The Drawbacks of Smart Speakers: A Personal Perspective

For me, smart speakers are just another gadget that doesn't quite fit into my world. I've seen some really cool 3D printed models of smart speakers that can be used to house smart speakers and make them look like R2D2, but that's not the point. In terms of tethering, the fewer cables I have to worry about, the better. Even on a cluttered desk like mine, dealing with multiple cables is frustrating. What's wrong with wireless charging, anyway? It just seems like a marketing gimmick.

I've tried smart speakers before, and we know how that turns out. We forget they're even there, or they provide unintelligible answers to our questions. I'm not convinced that these devices are worth the investment. They might seem like a convenient solution, but in reality, they're just another thing to manage and potentially mismanage. My virtual assistant of choice is already available to me through my phone, which provides me with the freedom to move around without being tethered to a device.

The issue with smart speakers isn't that they don't work sometimes; it's that they often don't live up to their promises. I've asked questions and received answers that didn't make sense, or I've had to rely on my phone to get the information I need. The novelty of having a personal assistant at home wears off quickly, and I'm left wondering why I even bothered in the first place.

One of the main reasons I don't use smart speakers is because they're not necessary. With a virtual assistant available through my phone, I can access information and answer questions without needing a separate device. The wearable technology industry has shown me that there's freedom to be found in being disconnected from a constant stream of data and notifications.

I do have one child who could potentially use a smart speaker, but the issue with them is that they don't understand responsibility or how to manage access to the internet. They need guidance and oversight, which makes it difficult for me to consider using a smart speaker in our home. The final reason I've come up with for not using smart speakers is simply that they just don't fit into my lifestyle.

In conclusion, while smart speakers might seem like an attractive option at first glance, they're not the solution to every problem. They require more management and maintenance than they're worth, and they often fall short of their promises. For me, the freedom and flexibility of using a virtual assistant through my phone is enough. I don't need another device in my life, especially one that requires me to be constantly connected to it.

Tethering: A Growing Concern

I've noticed that even with all the cables on my desk, I still prefer fewer cables. It's just something about cluttered spaces and multiple devices that gets under my skin. The fewer cables I have to deal with, the better. Whether it's a smart speaker or any other device, having too many cables can be overwhelming.

Wireless charging is another topic that doesn't sit well with me. What's wrong with the way we've always charged our devices? It seems like wireless charging is just a marketing gimmick, designed to sell more products rather than providing a real solution. And yet, I know some people swear by it.

A Smart Speaker: A Solution in Search of a Problem

I'll admit that there's something cool about smart speakers, but when it comes down to it, I'm not convinced they're worth the investment. They might seem like a convenient solution to certain problems, but ultimately, they just end up being another thing to manage and potentially mismanage.

One reason why we don't have a smart speaker is that our previous attempts at using one didn't quite work out. We forgot about it after a while, or it provided an answer that didn't make sense. It's not that these devices are faulty; it's just that they're not necessary.

Virtual Assistants: A Convenient Solution

For me, the virtual assistant available through my phone is more than enough. I don't need a separate device to access information and answer questions. The wearable technology industry has shown me that there's freedom to be found in being disconnected from a constant stream of data and notifications.

I've tried smart speakers before, but ultimately, they didn't fit into my lifestyle. They required too much management and maintenance, and they often fell short of their promises. I'm not alone; many people have similar experiences with these devices. Whether it's the novelty wearing off quickly or the device not living up to its promise, there are several reasons why smart speakers might not be the best solution for everyone.

The Child Factor: A Concern

One of the main concerns I have about using a smart speaker is that my child could potentially use it without understanding responsibility. They need guidance and oversight when accessing the internet and managing information, which makes it difficult for me to consider using a smart speaker in our home. It's not just a matter of age; it's also about ensuring that they understand how to manage access to sensitive information.

The Wearable Technology Alternative

In contrast to smart speakers, wearable technology has shown me that there's freedom to be found in being disconnected from a constant stream of data and notifications. I can move around without feeling like I'm always being monitored or distracted. The wearable technology industry has also provided me with an alternative way to manage my information and access the things I need.

Overall, while smart speakers might seem like an attractive option at first glance, they're not the solution to every problem. They require more management and maintenance than they're worth, and they often fall short of their promises. For me, the freedom and flexibility of using a virtual assistant through my phone is enough. I don't need another device in my life, especially one that requires me to be constantly connected to it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello galaxy i'm chris pirillo and you're watching the locker gnome daily reporter tl dr for short i am streaming this clip live on twitch that's where i'm broadcasting this recording you can join me and the rest of the community there every night at 6 00 pm i hope to see you tonight if you hear anything in the background it's my 3d printer printing off ghosts that apparently have run off because i had a couple but i guess jedi really liked them uh we had someone pop into chat the other day evil world 84 not to be confused with evil world 83 asked chris what's your opinion on virtual assistants well my opinion is most of them are not that good uh once you use google assistant it's kind of like that and then everything else kind of gets lumped together in in that category so there's really not much from my experience to discuss on that matter but i thought i would extrapolate and potentially talk about the 10 reasons why i and vicariously we the family does not have a smart speaker right these these are the things that you plug into the wall and they connect to the internet and listen to you all the time and uh and then regurgitate whatever uh we don't have them we we don't uh necessarily need them or or want them and that's really the first reason because why we we we don't need one like are they nice to have maybe like i'm not even sure i could make the argument that they are are nice to have that they're they're a have but they're absolutely not a need i wasn't like going around going you know what i wish i could talk to the wall and it would respond to me because nowadays my virtual assistant is on me in one way shape or form and the same with uh with diana we always have our devices on us we need yet another device in the house uh that was you know another reason uh it's it's another device to have another device to support another device that may have a connection to the internet or lose a connection in the internet be connected to the internet the fewer devices that are around believe it or not the easier it is to to handle everything because when you've got one device clamoring for your attention or you've got to stop to think wait do i talk to the device did the device pick up with my voice or did my phone pick up my your phone picked up my voice why did your phone pick up my voice no i'm not talking to your phone i'm talking to the device need one we already have smartphones on us uh it's another device connected to the network that's that's three reasons right there off the top of my head uh another reason the sound now i know some of these smart speakers or speakers that are powerful have the the the assistance built in uh but but they're not really uh any better than than non-assistant speakers like when i want a speaker that only broadcasts audio it doesn't actually listen to anything not that i i don't want to go down that path because you know you're opting into it i just don't need everything in my house to listen to me i just need people to listen that's it and then my smartphone my virtual assistant uh on on me right not not not necessarily a device that's that's also connected uh the sound is no better than the average bluetooth speaker and honestly i'm not an audiophile but it's like why why would i pay extra and even if it was a bonus i'm not going to turn it on i'm not going to use it i don't need everything it's like having an internet connected refrigerator i know some of you all love that i i i'm sure you're in love with or an internet connected light bulb i know there are some of you out there that are all into it i'm not like i just i realized it just got it got way out of hand and as far as smart speakers are concerned this is just it it became one more thing and one more thing and one more thing and then i realized wait a minute i'd rather be a minimalist in terms of that kind of thing i'm a maximalist in terms of star wars stuff a minimalist in terms of the technology that i may feel is just being replicated now if you have an extra emperor palpatine figure or tech figure hey you know can't have enough of those uh but as far as something like a smart speaker we're already taken care of don't need too many of them uh another reason why we don't have smart speakers here uh they stick out like a sore thumb and i i know they make them to blend in with the environment but they just they they the the the cord where we have to set them they on the countertop it's tethered and it's just this cable that's dangling and like i don't want to have cables everywhere i mean i have to have cables connected you know to the wall to power but for some reason or another there's no elegant way of doing that with a smart speaker i'm not saying that's like the reason but it's like i really don't want to have this speaker out in the middle of the countertop or even like you know on the backsplash of a countertop because it's it sticks out i've even seen really cool uh uh i will i'll throw this in there uh uh files models that you can 3d print so you could put a smart speaker into a 3d printed model that makes it look like r2d2 that's pretty cool i will admit that but like in terms of the tethering it's just i don't know in my world the fewer cables i have to worry about the better even on the desk with all the stuff that i have i it drives me nuts the amount of cables that i have to deal with now and what's up with wireless charging anyway that's it just seems wrong i'm going to throw this in there as a little bonus is it it's tethered something's gotta be connected to the wall it's not wireless wireless charging would be like look it's charging there's nothing connected to it it's that's wireless charging something that's tethered inevitably it's that's not wireless charging it's wired wireless charging branding uh another reason why we don't have smart speaker is uh we've had them before so you'd think well chris you you haven't tried it uh uh yeah we have uh we've had them before you know what happens we forget they're there so it's connected not that it takes a lot of power it's there it's it's it's listening waiting for our command uh you know and it's replicated and that's the reason why we don't use them so why have something that's a tool that you're not going to use i'm not talking about a toy you know i mean you could use a toy tuscan rating on twitch the best ever uh no we're talking about a tool a tool needs to be used i i don't want to collect tools not my thing your thing is great remember these are the reasons why i don't use a smart speaker uh to me because the reason that we always have our digital assistants on us in some way whether we're using our watch that's more than likely tethered to our phone it's like no the wearable gives me freedom i just need to be within three feet of my smartphone to have it work all the time because it's smart it seems that a lot of these smart speakers more often than not were a solution in search of a problem because to me your favorite virtual assistant whatever it happens to be and i i genuinely don't care what your favorite virtual assistant is because you probably have one it may not even be mine like not my i don't have a virtual assistant uh you know a digital assistant kind of i like google assistant i said that before i'm just saying that you know you already had a way to get to that by way of your phone i mean yeah you know if if your phone's halfway across the house and you you need to get the answer right now i suppose if you happen to have a speaker plugged in then you can get the answer right now what's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow if you need to know that i suppose but that's it's never happened here it just didn't happen uh another reason why we don't have one is we have a child i'm not saying that's a bad thing you should have children if you care to procreate uh but she would i'm not gonna say what's the right word in this context she would she has no regulator inside she doesn't know when to stop she doesn't know when to use it and when not to use it moreover she could ask a question and she had that yielded an answer that i'm not sure i would necessarily want her to hear uh because reasons i'm not gonna get into that right now but it was just like one more thing that could have been not not a danger it's just the child is not old enough to be responsible or to understand the responsibility of accessing the internet and and getting uh getting to it has to be somewhat managed and at the time that we used it it was not manageable at all uh fun for maybe a minute but then the novelty wore off quick uh another reason really the final reason that i've got uh written down here sometimes they work sometimes they don't that happens to me all the time uh when i when i'm in the car and i'm like i gotta ask a question sorry i can't answer that right now or i ask it a question and it gives me an answer i'm like that's an unintelligible answer why am i asking you i'm just gonna go to my phone and type it in you're sensing a pattern here so no i'm i'm just i'm genuinely not into the smart speaker thing uh i maybe at some point i will uh but right now i'm good with the virtual assistant access that i have at my fingertips well not at my fingertips now they're fingertips fingertips fingertipshello galaxy i'm chris pirillo and you're watching the locker gnome daily reporter tl dr for short i am streaming this clip live on twitch that's where i'm broadcasting this recording you can join me and the rest of the community there every night at 6 00 pm i hope to see you tonight if you hear anything in the background it's my 3d printer printing off ghosts that apparently have run off because i had a couple but i guess jedi really liked them uh we had someone pop into chat the other day evil world 84 not to be confused with evil world 83 asked chris what's your opinion on virtual assistants well my opinion is most of them are not that good uh once you use google assistant it's kind of like that and then everything else kind of gets lumped together in in that category so there's really not much from my experience to discuss on that matter but i thought i would extrapolate and potentially talk about the 10 reasons why i and vicariously we the family does not have a smart speaker right these these are the things that you plug into the wall and they connect to the internet and listen to you all the time and uh and then regurgitate whatever uh we don't have them we we don't uh necessarily need them or or want them and that's really the first reason because why we we we don't need one like are they nice to have maybe like i'm not even sure i could make the argument that they are are nice to have that they're they're a have but they're absolutely not a need i wasn't like going around going you know what i wish i could talk to the wall and it would respond to me because nowadays my virtual assistant is on me in one way shape or form and the same with uh with diana we always have our devices on us we need yet another device in the house uh that was you know another reason uh it's it's another device to have another device to support another device that may have a connection to the internet or lose a connection in the internet be connected to the internet the fewer devices that are around believe it or not the easier it is to to handle everything because when you've got one device clamoring for your attention or you've got to stop to think wait do i talk to the device did the device pick up with my voice or did my phone pick up my your phone picked up my voice why did your phone pick up my voice no i'm not talking to your phone i'm talking to the device need one we already have smartphones on us uh it's another device connected to the network that's that's three reasons right there off the top of my head uh another reason the sound now i know some of these smart speakers or speakers that are powerful have the the the assistance built in uh but but they're not really uh any better than than non-assistant speakers like when i want a speaker that only broadcasts audio it doesn't actually listen to anything not that i i don't want to go down that path because you know you're opting into it i just don't need everything in my house to listen to me i just need people to listen that's it and then my smartphone my virtual assistant uh on on me right not not not necessarily a device that's that's also connected uh the sound is no better than the average bluetooth speaker and honestly i'm not an audiophile but it's like why why would i pay extra and even if it was a bonus i'm not going to turn it on i'm not going to use it i don't need everything it's like having an internet connected refrigerator i know some of you all love that i i i'm sure you're in love with or an internet connected light bulb i know there are some of you out there that are all into it i'm not like i just i realized it just got it got way out of hand and as far as smart speakers are concerned this is just it it became one more thing and one more thing and one more thing and then i realized wait a minute i'd rather be a minimalist in terms of that kind of thing i'm a maximalist in terms of star wars stuff a minimalist in terms of the technology that i may feel is just being replicated now if you have an extra emperor palpatine figure or tech figure hey you know can't have enough of those uh but as far as something like a smart speaker we're already taken care of don't need too many of them uh another reason why we don't have smart speakers here uh they stick out like a sore thumb and i i know they make them to blend in with the environment but they just they they the the the cord where we have to set them they on the countertop it's tethered and it's just this cable that's dangling and like i don't want to have cables everywhere i mean i have to have cables connected you know to the wall to power but for some reason or another there's no elegant way of doing that with a smart speaker i'm not saying that's like the reason but it's like i really don't want to have this speaker out in the middle of the countertop or even like you know on the backsplash of a countertop because it's it sticks out i've even seen really cool uh uh i will i'll throw this in there uh uh files models that you can 3d print so you could put a smart speaker into a 3d printed model that makes it look like r2d2 that's pretty cool i will admit that but like in terms of the tethering it's just i don't know in my world the fewer cables i have to worry about the better even on the desk with all the stuff that i have i it drives me nuts the amount of cables that i have to deal with now and what's up with wireless charging anyway that's it just seems wrong i'm going to throw this in there as a little bonus is it it's tethered something's gotta be connected to the wall it's not wireless wireless charging would be like look it's charging there's nothing connected to it it's that's wireless charging something that's tethered inevitably it's that's not wireless charging it's wired wireless charging branding uh another reason why we don't have smart speaker is uh we've had them before so you'd think well chris you you haven't tried it uh uh yeah we have uh we've had them before you know what happens we forget they're there so it's connected not that it takes a lot of power it's there it's it's it's listening waiting for our command uh you know and it's replicated and that's the reason why we don't use them so why have something that's a tool that you're not going to use i'm not talking about a toy you know i mean you could use a toy tuscan rating on twitch the best ever uh no we're talking about a tool a tool needs to be used i i don't want to collect tools not my thing your thing is great remember these are the reasons why i don't use a smart speaker uh to me because the reason that we always have our digital assistants on us in some way whether we're using our watch that's more than likely tethered to our phone it's like no the wearable gives me freedom i just need to be within three feet of my smartphone to have it work all the time because it's smart it seems that a lot of these smart speakers more often than not were a solution in search of a problem because to me your favorite virtual assistant whatever it happens to be and i i genuinely don't care what your favorite virtual assistant is because you probably have one it may not even be mine like not my i don't have a virtual assistant uh you know a digital assistant kind of i like google assistant i said that before i'm just saying that you know you already had a way to get to that by way of your phone i mean yeah you know if if your phone's halfway across the house and you you need to get the answer right now i suppose if you happen to have a speaker plugged in then you can get the answer right now what's the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow if you need to know that i suppose but that's it's never happened here it just didn't happen uh another reason why we don't have one is we have a child i'm not saying that's a bad thing you should have children if you care to procreate uh but she would i'm not gonna say what's the right word in this context she would she has no regulator inside she doesn't know when to stop she doesn't know when to use it and when not to use it moreover she could ask a question and she had that yielded an answer that i'm not sure i would necessarily want her to hear uh because reasons i'm not gonna get into that right now but it was just like one more thing that could have been not not a danger it's just the child is not old enough to be responsible or to understand the responsibility of accessing the internet and and getting uh getting to it has to be somewhat managed and at the time that we used it it was not manageable at all uh fun for maybe a minute but then the novelty wore off quick uh another reason really the final reason that i've got uh written down here sometimes they work sometimes they don't that happens to me all the time uh when i when i'm in the car and i'm like i gotta ask a question sorry i can't answer that right now or i ask it a question and it gives me an answer i'm like that's an unintelligible answer why am i asking you i'm just gonna go to my phone and type it in you're sensing a pattern here so no i'm i'm just i'm genuinely not into the smart speaker thing uh i maybe at some point i will uh but right now i'm good with the virtual assistant access that i have at my fingertips well not at my fingertips now they're fingertips fingertips fingertips\n"