WDB
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Posts: 7,352
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Post by WDB on Oct 25, 2016 14:15:38 GMT
Yes, I'm finding mine frustrating too. The only 'music by Gustav Mahler' she could find were the Classic FM slow movements from the first and fifth symphonies; 'music by Anton Bruckner' produced one obscure motet. Music I know is in Amazon Prime doesn't appear. This is pre-Sonos integration, of course, so perhaps she'll be able to pass my words to the more intelligent Sonos search engine - although even then I'm not sure how she'll present any selection she finds.
More disappointing, really, is how poor she is at responding to anything; even simple requests to retrieve information or set a timer can take two or three barks of 'Echo!' before I hit on the correct tone of voice. And so much of the background data is US-centred that it's hard to avoid the feeling we've bought a product that was designed for someone else. Temperatures in °F? Really? Yes, I can configure it but I shouldn't have to. And she interferes so much with the Ruark radio that FM is unusable and I have to listen to R4 on DAB. She may have to sit somewhere else and Bluetooth across the room.
I'll persevere, because I think it will improve as more providers come up with software; a Tesco shopping list skill would be useful, for example. But right now, she's a bit of a dunce.
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Post by tyrednexited on Oct 25, 2016 16:06:44 GMT
Well, I thought it was time just now to actually try my colleague's Echo and see if it would work for me before purchasing. So I picked something to play, and we went something like this. I tried to make it easier as we went along: Me: Alexa, play me the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor by Jacqueline du Pre from Spotify Echo: I can't find the Elgar Cello Concerto in A minor. Me: Alexa, play me the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor by Jacqueline du Pre from Spotify Echo: I can't find the Elgar Cello Concerto in G minor. Me: Alexa, play me the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor from Spotify Echo: I can't find the Elgar Cello Concerto in B minor. Me: Alexa, play me the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor from Spotify Echo: I can't find Elgo Me: Alexa, play me some Elgar Spotify Echo:*starts playing random pop music* Me:Alexa, play me the Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor from Spotify Echo: I can't find Elgar Cello Concerto in E minor on Spotify I think I'll save my £50. For whatever reason, my use case is clearly too way out there for mainstream technology. After all, Elgar eh? Can't think why it can't find it - it's an enigma......
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Post by Humph on Oct 25, 2016 18:48:12 GMT
Various reasons
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Post by Hofmeister on Oct 25, 2016 19:18:46 GMT
This is unique device. Its a solution looking for a problem, but more its a solution that doesn't work, even tho its a solution for no problem.
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Post by crankcase on Oct 26, 2016 10:02:04 GMT
Funnily enough, it turns out that it works perfectly for the owner, whose music of choice isn't classical. I would never disparage anyone's musical taste, especially when it isn't anything I understand, but his queries for something called "Venga Boys", "Little Mix" and "Lady Gaga" all worked seamlessly for him.
I did actually get it to play a bit of the 1812, but it started in the middle at the "easy bits", so it was probably pulling from a "Classical Chill" compilation album or something.
I have to say I was...shall we just say a little surprised...to discover that not only was the 1812 entirely unknown to my esteemed colleague, but also he couldn't begin to pronounce Tchaikovsky. This was because he'd never actually heard of him.
But I'd never heard of the Venga Boys until yesterday either, so we're all square.
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Post by crankcase on Oct 27, 2016 12:03:05 GMT
Another go this morning was a miserable failure - four attempts to find something as simple as "Brook Green Suite" finally resulted in it playing something odd, which wasn't by Holst at all. (Incidentally, I was listening to some Holst recently and felt it was awfully piratical in a movieiesh way but I couldn't work out why, exactly, and THEN discovered the story about Pirates of the Caribbean and Holst and a court case and so on. Intriguing.)
I found this somewhere on webs, which might help explain this seeming anomaly with classical music:
Alexa will never find an exact match for a track that has special or foreign characters in its title—characters you can’t possibly pronounce in a form of consistent, recognizable English. Classical music track and album titles are often long, and frequently include special characters (e.g., dashes, slashes, quotation marks, Latin abbreviations, etc.) and foreign words, so Alexa often has problems locating Classical music tracks and albums. Non-English artists, songs and albums can be difficult for Alexa to find for the same reason. You can improve lookup on these types of music by adding the tracks to a playlist with a simple name, then asking Alexa to play that playlist.
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Post by Hofmeister on Oct 27, 2016 12:39:35 GMT
Another go this morning was a miserable failure - four attempts to find something as simple as "Brook Green Suite" finally resulted in it playing something odd, which wasn't by Holst at all. (Incidentally, I was listening to some Holst recently and felt it was awfully piratical in a movieiesh way but I couldn't work out why, exactly, and THEN discovered the story about Pirates of the Caribbean and Holst and a court case and so on. Intriguing.) I found this somewhere on webs, which might help explain this seeming anomaly with classical music: Alexa will never find an exact match for a track that has special or foreign characters in its title—characters you can’t possibly pronounce in a form of consistent, recognizable English. Classical music track and album titles are often long, and frequently include special characters (e.g., dashes, slashes, quotation marks, Latin abbreviations, etc.) and foreign words, so Alexa often has problems locating Classical music tracks and albums. Non-English artists, songs and albums can be difficult for Alexa to find for the same reason. You can improve lookup on these types of music by adding the tracks to a playlist with a simple name, then asking Alexa to play that playlist. What happens when you tell it "Excuses Excuses Excuses"
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Post by crankcase on Oct 27, 2016 13:06:11 GMT
I just tried that to see. Interestingly, absolutely nothing other than the pretty light - no response at all.
So I told the puzzled owner I'd put it into a hidden secret diagnostic mode and it was now sending everything he said to California. And of course it was locked to my voice now and the only way out of diagnostic mode was if I personally said the special code.
And left him to it, really.
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Post by tyrednexited on Oct 27, 2016 14:10:56 GMT
I just tried that to see. Interestingly, absolutely nothing other than the pretty light - no response at all. ...it obviously also didn't manage to find this then...
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Post by crankcase on Nov 2, 2016 9:16:24 GMT
I actually quite enjoyed that, although to be fair my recent listening on Spotify has included "Sounds of the junk yard" and "432Hz", which is exactly what you think it is.
Anyway, in the office, Alexa is SO last month. All the talk now is of the upcoming Google Home. Sigh. It's never ending, this stuff.
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Post by crankcase on Jan 31, 2017 10:39:54 GMT
Just remembering this thread and thought of Lazarus.
Still haven't bought an Echo or Dot. Those who have - is it now dusty in a corner or have you fallen for it? Have they improved any?
I thought of this because yesterday my Spotify Daily Play list, which apparently is a finely crafted algorithm they use to automatically pick music you are going to absolutely love, tailored to your mood, played me some Wagner, then some Bach, then some Mahler, then the Theme from Scooby-Doo.
Which was interesting.
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Post by Hofmeister on Jan 31, 2017 11:15:16 GMT
Just remembering this thread and thought of Lazarus. Still haven't bought an Echo or Dot. Those who have - is it now dusty in a corner or have you fallen for it? Have they improved any? I thought of this because yesterday my Spotify Daily Play list, which apparently is a finely crafted algorithm they use to automatically pick music you are going to absolutely love, tailored to your mood, played me some Wagner, then some Bach, then some Mahler, then the Theme from Scooby-Doo. Which was interesting. It was just checking you were awake
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jan 31, 2017 21:02:28 GMT
They use Hadoop or similar to trawl through what everyone is listening to in order to produce a list of what you might like. Huge crunching of data involved. It's not a simple 'algorithm'. So based on what you listened to, it will find others who listened to the same and then suggest you might like what they listened to.
So I'm not surprised. If you did random listening you will impact others on Spotify just the same.
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WDB
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Posts: 7,352
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Post by WDB on Jan 31, 2017 22:45:07 GMT
Mine is waiting for the killer function that will elevate her above being a voice-operated kitchen timer - and not a particularly good one. Sonos control could be it, but it's not here yet. It will, apparently, integrate with a Logitech Harmony Hub universal remote, but we already have an old Harmony that does 80 percent of what we want, so even I'm reluctant to spend another £99 (or £250 if I want the handset to go with the hub, rather than relying on a phone for control) to make my £50 useful. Perhaps if I can get one for Tesco vouchers, of which I have plenty...
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Rob
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Posts: 2,721
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Post by Rob on Jan 31, 2017 22:58:04 GMT
Or see if there's a holiday or something you can double up the vouchers for. I used some last year for a holiday to Greece with Monarch for example. Also bought a freezer and tumble dryer with doubled up Tesco vouchers.
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