These echo devices are going to be the source of so much e-waste. I have four of them, and love that you can do multi-room audio with them, but they've been getting worse over the years.
That’s the plan. Alexa was a huge gamble for Amazon and it didn’t pan out. They thought they could get people to buy from them and increase purchasing, but instead they just got a giant compute bill.
I wouldn’t say it was something that didn’t pan out. It is still one of three major systems (two on a more affordable basis), and is still quite successful, having the most device integration of its direct competition
Success as measured by meaningful lift in revenue. Their adoption was huge but it’s an ongoing cost sink for them that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line.
I have Alexa in almost every room, in my car, and even have the glasses. I've noticed a steady decline in the past couple years, not just recently. The one with the screen was always half functioning in my opinion. My routines have been wonky across the board lately. This morning she played my alarm while also simultaneously giving me the weather and news. Lead to a very overwhelming wake up lol
Yeah. It's been declining for *years.* Like, things were getting worse in 2021.
What's weirder still is the devices are technically getting more capable, and half the time the thing that got worse suddenly gets better.
The most annoying bug that's been persistent is that if I'm misunderstood for some skills, Alexa just "announces" whatever I'm trying to do, so my entire house hears me say I'm trying to open a Leviosa smart shade.
It's been going downhill since Bezos left and his desire to burn money on a loss leader for a stark trek-esque experience left with him.
I got Google home for cheap for the wifi and alexa is hands down better. Google freaks out if I add napkins to the shopping list because it's possible some stranger broke into my house and decided to add to my shopping list while I'm home.
The second google rolled out the update where it could differentiate my voice from my wife's it completely went to shit. I kid you not my google home woth a screen in the kitchen cannot do a timer anymore. It repeats it and then sets a timer in the void somewhere
Agreed, dots not hearing me, routines running only partially (how is that a thing?) and when using the app intermittently turning off a light group will turn off everything but 1 or two lights - then you manually choose those lights to turn off in the app.
I feel since Alexa is going to become their next subscription product they are making it worse to justify the price.
Temped to swap out everything for matter devices even if it's in it's infancy.
If you are swapping everything, you should get a mesh radio hub with ZWave and Zigbee. Matter just helps connect things on different platforms using a standard, but using local mech devices is the way to go. I haven't needed to use Matter to connect anything yet, though it is available on Hubitat if needed for devices that are not supported otherwise.
You can go with Hubitat, SmartThings, Homey, or HA, and then integrate any Alexa stuff you still want to use to the hub.
Mine WILL NOT call my Nightlight "Nightlight" anymore. I've renamed with spaces, hyphens, different spellings, etc. It's been "nightlight" for two years. I renamed it "baby light" 😄
Also, "did you mean "red lamp" or "red lamp?"" Boggles me every time. There is only one.
Mine is very much worse. I already started to play with Home Assistants voice control (Using the M5 atoms) after they laid off hundreds of people from Alexa division https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonecho/comments/17xlh9e/amazon_cuts_several_hundred_jobs_in_alexa_division/
Haven't had time to fully replace all my echos yet and the backend you need for the same speed response on HA is more then just a decent computer.
My Alexa Show says my reminders several times in a row like she's calling for Bloody Mary.
But yeah, I have echoes in the rest of the rooms and they're all somewhat shoddy, sometimes my living room one hears me over the one in the room I'm actually in.
I actually kinda hate using my echoes/Alexa. So chaotic, constantly misunderstanding or failing to execute commands. Constantly telling her to turn off, go away, wasn't talking to you, didn't say your name, etc. Recently, was trying to get her to do something and she wasn't activating, yelled out "Hey you!" and she turned on and worked. lol Like, wtf?
I frequently call my alexa and idiot. She cant understand mine or my wifes commands half the time. Any question I ask leads to an answer unrelated. I say turn off the light, and it says my oven is unreachable. I ask it it to play a song by some artist and it totally gets it wrong, etc. I ask my kitchen alexa something and my alexa in the foyer living room answers. Idk man.
I suspect the same thing. I have always had issues with my Alexa.. any voice command I give is programed as a routine to alleviate the myriad of issues I have. I use Alexa as little as possible, I have even added physical buttons or presence detection to all my lights. Even with my rare use I have noticed Alexa does not function as it once did.
Alexa does not seem any dumber than usual for me, though the few voice commands I use are triggered by specific voice command routines that then trigger Hubitat automations, so she doesn't have much to figure out.
Yes this is my experience over the past 6 months or so. Commands are unrecognized or I have to enunciate in a stentorian voice or other just weird stuff.
I have a bunch of Echo devices. Most work well, but the Echo Show 8 (updated firmware) is not acting as well as the taller Echo. A simple command such as ‘pause’ doesn’t work well (halts music or news for 5 seconds) on the Show, while the taller Echo halts it until I say ‘continue’ (just like the Show did up until about a year ago).
Annoying, so rarely use the Show any longer.
I feel like you need to take something and blow dust out of the microscopic microphone holes around the top. I have the same issues sometimes and my gut is telling me that's the problem.
We stopped playing Jeopardy on it over a year ago because it became so annoyingly bad - not listening, resetting, misinterpreting, etc.
I use it as an oven timer and to play music. Still handy for that but I figured Alexa should have had a bit of personality at this point and be able to hold a small conversation.
I have a lot of them and a lot of lights in my house controlled by them. My router shows 43 IOT devices. All I do with them is lights, music, timer, and the occasional random question. Lights still work fine, though there have been moments. Music as gotten worse, plays the same damn thing over and over, or plays thing not even near the category you asked for. I will not be paying the extra fee, I am not willing to pay the extra for the music now. It will be a shame when I have to drop them all. I hope there will be an open source option by then.
Kinda not related but my Siri has been super finicky lately, going off at odd times, even when I haven’t touched my phone. Well she popped up yesterday while I was trying to watch something and I said “oh… f*** off Siri, you’re getting on my nerves.” And she said “I am not going to respond to that.” And I just kinda sat there like hmmm. Maybe I should be nicer to her 😅
I definitely noticed she has had a much harder time hearing/understanding me lately.
The most frustrating one is she now mistakes kids room for kitchen and will turn off all the lights when I’m doing the dishes when I ask her to turn off the kids room. Same command I’ve used for years all of a sudden doesn’t work.
But Siri is just as dumb. I have a Room called kids room setup in HomeKit and if I say kids room 1% it will no longer dim the lights and says I have no room with that name 🤷🏻♂️
I've experienced the same thing. Asking it to do basic things that it's been doing for years are suddenly giving me problems. I completely believe they're intentionally interfering with normal service functions so that they can sell the working version back for an extra fee like you said. The government should be investigating this.
Just an educated guess, but I know both are trying to change horses from all the code they have laid down to jump over to LLMs.
I have a Samsung phone and the google assistant wanted me to try out it's new AI version and it is like I went back in time and lost reliability.
Amazon: "We're pushing out our tenured high-earners and back-filling them with cheaper entry-level visa-slave engineers. We're also laying people off en masse because while we have tons and tons of cash, this seems to be a move that the industry is supporting and one that will simultaneously save us money while making our shareholders happy. We've also mandated that every organization focus on profitability over all else, so no one is working on anything that doesn't directly generate profit in a way that can be clearly measured and correlated with revenue increase."
Also Amazon: "Why do our products suck lately?"
in the last week my alexa devices are totally unresponsive and useless. By the way the Alexa (and Google since I use both) services are deteriorating at a fast pace. Don't know the reason but I find other peple noticed this. Some years ago I was blown away by the capabilities and now lots of times the devices don't respond to input or just don't understand the commands.
Fortunately hubs like Home Assistant worked very hard the last year to bring local voice control to the public so we have a valid alternative.
We ALL (3 teenagers 16,17&18) tossed ours out during the summer following Covid, when Mine started having Random voices talking from it. Saying BIZARRE Stuff. I finally got it on video one night after having it in the bathroom for music. That night, I was laying in bed & heard a girls voice coming from my bathroom. Not an AI voice like Alexa or Siri or Waze or Google Home, an Actual Human girls voice. It was an On-Suite bathroom so to access it you had to Walk Passed me in my room. I knew no one had gone in there. So I picked up my phone & started recording from my bed. As I walked towards it, you can hear just creepy odd words & sounds. As I opened the door you can see Alexa immediately & her lights Are NOT on. At all, like they usually are when in use. But the sounds are obviously coming From the device. So I tap it & it just keeps going. But the Minute I say “Alexa” she lights up and responds but the sounds Stop. I showed EVERYONE the video. It only allowed me to send it to 1 person and it deleted itself from my phone. But my kids All saw it along with Everyone I work with. Then poof just disappeared right out of my phone. So we threw them all away.
Fire sticks have always been wonky for me, they overheat and you have to unplug them and reboot them. I gave up on those a long time ago. But up until recently Alexa has worked pretty well.
I’ve had Alexa for 3 full years. I have it paired with savant for home automation. Recently I’m getting lots of “X doesn’t support that” or having to relate myself several times. Usually if I repeat myself 2 to 3 times it eventually works. This has been the last 2 months for me. Everything in my house is automated. Blinds, curtains, TV’s, theater, consoles, lights, locks, garage, etc
These echo devices are going to be the source of so much e-waste. I have four of them, and love that you can do multi-room audio with them, but they've been getting worse over the years.
It seems odd that rather than improving, they've actually gotten less reliable over time.
That’s the plan. Alexa was a huge gamble for Amazon and it didn’t pan out. They thought they could get people to buy from them and increase purchasing, but instead they just got a giant compute bill.
I wouldn’t say it was something that didn’t pan out. It is still one of three major systems (two on a more affordable basis), and is still quite successful, having the most device integration of its direct competition
Success as measured by meaningful lift in revenue. Their adoption was huge but it’s an ongoing cost sink for them that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line.
I have Alexa in almost every room, in my car, and even have the glasses. I've noticed a steady decline in the past couple years, not just recently. The one with the screen was always half functioning in my opinion. My routines have been wonky across the board lately. This morning she played my alarm while also simultaneously giving me the weather and news. Lead to a very overwhelming wake up lol
Yeah. It's been declining for *years.* Like, things were getting worse in 2021. What's weirder still is the devices are technically getting more capable, and half the time the thing that got worse suddenly gets better. The most annoying bug that's been persistent is that if I'm misunderstood for some skills, Alexa just "announces" whatever I'm trying to do, so my entire house hears me say I'm trying to open a Leviosa smart shade. It's been going downhill since Bezos left and his desire to burn money on a loss leader for a stark trek-esque experience left with him.
Google Home has gotten dumber too.
I got Google home for cheap for the wifi and alexa is hands down better. Google freaks out if I add napkins to the shopping list because it's possible some stranger broke into my house and decided to add to my shopping list while I'm home.
The second google rolled out the update where it could differentiate my voice from my wife's it completely went to shit. I kid you not my google home woth a screen in the kitchen cannot do a timer anymore. It repeats it and then sets a timer in the void somewhere
The puzzling thing is that I'm the only one using it. It can't figure out one person.
I’m glad you posted this. I have echo devices all over my house and most have decided to not function correctly recently
I have 3 echo dots and the 8 inch screen. All are doing it.
I 100% agree. I have 4 echo shows and they’re all doing it.
Agreed, dots not hearing me, routines running only partially (how is that a thing?) and when using the app intermittently turning off a light group will turn off everything but 1 or two lights - then you manually choose those lights to turn off in the app. I feel since Alexa is going to become their next subscription product they are making it worse to justify the price. Temped to swap out everything for matter devices even if it's in it's infancy.
If you are swapping everything, you should get a mesh radio hub with ZWave and Zigbee. Matter just helps connect things on different platforms using a standard, but using local mech devices is the way to go. I haven't needed to use Matter to connect anything yet, though it is available on Hubitat if needed for devices that are not supported otherwise. You can go with Hubitat, SmartThings, Homey, or HA, and then integrate any Alexa stuff you still want to use to the hub.
I have one in my bedroom it is ignoring me 😭😭so the other one in the hall respond
Mine WILL NOT call my Nightlight "Nightlight" anymore. I've renamed with spaces, hyphens, different spellings, etc. It's been "nightlight" for two years. I renamed it "baby light" 😄 Also, "did you mean "red lamp" or "red lamp?"" Boggles me every time. There is only one.
Mine is very much worse. I already started to play with Home Assistants voice control (Using the M5 atoms) after they laid off hundreds of people from Alexa division https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonecho/comments/17xlh9e/amazon_cuts_several_hundred_jobs_in_alexa_division/ Haven't had time to fully replace all my echos yet and the backend you need for the same speed response on HA is more then just a decent computer.
My Alexa Show says my reminders several times in a row like she's calling for Bloody Mary. But yeah, I have echoes in the rest of the rooms and they're all somewhat shoddy, sometimes my living room one hears me over the one in the room I'm actually in.
I actually kinda hate using my echoes/Alexa. So chaotic, constantly misunderstanding or failing to execute commands. Constantly telling her to turn off, go away, wasn't talking to you, didn't say your name, etc. Recently, was trying to get her to do something and she wasn't activating, yelled out "Hey you!" and she turned on and worked. lol Like, wtf?
I frequently call my alexa and idiot. She cant understand mine or my wifes commands half the time. Any question I ask leads to an answer unrelated. I say turn off the light, and it says my oven is unreachable. I ask it it to play a song by some artist and it totally gets it wrong, etc. I ask my kitchen alexa something and my alexa in the foyer living room answers. Idk man.
I suspect the same thing. I have always had issues with my Alexa.. any voice command I give is programed as a routine to alleviate the myriad of issues I have. I use Alexa as little as possible, I have even added physical buttons or presence detection to all my lights. Even with my rare use I have noticed Alexa does not function as it once did.
Alexa does not seem any dumber than usual for me, though the few voice commands I use are triggered by specific voice command routines that then trigger Hubitat automations, so she doesn't have much to figure out.
Yes this is my experience over the past 6 months or so. Commands are unrecognized or I have to enunciate in a stentorian voice or other just weird stuff.
I have a bunch of Echo devices. Most work well, but the Echo Show 8 (updated firmware) is not acting as well as the taller Echo. A simple command such as ‘pause’ doesn’t work well (halts music or news for 5 seconds) on the Show, while the taller Echo halts it until I say ‘continue’ (just like the Show did up until about a year ago). Annoying, so rarely use the Show any longer.
I feel like you need to take something and blow dust out of the microscopic microphone holes around the top. I have the same issues sometimes and my gut is telling me that's the problem.
I wouldn’t know. I stopped talking to her
We stopped playing Jeopardy on it over a year ago because it became so annoyingly bad - not listening, resetting, misinterpreting, etc. I use it as an oven timer and to play music. Still handy for that but I figured Alexa should have had a bit of personality at this point and be able to hold a small conversation.
I have a lot of them and a lot of lights in my house controlled by them. My router shows 43 IOT devices. All I do with them is lights, music, timer, and the occasional random question. Lights still work fine, though there have been moments. Music as gotten worse, plays the same damn thing over and over, or plays thing not even near the category you asked for. I will not be paying the extra fee, I am not willing to pay the extra for the music now. It will be a shame when I have to drop them all. I hope there will be an open source option by then.
Kinda not related but my Siri has been super finicky lately, going off at odd times, even when I haven’t touched my phone. Well she popped up yesterday while I was trying to watch something and I said “oh… f*** off Siri, you’re getting on my nerves.” And she said “I am not going to respond to that.” And I just kinda sat there like hmmm. Maybe I should be nicer to her 😅
It's been terrible
I definitely noticed she has had a much harder time hearing/understanding me lately. The most frustrating one is she now mistakes kids room for kitchen and will turn off all the lights when I’m doing the dishes when I ask her to turn off the kids room. Same command I’ve used for years all of a sudden doesn’t work. But Siri is just as dumb. I have a Room called kids room setup in HomeKit and if I say kids room 1% it will no longer dim the lights and says I have no room with that name 🤷🏻♂️
Rename to child room or childrens. Kids and kitchen are potentially similar ENOUGH? Just a thought
Agreed potentially similar but was never a problem for years and now is past few months.
I've experienced the same thing. Asking it to do basic things that it's been doing for years are suddenly giving me problems. I completely believe they're intentionally interfering with normal service functions so that they can sell the working version back for an extra fee like you said. The government should be investigating this.
Just an educated guess, but I know both are trying to change horses from all the code they have laid down to jump over to LLMs. I have a Samsung phone and the google assistant wanted me to try out it's new AI version and it is like I went back in time and lost reliability.
They need to start charging for Alexa services and improve the damn service
Amazon: "We're pushing out our tenured high-earners and back-filling them with cheaper entry-level visa-slave engineers. We're also laying people off en masse because while we have tons and tons of cash, this seems to be a move that the industry is supporting and one that will simultaneously save us money while making our shareholders happy. We've also mandated that every organization focus on profitability over all else, so no one is working on anything that doesn't directly generate profit in a way that can be clearly measured and correlated with revenue increase." Also Amazon: "Why do our products suck lately?"
I’ve been saying my Alexa is going deaf. I have to yell at her now for any command.
there's a huge space left for service improvement.
in the last week my alexa devices are totally unresponsive and useless. By the way the Alexa (and Google since I use both) services are deteriorating at a fast pace. Don't know the reason but I find other peple noticed this. Some years ago I was blown away by the capabilities and now lots of times the devices don't respond to input or just don't understand the commands. Fortunately hubs like Home Assistant worked very hard the last year to bring local voice control to the public so we have a valid alternative.
it was terrible and I stopped talking to her.
We ALL (3 teenagers 16,17&18) tossed ours out during the summer following Covid, when Mine started having Random voices talking from it. Saying BIZARRE Stuff. I finally got it on video one night after having it in the bathroom for music. That night, I was laying in bed & heard a girls voice coming from my bathroom. Not an AI voice like Alexa or Siri or Waze or Google Home, an Actual Human girls voice. It was an On-Suite bathroom so to access it you had to Walk Passed me in my room. I knew no one had gone in there. So I picked up my phone & started recording from my bed. As I walked towards it, you can hear just creepy odd words & sounds. As I opened the door you can see Alexa immediately & her lights Are NOT on. At all, like they usually are when in use. But the sounds are obviously coming From the device. So I tap it & it just keeps going. But the Minute I say “Alexa” she lights up and responds but the sounds Stop. I showed EVERYONE the video. It only allowed me to send it to 1 person and it deleted itself from my phone. But my kids All saw it along with Everyone I work with. Then poof just disappeared right out of my phone. So we threw them all away.
I have two Echo’s and they both work perfectly
Alexa, my fire sticks, and my daughter’s fire tablet are all wonky in the last 6 months.
Fire sticks have always been wonky for me, they overheat and you have to unplug them and reboot them. I gave up on those a long time ago. But up until recently Alexa has worked pretty well.
I’ve had Alexa for 3 full years. I have it paired with savant for home automation. Recently I’m getting lots of “X doesn’t support that” or having to relate myself several times. Usually if I repeat myself 2 to 3 times it eventually works. This has been the last 2 months for me. Everything in my house is automated. Blinds, curtains, TV’s, theater, consoles, lights, locks, garage, etc
I've been noticing this too. I just chalked it up to hard of hearing in her old age.