The Next Model for Voice – How Platforms and Builders Can Work Together

https://bespoken.io/blog/the-next-model-for-voice/

by jpkdc • 7 years ago

20 4 7 years ago

Good article, and I'm not saying that solely because it has a callout to Bixby, which I think is doing more interesting stuff than it's often given credit for (full disclosure: I work on Bixby's documentation).

I think, though, the article dances around the real elephant in the room rather than addressing it head-on: the lack of an open, non-proprietary protocol coordinating IoT controllers and devices. Because my iPhone uses Bluetooth, it can "speak" to my car, my A/V receiver, my speaker, and my headphones; they don't have to be "iPhone-ready" to work. If I bought a Galaxy S11 next year, all my Bluetooth products would still work. It's all Bluetooth. That should be essentially the same for IoT devices: if I buy a thermostat or a wireless lighting fixture, it shouldn't matter whether I want to control it with Alexa, Siri, Bixby, or even something that isn't a voice assistant at all. Yes, I understand the market reasons why this hasn't happened, but I suspect it's a necessary step for the envisioned IoT future to really take off.

armagon• 7 years ago

Well said.

I'm just starting to get some IoT devices -- mostly because that is the only way certain things I want come -- but I would really rather have localized control of these devices in my LAN than have them go out to the internet. (If my house is cut off from the 'net, but there is still power, I should be able to turn my light on and off! Extrapolating to a world where everyone has IoT devices and they work like today, it is more than a little disturbing to me that a third party could turn off people's HVACs, plunge them into darkness, and taunt them over their speakers).

Devices in my home should be under my control. No one else should be involved. I grant the expedient part where these things all talk to the internet, so that they are easy to use, but there is every reason to believe that I should be able to control it on my own network, without it talking to the internet, and without having to resort to hacking my own hardware.

JediWing• 7 years ago

To an extent there is. Z-Wave and Zigbee are intended for this, and do have some commercial traction. Wink hubs use Z-Wave, Samsung SmartThings use Zigbee. There are many other branded experiences that use these underlying technologies.

I myself have a home assistant setup with a dongle that can use either technology.

I think now is an inflection point, though, so if you WANT to see open protocol, local control devices, then you ought to vote with your wallet and buy them instead of WiFi proprietary hubs that require phoning home to Google or Amazon.

NotSammyHagar• 7 years ago

There's a missing notion of privacy, spying on me. To me there are crucial yet missing things from this article.

1. Apps, phone os, etc prevents my device from spying on me. This must be a crucial part of a voice enabled system.

2. I must control when this system is running and where my voice goes, who has access to what I say. Not because I'm a spy, I just don't need yet another service spying on my life.

These are the things that are missing when I use some voice services. I don't want Alexa spying on me, so I turned it off when I'm not using it to play music.

The Next Model for Voice – How Platforms and Builders Can Work Together

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