What is the point of Alexa?

[RAV]

It's generational:

Boomers - techless growing up, touch the stuff, still use physical media
Gen X - grew up with remotes (and mice), use phones, but don't live in them
Millennials - phone is life, but lots of introverts so talking is not big with them in any respect, it's not private
Next Gen - voice, why not, first form of communication; I can't physically, Mom's busy, Alexa play .....

The aging in place boomer market is going to latch onto voice. As their mobility and dexterity decrease. Sure, it's still learning topday, but it's learning fast.

Advice I received once: If you're going to do lighting control, it had better work. For a hundred years, you walk in a room, flip a switch and voila. That toggle switch works. 99.9% of the time, and when the light doesn't come on, first thought is the bulb, not the switch. That's hard reliability to match. However, someone restricted in a wheel chair, if you can provide him with a 80% solution, if they have to repeat a command once in a while, that's still amazing for them, because they had no ability before. Expectations.

[rf9000]

1 hour ago, zaphod said:

An auto trigger can turn on an audio zone.  So if you have an Echo connected to input 1 of a matrix then you can write code like "If (input 1 is triggered) then Set Kitchen audio input to Echo" .

Assuming that you have a different echo for each zone in your house then you can have one command start music playback on Alexa and turn on an audio zone in C4.

This might work in my scenario. I have 24 zones of regular audio and I have 14 Echos. So this could achieve what I was hoping. Basically, whatever Echo picks up the command, that Echo would be assigned to a certain room (likely the room I'm in or nearby) that would then play that music?

[rf9000]

28 minutes ago, RAV said:

It's generational:

Boomers - techless growing up, touch the stuff, still use physical media
Gen X - grew up with remotes (and mice), use phones, but don't live in them
Millennials - phone is life, but lots of introverts so talking is not big with them in any respect, it's not private
Next Gen - voice, why not, first form of communication; I can't physically, Mom's busy, Alexa play .....

The aging in place boomer market is going to latch onto voice. As their mobility and dexterity decrease. Sure, it's still learning topday, but it's learning fast.

Advice I received once: If you're going to do lighting control, it had better work. For a hundred years, you walk in a room, flip a switch and voila. That toggle switch works. 99.9% of the time, and when the light doesn't come on, first thought is the bulb, not the switch. That's hard reliability to match. However, someone restricted in a wheel chair, if you can provide him with a 80% solution, if they have to repeat a command once in a while, that's still amazing for them, because they had no ability before. Expectations.

Yeah, I hear you. I'm still the type of person that thinks even though I may be controlling a light via voice, via a programmed keypad, via mobile phone, etc., I still need to have a physical switch in that room located in a spot where a regular switch would go. Not tucked behind in a closet somewhere. Just how I think. I'm going to have to change that thinking on this new construction though because I want to utilize more keypads. So I'm going to have to hide the switches and dimmers that they control.

[msgreenf]

This might work in my scenario. I have 24 zones of regular audio and I have 14 Echos. So this could achieve what I was hoping. Basically, whatever Echo picks up the command, that Echo would be assigned to a certain room (likely the room I'm in or nearby) that would then play that music?

Yes. You may just lose the first few seconds of her speaking when the Zone is powering on