Google home in the shop

[Rex Walters]

I ended up with two google home minis a few months ago (when they were on sale at half price).

Pretty neat little little gizmo.

(If, that is, like me you assume the phone in your pocket is already recording everything you say for big brother, and you can tolerate the thought of a live internet-connected mic in your home...)

Anyway ... I finally got smart and put one in my shop.

Voice commands are really great when I’ve got my hands covered in grease or otherwise occupied, or when the sharpie in my pocket runs dry.

Here are some of the things I’ve used it for:

“Hey google, add some WD40 to my shopping list.”

“Hey google, remind me to start cleaning up for dinner at six pm”

“Hey google, play some gypsy jazz”

“hey google, turn it up to 80%”

If you have smart lights or outlets you can tell it to turn them on or off. You can even control a tv if you’ve got a chromecast hooked up.

In addition, it can even do simple math, including basic trigonometry. It gives most results to thousandths (three decimal places). I haven’t figured out any way to do grouping, so you have to remember results in your head, though. Irritatingly, it also defaults to radians rather than degrees.

Say you you want to know the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle with a 4” rise and a 7” run:

“Hey google, what’s 4 squared plus 7 squared?”
The answer is 65

“Hey google, what’s the square root of 65?”
Square root 65 is approximately 8.062

(Now you know the length is 8.062”)

If I wanted to know the narrower angle of that triangle:

“Hey google, what’s 4 divided by 8.062?
The answer is approximately 0.496

“Hey google, what is arc sine 0.496 in degrees?”
Arc sine 0.496 is approximately 29.736 degrees

“Hey google, remember that the angle is 29.736 degrees”

“Hey google, what is my angle?”
I remember you told me the angle is 29.736 degrees

Now if I can just figure out how to get it to tell me cutting speeds and feeds for various materials, or tap sizes for various bolt sizes, etc.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

they sound like wonderful devices, i'm going to need to do some more research
but it sounds like it could be a useful tool, if i could train myself to use it.

i have Siri on my iphone,
but she can't understand my voice for some reason and repeats something back to me that did not come out of my mouth.

Do you have to enunciate every syllable or can you regular speak into the google spy device?

 

[Rex Walters]

The home devices (including Apple's pricy new toy) are way, way better at understanding the spoken word.

My phone doesn't understand me very well either, but mistakes with the mini are less frequent. You still need to learn precisely how it wants you to say things, but it usually understands the words correctly.

For example, in the sequence above if I ask, "Hey, google, what's the angle?" it will reply with a dictionary definition for "angle." If instead I ask, "Hey, google, what's my angle?" it will reply with the number I gave it.

It keeps getting smarter, too. They update the software regularly. I

I did have a couple laughs earlier when I was verifying my quoted text above all worked correctly:

At one point I asked it something like "What is arc tan 0.4571 in degrees?" and it replied with something really goofy like "Arc tan 0.457 Korean won is ### in dollars". But now I can't get it to do it again.

I also asked, "Hey, google, what do you remember?" — the reply was pretty funny but I'll let you discover for yourself.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

Thanks for the info Rex!

 

[ACHiPo]

Interesting, but I’m still a little creeped out.

 

[JimDawson]

Call me paranoid, but I don't want one of those damned things anywhere around me.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

one of the first thoughts is who are they selling my recorded transcriptions to, and how do i get my cut of what they are making from me.

 

[Ray C]

one of the first thoughts is who are they selling my recorded transcriptions to, and how do i get my cut of what they are making from me.

Although I will not get into specifics, I have first hand knowledge of, and interaction with, several of those big (and smaller) social media technology companies. Trust me when I tell you this: You should be very, very leery about installing an eavesdropping device in your home. Your data is being used in many ways. Data storage techniques and security thereof, is laughably imperfect.

Keep in mind, there are upcoming forms of identification beyond two-factor identification that are on the horizon. Much the same way a hacker gets little pieces of information about you, the sum of which is significant, the data gleaned from these eavesdropping devices is food for the next generation of identification technology.

Need I remind you of the data theft incidents with the likes of Equifax, Yahoo and countless others? Even all the SF86 information from the DoD was hacked and stolen.

Hiding the key to your front door under the Welcome rug is not a good idea.

Ray C.

EDIT: My NDAs are expired.

 

[Eddyde]

I'll bite when it can do things like "Google, clean up the shop".

 

[Boswell]

I put an Amazon Echo in the shop several months ago and it is great. Mostly I use it to add things to the shopping list but if that is all I ever use it for, it will be worth it.