Alexa had a Nervous Breakdown?

[DVDR_Dog]

Not sure what happened but Alexa went bonkers yesterday. It controls a couple of lamps, and my thermostat. I woke up yesterday and my thermostat was set to 72 F something I never do, 68 F is as high as I go, carbon footprint, etc. Then I came home from a hike and all the lights were on. Before I leave I always issue a voice command to turn them off as I leave and Alexa acknowledges that command.
Last night I was going to bed and Alexa did nothing when issued commands. All the power switches connected to it were blinking red. My router was acting kind of crazy too. This morning when I woke up Alexa told me it it no longer knew my voice and to retrain the app after 6 months of use. WTF? I have been running Google home products in parallel with the Amazon ones and Google is emerging as far better. .Just to give Alexa the benefit of the doubt I am going to change out the wireless router later today to see if that helps as Google was reporting intermittent connection problems.
An aside but it appears Alexa doesn't like Google Assistant if that's possible. Google Assistant refuses to bad mouth any A.I. type program. Is Alexa the stupid child in the family and has a chip on their shoulder? Other than ordering stuff on Amazon sometimes at deep discounts and firestick features which you can't use when running Kodi on the firestick Alexa has earned a big Hmmmm.

 

[ThumperTM]

Not sure what happened but Alexa went bonkers yesterday. It controls a couple of lamps, and my thermostat. I woke up yesterday and my thermostat was set to 72 F something I never do, 68 F is as high as I go, carbon footprint, etc. Then I came home from a hike and all the lights were on. Before I leave I always issue a voice command to turn them off as I leave and Alexa acknowledges that command.
Last night I was going to bed and Alexa did nothing when issued commands. All the power switches connected to it were blinking red. My router was acting kind of crazy too. This morning when I woke up Alexa told me it it no longer knew my voice and to retrain the app after 6 months of use. WTF? I have been running Google home products in parallel with the Amazon ones and Google is emerging as far better. .Just to give Alexa the benefit of the doubt I am going to change out the wireless router later today to see if that helps as Google was reporting intermittent connection problems.
An aside but it appears Alexa doesn't like Google Assistant if that's possible. Google Assistant refuses to bad mouth any A.I. type program. Is Alexa the stupid child in the family and has a chip on their shoulder? Other than ordering stuff on Amazon sometimes at deep discounts and firestick features which you can't use when running Kodi on the firestick Alexa has earned a big Hmmmm.

Alexa is infected with corona? lol

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Well maybe in a way. I guess Alexa is confused with all the traffic when it tries to call home. I'm on fiber so at least I have a full speed connection to my ISP. Now my VPN is a different story. I can find a okay POP but some of the trusty ones are no bueno. Google assistant was going nuts too. Google is having their problems, Gmail is wonky at times. Such is life when people are stuck at home in 2020.
I have still been able to find hikes at least 5 miles in length daily and we all keep our 6 foot distance. I have an 8 mile night "Pink Moon" hike on Tuesday. Looking forward to that. At least I am not getting fat and lazy.

 

[jamvaru]

i also have nothing to do with amazon, though i own a kindle and download some free books from amazon. That's about it. I have purchased from them in the past. It is kind of neat to be able to order something like a heavy bag for boxing training and pay zero shipping. I also ordered some dumbbell sets. This was many years back.

I'm not sure what got me away from amazon, but I'm so much happier with ebay. I use amazon to compare prices sometimes, or for product information. I think it was learning how they treat their employees, the falling asleep on the job, etc. The static shock was interesting. Employees learn to simply put up with being static shocked all the time because of the books I guess. The paper holds a charge or something, from the air. They can't wear gloves because they have to be able to use their device to enter information, update orders, and such.

Then there are the robots that do much of the work at amazon. Not only do they pay their workers as little as possible, of course, with poor conditions, they also 'hire' non-human workers. In other words they 'save money' by using robots, which means they could be paying people, if they really cared about people.

But that doesn't even address the issue of using one of their robots in your house, much less two. You have alexa AND google assistant? It doesn't even have a nickname, lol. They just call it 'google'. "Ok, google." Good grief.
I don't think it is possible to give it a different name either. They want you saying google (or alexa) all the time, so you begin to feel as if it is part of your family.

I decided that for myself I do not want to develop the habit of talking to my devices, or to thin air. I already do that with myself. It feels like an imposition to have to modify my behavior to suit a device.

Plus the privacy issues. Plus it costs money. Plus it is google, and amazon, two of the largest companies in the world. They don't need, or deserve, any support from me.

Maybe you think you are being able to assist people by being familiar with the devices and services.

My advice to anybody using them would be this: don't bother.

It is like asking for a monkey on your back. I'll pass.

 

[jamvaru]

oh, and they undercut their own partner sellers with their 'buy from amazon' option, because they have these huge warehouses of junk

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Well to address the privacy issue. I live alone and to be honest I have F'd with both of them since the day they connected to the Internet. Neither one knows which way is up. Nice for turning on the lights and they make dandy alarm clocks and timers. Other than that I fail to see much use for them in my existence.
Please don't get me started on eBay. They have their share of cheats and thieves it's the nature of that sort of business. I just don't have the time to deal with some of the nonsense that goes on there so I don't deal with it. The Internet is full of tales of woe from failed eBay transactions. I do have a few trusted sellers I deal with but to be honest there are so many people selling on eBay who haven't the slightest idea what they are doing. Look at some of the insane prices that are asked. To quote my own experience with a wholesale seller at work and a few of the TV reality shows when a person says well they are listed on the Internet for so and so. The retort is always, "Is that what they are asking or what people are paying?". Nuff said. Disputes can take more time to settle on eBay than some of the Chinese auction sites, my own experience.
So not everyone's experience is always the same. For the most part with some glaring exceptions most towns welcome an Amazon distribution center and the jobs and income they bring. I will not even go into the wage and conditions argument. That's as old as the formation of labor unions in the US and there will always be 2 sides. That has always been critical to successful labor negotiations. End of story.

 

[jamvaru]

well, there's more to the story
i'll stay on the anti-amazon side; i'd be fine if all their warehouses blew up
ebay is great for me; i like buying cheap cd's and books
i had a problem with someone selling catnip; turns out the post office mishandled the package and it arrived a month late or so; the seller sent me another anyway
i had a problem with a couple of chinese sellers, but they were resolved
once long ago i purchased a sort of mp3 touchscreen player, when ipod was getting big; it was junk of course; threw it in the trash, but since then i've been wiser about what i purchase
NewEgg is my goto for electronics, as you actually pay more on ebay, generally. Also you don't really know what you are getting. Now for books, no problem, it's great. average price $3 or so, cd's just bought like 50 for $2 each, on a special sale. The seller sent me an email to inform me of the sale.
Anyway. Some of that $1 stuff from china is fun, but you might get junk. One example is the microfiber eyeglass wipes. 4 for $1? yep, cheap junk, trash. But the rest of the order was fine, like 7 other products that are ok.
So, obviously you must be a smart shopper to use ebay, but also craig's list and anything really.
I would recommend NewEgg over ebay for new electronics though. Or whatever else you like.
BestBuy has an ebay account.
anyway
.
My uncle doesn't buy from ebay because he is convinced they support the republican party who want to take his social security away.

 

[jamvaru]

oh, btw, free shipping on those books. and cd's; i only buy from the sellers who do the "buy 2 get 1 free" plus free shipping, or other type of promotion, unless it is something I really want.
Bought a copy of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" for like $6. One of them had a more interesting cover than the others. Free shipping though. Loved the 80's movie with Jane Seymour.
Oh, my dell laptop is from ebay. It was i think $119 including shipping. Of course that is because of the overheating issue. It came with windows 7 i think. core2duo (several years ago, i'm that lazy, still haven't fixed it, haha)

 

[RodmanB]

Not sure what happened but Alexa went bonkers yesterday. It controls a couple of lamps, and my thermostat. I woke up yesterday and my thermostat was set to 72 F something I never do, 68 F is as high as I go, carbon footprint, etc. Then I came home from a hike and all the lights were on. Before I leave I always issue a voice command to turn them off as I leave and Alexa acknowledges that command.
Last night I was going to bed and Alexa did nothing when issued commands. All the power switches connected to it were blinking red. My router was acting kind of crazy too. This morning when I woke up Alexa told me it it no longer knew my voice and to retrain the app after 6 months of use. WTF? I have been running Google home products in parallel with the Amazon ones and Google is emerging as far better. .Just to give Alexa the benefit of the doubt I am going to change out the wireless router later today to see if that helps as Google was reporting intermittent connection problems.
An aside but it appears Alexa doesn't like Google Assistant if that's possible. Google Assistant refuses to bad mouth any A.I. type program. Is Alexa the stupid child in the family and has a chip on their shoulder? Other than ordering stuff on Amazon sometimes at deep discounts and firestick features which you can't use when running Kodi on the firestick Alexa has earned a big Hmmmm.

The old say goes "If you want any thing done , and done right, do it your self.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Well in defense of the old girl it may have been I overwhelmed my router. I changed it out for some super-duper high security wireless router I got from work and things have stabilized. Keep in mind I have a ton of IoT stuff hooked up, more than I realised. I have been running (3 each) Google Assistant and Alexa in parallel and all the remote stuff they control. That on top of a Fire Stick, at least 2 PCs at any one time usually more when I am awake, a couple of phones, an iPad or 2 and a Chromebook. Then there's all the Bluetooth stuff. Can you tell I'm bored?
I was using this FIOS router I had before I moved b/c it had TV connected to it too. It was retired last week.
So there ya go. I nearly pooped my pants when I did a connection audit on the new router and saw how much stuff was connected. Well's all good for now. My Google Home Hub is kinda acting learning disabled, not sure why. It's slow but eventually it figures it out. All my Google stuff is a little slow lately, Gmail too. Google feeling the pressure of everybody on the net with nothing to do? Something else to mess with when I get even more bored I guess.

Anybody care to start a "Karen" thread? It might be good for a couple of laughs.

EDIT: Well shoot. Was Google looking over my shoulder when I made the comment about it being slow? Suddenly it started going quickly again.
Don't get me wrong, I am not sold on this AI stuff. It's good for turning lights on and off, alerting you of upcoming appointments or events and by god they do make handy timers and alarm clocks. Other than that I am not convinced at all.

 

[jamvaru]

lol, u maniac
.
you could put a router or wireless base station, extender (connected via network cable) on the table with your alexa and enclose both in a wire mesh cage, like chicken wire, to make a Faraday cage, trapping the magnetic fields, blocking the radiations, at least partially; but the 'microwaves' are small enough to penetrate the wire mesh, so...
.
more secure would be some sheet metal that houses the alexa and the router together (because alexa connects wirelessly i presume? or is there an option for network cable?). Then you just have some holes in the bottom maybe for the sound, and so alexa can hear you i guess

i put some mesh on the inside wall facing the 'smart meter' (electric) on the outside. A few days later the electric guy shows up at the door saying he has to turn the power off for a minute to change the meter because it isn't functioning properly.
lol
I decided to remove the mesh rather than have issues with the power company.

possibly, if i can put up just the right size of sheet metal it can block the radiation from coming into the house but allow line of sight to the electric pole, whichever one that is. I'm pretty sure it is the one outside with the transformer.