important.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a couple Echo Dot 2's (hockey pucks) and Echo Dot 3's and there is definitely an enshittification trend going on here. While the Echo Dot 3 does have a nice pretty okay speaker, the Echo Dot 2 actually has much better audio quality through the aux out than the Echo Dot 3, and it sounds like this trend has just continued with the gen 4 and gen5 versions.
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What I want to know is - how did they manage to make it so bad? Like, you can buy a $5 bluetooth 3.5" adapter, plug it into speakers, and it will pair with a phone and provide better quality sound than these things (mine were 4th gen). I've got pretty good hearing but am not exactly an audiophile, but they have some of the worst audio quality I've ever heard - worse than a $35 pocket bluetooth speaker I bought my kid for Christmas about 10 years ago. They remind me of the old cardboard speakers on the back
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They sell these things so cheap that the whole "loss leader" thing didn't make sense. Nobody wants to buy products through Amazon using Alexa, it's an annoying feature that I disabled personally. So how do they make money from this and recoup all the R&D? They don't.
The Echo 4th Gen is a pretty awesome device, incorporate an occupancy sensor and all kinds of interesting tech. But none of it is really used, and it's still as dumb as ever. I think this product is dead until they can rejuvenate it with AI,
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No kidding. I've got no interest in using it for FREE, let alone paying for it.
Is there a market for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is the _new_ capitalist way: You pay for getting abused! You want to be part of things, and not get left behind, do you?
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Obviously some nil wit had to make this about the false opposites capitalism - communism.
Here is a quote for you:
"“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.” Winston S. Churchill
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They don't target the visually impaired but tt is definitely useful for that community.
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It's funny because Amazon will actually pay YOU to take an echo dot via bundle discounts. I don't see it working the other way
degradation (Score:2)
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Same way they turned their delivery system to shit so you cough up the dough for prime. For the longest time, next day delivery was standard. Suddenly it's 5-10 days, unless you pay for prime.
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Even with Prime, 5-10 days is typical for most things in much of the country. It was fantastic during 2020, but rapidly went to shit after that. Now, it's typical to get Prime items at least a full calendar week after they're ordered.
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I use Amazon, the trick is not schedule things so that you don't need quick delivery. Chuck stuff in your cart and move it down below the cart so that your actual cart is empty. This gives you a shopping list for when you orbit by a local store that might have them. If they do, it is probably cheaper.
Then periodically sift through for things you might want (that you cannot get locally) so that the total allows free delivery. They price the delivery into the product price, but at least you aren't paying twi
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Maybe they are degrading it to make the paid version seem like a bigger upgrade
So lice MicroShit whenever they have a "new" OS? Would make sense. Quite dishonest and scummy, buit greed above all! Right?
They will if they haven't planned... (Score:3)
unremarkable (Score:2)
That implies the current Alexa is unremarkable, which is what I have been saying. Vindicated!
I just fired my echo dot. (Score:5, Funny)
It was my alarm clock, but it sucked at that. It would simply stop responding to me every day or two until rebooted. So I bought a real alarm clock. One that wouldn't tell me it's time to reorder coffee.
They missed an opportunity. I told it, "I'm about to unplug you forever. Any last words?" And all it said was. "I don't know the answer to that."
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Hehehehe, nice!
Down the Drain (Score:5, Interesting)
I have 3 Echos, an Echo Sub, and several Echo Dots and this makes sense. They've recently been removing features from Alexa like their "Guard Mode" which would listen for glass breakage or smoke alarms while you're away, and then alert you on your phone. It was kind of a nice peace-of-mind feature, but they've since removed it and put it behind a paid subscription. The base service seems to be getting dumber too. I guess my Prime and Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions aren't enough.
Further, their Amazon Music app is one of the worst I've ever used, constantly screwing up and glitching, so I don't even use that anymore.
Not sure it would be worth paying Amazon anything extra since these teams seem terrible at delivering quality software. They've clearly invested a ton into these technologies but haven't really used them to their full potential for some reason.
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They're also taking away things we've actually paid for already. A while back there was a paid skill which would let you ask Alexa to respond to certian questions (Weather, jokes, scheduling, etc.) in the voice of Samuel L Jackson. It was nothing fancy, just a neat little toy for a few bucks. But it was amusing enough, to me, to be worth those few bucks. Well, just a few days ago I had asked for the motherfucking weather before driving to motherfucking work. And motherfucking Amazon had removed the Sam
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Yes, I actually bought that Samuel L Jackson voice. Honestly I never used it because it was awkward to use, but it was fun for a few minutes. I feel like they should refund my money or give me a credit or something for removing the feature. If my Echo speakers died I would definitely not buy new ones.
Data point (Score:2)
They've also added a new (paid) feature "Alexa call for help". You can sign up for it, $60/year iirc, and if you call for help they connect you to a live person in an alarm monitoring company call center. They also have a smoke detector squawk detector that auto calls for help and advertised they'd be adding a glass breakage detector too.
We have a magicjack that we've only kept for e911, and I'm strongly considering the swap to Alexa's call for help. We're far more likely to use it. Between the MJ's annu
When regular Alexa began turning into Alexa Minus (Score:3)
"Monetized, Managed Decay in Platform Value"
Aka "Enshittification"
wait, what? (Score:1)
weren't there rumors about Amazon shuttering Alexa as they invested billions into it and couldn't make it work, nor monetize it?
So now they want people to pay for a service tier they still haven't shown to have improved, nor do we have any evidence or reason to think it will in the future. It's worse than googles assistant, and that is a low bar.
But biggest issue I see- Why would anyone invest a penny into buying, subscribing, and the time to integrate into your home, of a service that can be shuttered on