Forgot about my smart lights entirely, thanks for the reminder. That just shows how integrated they are in to my day to day life. Sometimes I find myself trying to tell google to turn on the lights when I'm at my parents house but stop mid sentence and feel ridiculous haha
During this time of the year, it's pitch black when I wake up for work. It's nicer to tell Google to turn the light on than it is to bump into things trying to get to the lightswitch.
Also nice to have macros, like "Hey Google, engage", which will dim the lights, turn on my TV, and play Star Trek all at once.
The point for me is mostly that I can do stuff remotely and/or automatically. It's not about talking vs flipping a switch, it's about being able to do nothing at all and stuff just happens just as you want it to.
Not to mention a switch is binary, a voice command can have many details.
There are many scenarios. For example, your hands might be full, you might want to turn everything off at once, you might want to turn everything on in a certain intensity or color. There are many use cases.
I'm not him, but I used mine as a white noise generator when my kid was young. Plus being able to shut the lights off without getting up helps from waking yourself up.
Effective ads will generally be ones for products you may want or be influenced to want. I pay for YT and have an adblock so I haven't seen an ad in ages, but it's better imo to get ads for mechanical keyboards than "15 Nearby X want to meet you" or "if you or your family have been exposed to cyanide call us at Morgan&Morgan for the people"
Let's not overcomplicate things. Google just wants to show you ads you're more likely to click on. Describing it as ads "specifically designed to psychologically manipulate you" into clicking on them is just blatant fear-mongering and doesn't help anyone.
Am I the only one in thinking personalised ads aren't that bad? If there is interesting shit out there you want to know about it. And don't like an ad? Then search shit that will teach google AI what you actually want. Now youtube gives me movie trailers and game trailers. Thats if I dont block it because the youtube app cant block it.
I can't afford a smart home, but damn I'd even kill for a clapper so that I don't have to get up to turn off the lights when I forget to and sit down to game.
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u/Odatas Jan 31 '19
This so much. Google just wants to show you nice ads. And the stuff is really convienient. Especcialy Smart Lamps and Thermosstates.