Amazon’s Alexa is an interesting technology. Along with Google’s Home, electronic personal assistants are a new exciting future in our homes. They can do some fun things like pulling up weather reports for travel, or reorder your favorite taco seasoning from an online seller.
It can do some basic control of lights, thermostats etc. in a small scale. It is even is starting to be an auxiliary interface for real control systems like Crestron. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is using A.I. thru Crestron to control his home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGLPxEv_EWo
He integrated Jarvis A.I. to communicate with his Crestron system. It took him over a year to do this, and it is a work in progress.
Eventually Alexa and Google Home will be more than a fun toy. I am starting to play with it my home. It has its moments, but it is not quite ready for prime time. Maybe in about a year it will be. The systems we install for a client must be reliable 99.9% of the time. We cannot afford callbacks for constant hiccups and issues. That is not what our clients pay us for.
Even when it is ready and reliable to be used as a control, it can never be the main control. Just like we always recommend a remote control for controlling a media room, and a phone or tablet as a secondary control for the room.
So enjoy your Alexa. Enjoy your Google Home. Enjoy all the new fun voice activated toys that will be coming out. And know that as the technology advances, we will be here to integrate it for you to enjoy it in your home.
Greg Calvimontes
Pgh Custom Home Theater
