There’s the Echo, which is the cylindrical stereo speaker, and then there’s also some portable versions of that, and these little hockey puck versions. There’s been increasing buzz and interest in this system, because it allows IOT devices to plug into a complete network and you can control things like lights, your news feed, you can control your music, you can control all these devices with just your voice, and when Echo first came out, there was at least some skepticism as to whether or not this was going to be another Amazon innovation flop, right? You remember the, I think it was called the “Fire Phone” or whatever, Amazon’s venture into mobile was going to be, with the multiple cameras, and the big roll out.

Turned out to be something they discounted by like 90% at the end of its week run there. I think there was a dark cloud hanging over Amazon’s innovation, especially in the hardware products. Question whether or not they were able to compete in that area, so I think there were low expectations for Echo when it came out, and the voice UI, called “Alexa,” is this … The personality to it is not unlike Siri, or Cortana or any of the other voice bots that are part of this competitive landscape, but what makes Amazon Echo special, I think, is its ability to just become part of the fabric of your home. I have an Echo unit that I’ve got in my kitchen, and it’s really helpful when you’re cooking, because you can do very simple things like set a timer, or check the weather, or listen to music, or any of these things that might have to take your fingers to do before, but now, is just something you can activate with your voice.

You can also do things like order things on Amazon, like I said before, you can turn lights on and off, or check the Bruins score, or whatever it is, but when you’re in the kitchen, and your hands are not free, because you’re cutting up vegetables, or frying up something, this all of a sudden becomes a very powerful extra helper. I think it’s scenarios like that, that Amazon is well suited for the Echo, and I think rivals are starting to take notice, so Google, of course, owns the Nest thermostat, and they recently open-sourced their networking protocol called “Open Thread,” which has Samsung and Qualcomm on board. You can tell that Google’s trying to create this standard for smart home networking, because they’re concerned that Amazon is now starting to rise in prominence, if not dominance of the space.

Our buddies at Apple seem to be stuck on the television, which I’m thinking is not the right interface for the smart home. I’ve waxed poetic for a while, Dirk. What’s your take on the war over the smart home?

Amazon is very quietly taking this bottom product layer across all of these different product categories, which no fanfare whatsoever. That doesn’t go directly to home automation, but it does go to a certain product strategy that I think speaks to their ambitions in areas like home automation. To return to Echo and Alexa very specifically, you have stars in your eyes and you used the word “powerful.” Powerful, as you are cutting your vegetables and you can use your voice. I don’t find Alexa powerful at all. I find Alexa frustrating. The problem I have is that the learning curve is high, so more often than not, when I ask Alexa for something new, it’s a fail.

Alexa’s not able to do it. Can’t give me what I want, and so as a result, I just don’t bother. I’ll give you an example. Like, with music, certain artists, I have their albums on my iTunes. “Alexa, give me this artist, this album on iTunes.” Alexa says, “Streaming this artist random on Amazon Prime Music.” “No. Give me on” … Then, I have to just go in manually do it myself, like, “Fuck all.” I get frustrated having to try and get it to do what I want. It didn’t do what I wanted, when I asked for something very simple, and here I am mucking around with it again. That’s a reduction of trust. It’s an increase of frustration, and drives me to just manually do things all over again.

You know, the technology will get more sophisticated and better, but I want it to be really powerful. I don’t want it to have these 5 nice things it does that I’ve memorized, and the only 5 things that I can rely on it for, that amount to things as pedestrian as, “Turn the lights down, please, Alexa.” You mentioned the weather. I think Alexa talking about the weather is completely worthless. It’s because there are 2 axis’ of context that are missing. Number 1 is that Alexa is giving you a weather status that is fixed. It’s not a weather status that is adapted to lifestyle. Alexa is not saying, “Jon, it’s 45 degrees out this morning. However, it will reach a high of 79 this afternoon, before showers in the late afternoon, and getting down into the 40s again tonight.”

There’s not that. It’s this very flat, very limited amount of information, and additionally, it’s not giving context for how I live. I have no idea what the temperature is that leads me to layer, and then unlayer as the day goes on, or I don’t know where the temperature break is where I go from jeans to shorts. I don’t know that in terms of numbers. I know it when I see it, and it would be very easy to program the AI around this stuff, to learn from us, how we respond with simple questions. “Dirk, was it hot or warm or cold for you today?” “It was warm, Alexa.” Now, Alexa knows what I think of as warm. “Dirk, what sort of clothes would you be comfortable wearing today?” “Today felt like a jeans day to me, Alexa.”

All of this context could be gathered so that instead of, “Oh, what’s the weather today, Alexa?,” and it’s this flat, limited bullcrap data that I can’t deal with in a lifestyle perspective, Alexa can simply say, “Dirk, it’s going to be a beautiful day out today, however, I recommend you wear jeans, wear 2 to 3 layers, and maybe bring an umbrella, just in case.” That is where value is. If it did that, I would say powerful. If it just spits out “Sunny and 70,” I say bullshit. I’m much less bullish on the current status of “home automation.” Probably the best home automation that’s out there are from companies that nobody’s ever heard of. They don’t happen to have voice interface, the way Alexa does, which is very sizzling and sexy, but does very powerful things around home house control of room by room, not just room by room temperature, but music, coverings, window coverings, status, light status, what movies are being shown all around.

That technology’s been out for decades now, and has done very well by workman like companies we’ve never heard of. The big consumer companies we have heard of are going to, I believe, are going to completely outflank them, probably buy them, and take up their infrastructure, and all of that. In no way am I saying those companies are going to be the winners, but I don’t know. Just because it has a voice interface and voice interface isn’t very good, and wouldn’t it be nice if it sounded like a real person? It still sounds like a crummy computer, and I don’t know. I’m just not really bullish on the current state of “home automation.”