@@acs5928 personal preference. I find a switch, button or automation more effective. I find talking to Alexa is the most difficult way to do anything smart.
I will forever caution everyone about embracing Microsoft for anything in the consumer space. As a long time fan of Microsoft's, they've killed Windows Phone, Cortana, and they're killing Xbox in real time. They are never serious about consumer markets anymore.
To be fare Amazon seems to be following suit. They sacked a huge number of their Alexa devs and have retired a bunch of functions just in the last 6 months, like not being able to stream from Plex to multiple Echos or turning off announcements when communicating with third party Skills.
I really want this to succeed - I've been a Microsoft fanboy for years - but with the ads they shove into Windows/Xbox interfaces are enough to convince me that the new Cortana will require a 55 second advertisement before it will turn off my reading lamp or call emergency services. I know Microsoft won't disappear tomorrow, but the odds are that these devices will end up following the path of Zune. A fantastic product that will be mismanaged into failure. MS will shove Cortana into the front of windows (again) next to irrelevant ads and the internet help forums will be filled with requests on how to disable.
If you have lights and an echo device in the same room, defined in the app, then the phrase "turn the lights on/off" does work without setting up a routine. still not as cool as iluminate/deluminate
I wouldn't be too dismissive of Apple. WWDC starts on 10th June and by the sounds of things iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 are going to be HUGE updates with regards to Apple and AI. The rumours are pointing to it being nothing sort of a brain transplant for Siri (which is much needed!). Give me an AI enhanced Siri on an Apple HomePod/HomePod Mini and I'd be a happy man!!
Reading the article, Amazon has got a large language model (which cost $4 billion). The problem has been internal fights between those who control Alexa as it is now, and those who want to move on. It'll be two-tioer. Basic Alexa that will remain free, and the advanced one, that will incur a charge.
But why tho? He could likely return more money, and therefore Yachts, through a more intelligent system doing his bidding selling you up at every opportunity.
Amazon can certainly choose to go that route, but they will seriously run the risk of loosing the foot hold they currently have in millions of homes. That is about 36 million homes, just in the US not including those homes outside the US. If I was Jeff Bezos, I'd think long and hard about my next few steps with Alexa.
I see where you're coming from, Paul, but I find it hard to believe MS will manage to put out a world-beating HW/SW replacement for smart speakers that will see major adoption. Who knows tho?!
2:02 fun fact, the reason Xbox Kinect's voice commands were "Xbox on" and "Xbox turn off" is because the "ff" sound is very difficult to pick up, so the system just assumes you want to turn it off if it hears "Xbox turn o". It was an intentional decision to avoid exactly this frustration.
Lol, it already has. Copilot sucks. Googles search is better. ChatGPT used to be able to write code that worked but Copilot cant get it even close and makes crap up.
I think the biggest problem is Amazon is finding out that a home assistant doesn't translate to sales of Amazon products. I hear Amazon loses money on Alexa because of this. It's hard for him to justify giving more features to it. I believe it will get a chat GPT feature because that's inevitable but it will be another tiered pricing on top of Amazon Prime.
Here I was, thinking this was just going to be another Great Paul Hibbert video, and all of a sudden there's a robot AI rapping. I'm soooo confused... Great show dude. Both of you.
Paul Hibbert is a tech reviewer and TH-camr known for his content on smart home technology, gadgets, and consumer electronics. As of my last update, he frequently shares insights, reviews, and tutorials on various tech products. If Paul Hibbert has mentioned a "secret project," it likely refers to an upcoming video or product review that he has teased but not yet fully disclosed to his audience. These projects are often kept under wraps to build anticipation and excitement among viewers. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, checking Paul Hibbert's latest videos or social media posts might provide more specifics about his "secret project."
When I tell my Alexa to turn on a certain light It tells me that device is not working and to check its internet connection, but yet it still turns it on.
Amazon was never really 100% behind home automation. The main reason they got into the Alexa devices is because they thought if people could shop via voice they would buy more stuff. Turns out no one really wants to do that. And now Amazon loses a lot of money on Alexa devices. I think they may even try to get out of that market at some point.
I think they're already trying to do that. I have several of them in my house. At this point, I'd never buy another one. It just consistently gets worse and worse. I really only use it to control my smart lights, and even for that it can be aggravating.
I have to agree that it’s the most censored. I asked it to generate an image that it deemed to be “too conservative” and it refused my request by saying it was divisive and not inclusive enough. Believe me, my request had nothing to do with inclusivity matters. 🙄
Pretty much the only thing I use my two Echo devices for are listening to the radio and for Spotify playback. I don't see the point of smart kettles for example, given I have to physically go to the kettle to fill it with water anyway. I do see the point for some things, lighting and opening curtains automatically come to mind, but fridges, kettles, cookers etc. having smart routines for them just seems daft to me.
I wish I had a smart oven I could turn on from my office to heat up ready for me to then go down and put food in it. The two to four daily trips drive me mad. Radiators, air con, presence sensors for lighting and appliances, voice control to launch Netflix, Disney+ etc. sash windows, blinds, water stop cocks when a leak is detected. There are loads when you think about it, but you have to be really into this stuff to implement some of those examples
Another thing to watch out for with ChatGPT is that it often behaves like "that guy down the pub" that confidently knows everything about everything and spouts bullshit whilst his mates nod their heads. 🤣 Always worth asking it "Are you sure?" after every answer to hear it backpedal.😆
Nice idea but there are a couple of things. The amount of processing power needed for AI is pretty high so adding hundreds of millions front end requests and your costs will escalate enormously.
It's an interesting thought, but if there wasn't profit in it Microsoft wouldn't have bought in. I once told everyone that there was no way Alexa was recording and storing literally every conversation we had with her because the wav files would cost an astronomical amount to store. Turned out I was wrong 😳
Someone told me that all the gains the world had made in conserving energy in the last few years had been irradiated by the extra energy already used by AI servers. I don’t know if it’s true - maybe I’ll ask AI…
That hasn’t stopped MS from offering anybody who wants it free access to GPT4 via CoPilot which is accessible via web, the Edge browser, the CoPilot app and the Bing app.
Hahahaha, I actually did consider bleeping out the wake word in editing like I normally do, and then I thought, nah, it'll actually drive the point home 🤣
In theory you're right. But I think that Microsoft has never left out a chance to completely destroy any software and render it unusable. I do not want to talk to my kitchen appliances nor do I want to have to reboot my house every tuesday.
Gemini on Android was spot on for a bit and then it started to drift through it got on's & off's right for a while but now it's slightly similar to predecessor!
I don't see them doing home speakers with free service as Amazon Alexa has proven that this consumer space of smart speakers with the big backend is a money losing proposition.
This would be great. The only thing that would make it the killer smart home device would be if it could work if offline. If that means it saves my interactions with my devices locally or that I have to make "routines" for when it's offline would be the end all be all for me. Obviously the question and answers portion would have to be connected online, but that's a given and fine.
From worst to okay its alexa, siri, google home. Micro$oft is never to be trusted either. P.S. - Rap is the LOWEST form of "music" there is. I wouldn't even classify that trash as music.
It’s insane how Alexa and Google Home are not getting any better. I’ve been giving my Google Home commands for almost 4 years and it still struggles recognising what I say half the time.. You would think this would get better and better over time.
I've just recently bought my first smartwatch (Samsung) and I love it and it has Home Assistant and Bixby (meh) and Google Assistant (er...) and I was thinking, this is an actual computer, on my wrist, more powerful than my first few PCs. Alexa is just an Internet connected speaker/microphone. Rabbit R1 is the same, but with a screen. Why do we need these devices, when my watch could easily do all that they do with just an app and an API? Discuss.
Because if they can listen to you talking about needing a new fly swat, they know your age and habits and can start suggesting a new hyper bladed six fingered adjustable fly swat. The processer on your wrist won't send them that info.
@@paulhibberthey man. I just wanted to say that GPT4 has been able to connect to the internet for a long time. It was free users on GPT3.5 that couldn’t use the browsing function. But now with the upgrade to GPT4o all users can get the model to access the internet for up to date information.
Hi Paul, how do I go about getting permission to use part of your video in my video? A video about Google home, which I still use in a quiet large home art and system.
In 2019, Microsoft began reducing the prevalence of Cortana and converting it from an assistant into different software integrations.[9] It was split from the Windows 10 search bar in April 2019. In January 2020, the Cortana mobile app was removed from certain markets, and on March 31, 2021, the Cortana mobile app was shut down globally. On June 2, 2023, Microsoft announced that support for the Cortana standalone app on Microsoft Windows would end in late 2023 and would be replaced by Microsoft Copilot. Support for Cortana in the Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 mobile apps was discontinued in fall of 2023. Also Apple is about to add ChatGPT to its assistant. So your right ChatGPT based assistants will win but it may not be Microsoft.
I'm certain I'm going to sound like a Home Assistant Fanboy, which I am, but with a small amount of hardware (Raspi Speaker) and the voice assistant feature can be connected to chatGPT and it works rather marvelously! We don't have to wait for Microsoft to come up with a speaker device.
I see your point Paul - however you called ChatGPT "Artificial Intelligence" or "AI" several times, which it's not. It's not thinking, it just generates words based on having read lots of other words from the internet. A language model in and of itself doesn't have any context when it comes to how to turn on YOUR lights - it might be able to understand your commands better and work out in general what should happen, but the hard part is taking your command and acting on it within the context of your devices. A language model alone is not enough to win this outright - you need a translation layer that connects it to a smart bulb/switch/ZigBee hub/etc to make the whole thing work. This bit IMHO is the harder part, e.g. turn on which lights, are they already on, which room am I in, etc etc.
The problem is "bi-directionality". I don't really understand why it appears to be so hard for Smarthome systems to check the state of a Device before performing and action.
Amazon has Claude AI (anthropic) add to that the api through alexa and you have it done. I programmed an app using chatgpt using any voice through eleven labs, took me 2 hours. Imagine you have lots of money and staff. Amazon could change it very quickly if they wanted.
That basically means that Google will win it. Google's Gemini isn't that far behind ChatGPT, they already have the market integration with existing devices that likely will eventually switch to Gemini, and they have a much bigger wealth of data to train future models compared to ChatGPT. A few if's there, but given Google has already closed down a huge chunk of the team and hardware running Google Assistant, it looks like they're already in the process of doing this. The only question is whether they make a stupid decision and brick all existing Assistant devices and force people to upgrade (which they likely will), or figure out how to get these devices running Gemini.
This may have been just an easy video to make but you bring a very big point. You focused more on how dumb these companies are but as a consumer I’m just left scratching my head. I’ve been left wondering why we haven’t seen our assistants leverage ChatGPT and actually become useful. Your video has given me some insight as to why.
Hahaha the air purifier lol Yes once I can talk to ChatGPT through my home and just talk to it while it learns what we talked about and figures it out for me
Walk in my family room and say illuminate, and it won’t be clear if you want the overhead lights on, the lights over the fireplace on, the family room lamp on, the lamp on right next to the family room over the kitchen table, etc. I wouldn’t know which should turn on if I simply say illuminate, so how could a smart device know? I have about 400 automations in my home, most of which happen automatically, however, I can also use Alexa to initiate any of them.
If there was more than one option then it would be conversational wouldn't it. You would be asked the same way as a person would ask you. Unlike whaf we have currently which would just be "I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that"
@@paulhibbert Yes, AI won’t automatically know what to do if I have 3 or 4 different sets of lights in a room unless I’m more specific with my request, which is what I’ve already programmed today. LOVE YOUR CHANNEL! YOU ROCK! Entertaining and informative. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I wouldn't count Amazon out of this just because they have not made major announcements. They own the majority of cloud computing, they're well established in the home automation space. Most of these AIs are trash for any sort of "mission critical" application. They just make up answers instead of saying they don't know. Meaning, there's lots of time for Amazon to get in the game.
i mean i use both amazon and google but i don't have any issues with google.. even works with my voice when my asthma is bad and my voice changes pitch. granted i had to redo my voice match settings but works great regardless the not understanding maybe happens to be like 3 times a year...
I think they can take it even further if they're smart by adding in multi-modality. Once they have their AI speakers in every room of everybody's house, start offering internal AI security cameras, and use those as sophisticated presence & identity sensors throughout the home. Eventually no more need to set up automations, the AI just thinks about the state of the home, e.g. "I just saw John lie down in bed, it's 11pm, he's going to sleep so I'll turn off the lights". Not to mention you'll be able to ask the house AI about what it saw happened at any time and receive a coherent answer, plus relevant video clips from an NVR. It'll be a huge privacy invasion, but who knows how much people will sacrifice for the ultimate in convenience.
To be honest, Alexa as-is has some advantages at present. If you ask it to translate something to Chinese, it gives a pure Chinese local voice. ChatGPT 4o tries to read the Chinese pinyin text with the American voice really badly. Also if you ask Alexa for a story it will give you a pro audio book from Audible. However, sure, ChatGPT will be good at some point, but so will all its competitors, including anything made by Bezos. Also to clarify, ChatGPT will need to be retrained effectively for smart home use, but that'll be pretty straightforward if they give it the attention it deserves.
Microsoft might make a middle layer for AI to home devices, but I don't think they'll get back into the home hardware space. They've cancelled just about every consumer hardware product they've ever released (Invoke, Media Center, Phones, Band, etc.)
I just bought an alexa dot and was ao disappointed because it indeed felt obsolete already. Maybe it's not so obvious to someone who bought it before chatgpt but obviously, I expected not to have to give exact commands.
Problem is if companies try to charge a monthly fee to the everyday user for smart home devices it will fail miserably. I have no interest in paying a subscription service just to turn on and off my lights. They really need to figure some other way to monetize the system. If Amazon starts charging to use Alexa, I definitely will find alternative.
This would be for a much upgraded Alexa. I really can’t see them putting the basic features of Alexa now behind a paywall. Almost certainly they’ll offer Alexa Lite (everything you get now) and Alexa AI Plus or something, where Alexa will be built on LLMs and be much, much better.
@@citizen3000 maybe, but just another fragmented market again will be the issue. Most won’t find any value in paying the monthly subscription. That’s where the paywall comes in. You want to control your smart home, pay me money.
Google Home is looking to get better. Apparently they're starting to get a bit more serious with the local control and opening up their API. Only thing with that is Google themselves... They'll do it, just give ten years.
I use to have the issues you talk about with Google, but recently I have had a lot less issues with it. I've found that Google seems to listen a bit to feedback if you keep sending it and for me it has become a lot more accurate. I am not sure Microsoft will be a good option. They rarely stick to what they do for long enough. Cortana was arounda few years ago, then MS killed it off, and now they seem to bringing it back again...... I am not sure about this.
Really entertaining video. It will be interesting to see how Amazon leverages Bedrock and its growing catalog of LLM’s for its own products and services.
The only problem with your argument is where is the financial advantage to Microsoft? You've rightly pointed out that Matter removes the "tied-to" hardware constraint so can MS really make enough money to cover the investment by selling the interactive devices that give access to Chat-GPT. I don't think the margins are good enough unless you know something that we don't
The day Amazon starts charging for Alexa is the day I'll happily say goodbye to it. I barely use it now because Home Assistant is way more convenient. Alexa's reliability seems to be going downhill anyway.
Microsoft isn't on the ball enough to do anything game changing with ChatGPT and link it to the smarthome in any compelling way. This is a company that tried to make a smartphone for teens that didn't have text capabilities. They think I want AI taking screenshots of everything I do on my PC (using up all the resources). I could see them having every advantage and head start on their side... and STILL fumbling. They will make the Windows 8 of smart homes, then spend a decade back-tracking.
The other problem with MS (IMO) is that they have never made an easy to use UI - Apple stole that crown and have the biggest user base of hand held devices (ok they swap with Android monthly) whereas MS is not in the mobile /tablet market in the same way. They purchased Nokia back in the day and look what happened to that. Doesn’t mean MS will be successful and do they have the right to sub-license if not others can get in, if so they yes they will become royalty takers..
Amazon didn't sleep through this one. OpenAI are leading the charge, but they are by no means the only player, and Amazon has partnered with several of the major AI developers, particularly HuggingFace and Anthropic Claude which at least until GPT4o come out was neck and neck with ChatGPT, even ahead in some regards. They have also been developing their own in-house models, so between SageMaker (the AWS system for building and customising LLMs) they have access to just as much AI-fu as MS do. If anything, AWS is a more popular AI hosting platform than Azure, which is still catching up with Amazon in that regard.
I do love this idea! If only TH-cam's algorithm wouldn't bury me for extending the length of my video by 1 minute. 🤣. It will just have to be my imaginary ring music for my imaginary boxing matches.
I’m not against paying a monthly fee for something useful, but currently I fail to see how Amazon can pull this off with Alexa. I reserve judgement until it happens… and I very much expect it to happen, but currently the benefits of Alexa (good price point, ease of use) are dwindling fast. It simply isn’t the assistant the modern public expect. I can’t wait for the day when our digital assistants are genuinely useful, even if I do have to change my name to Dave.
If Microsoft brought out a smart speaker it would likely take years for the AI to work, take Microsoft Teams (formally known as Skype). They brought it then 'improved' it by making it less useful, then upgraded it and the basic functions like Spell check still don't work 6 months later. Although im also rather amazed that Google Shame is soo bad, I dont have the 'on' problem, I get 'Sorry I dont understand' or 'Sure, turning 50 things off' - I wasnt aware I had 50 smart devices yet alone air purifiers but I tell ya the house goes very dark if it doesn't quite understand.
The moment that I have to pay a monthly fee for Alexa, that will be when I discontinue my use of Alexa.
Same, especially since it doesn't work half the time.
ChatGPT knows the answer all the time… except when it doesn’t and just makes something up that it spits out confidently.
4.o rarely I mean really rare it does that it has web access now
ChatGPT is what I thought Alexa was going to be. I must have had my Alexa speaker nearly ten years and all I use it for is listening to the radio.
Check out the Microsoft Build 2024 Minecraft demo.
I mostly use mine to add items to my Todoist grocery list. So much potential and they chose to waste it.
Just the radio, you havent connected anything else to it No bulbs, Romba, TV, plugs etc?
@@acs5928 personal preference. I find a switch, button or automation more effective. I find talking to Alexa is the most difficult way to do anything smart.
Never underestimate Microsoft's ability to stuff things up.
Local LLM will be the future for smart home working with Home Assistant.
Exactly what I think ... Only issue I see is capacity to host it
Small Language Models will be used for smart home stuff.
@@BelieveTruthDisbelieveFallacy Yup. This.
once they end up being useful and end up as SLM they will be intergreated into Home Assistant
Ollama?
I will forever caution everyone about embracing Microsoft for anything in the consumer space. As a long time fan of Microsoft's, they've killed Windows Phone, Cortana, and they're killing Xbox in real time. They are never serious about consumer markets anymore.
Wholly valid! 😂
Exactly!
To be fare Amazon seems to be following suit. They sacked a huge number of their Alexa devs and have retired a bunch of functions just in the last 6 months, like not being able to stream from Plex to multiple Echos or turning off announcements when communicating with third party Skills.
I really want this to succeed - I've been a Microsoft fanboy for years - but with the ads they shove into Windows/Xbox interfaces are enough to convince me that the new Cortana will require a 55 second advertisement before it will turn off my reading lamp or call emergency services.
I know Microsoft won't disappear tomorrow, but the odds are that these devices will end up following the path of Zune. A fantastic product that will be mismanaged into failure. MS will shove Cortana into the front of windows (again) next to irrelevant ads and the internet help forums will be filled with requests on how to disable.
If you have lights and an echo device in the same room, defined in the app, then the phrase "turn the lights on/off" does work without setting up a routine. still not as cool as iluminate/deluminate
If my Alexa speakers are bricked by Amazon they will be the ones who will be seeing us in Courtana
Ha!
Clever.
They will make your Alexa dummier and dummier until you stop using, then later they stop providing the service when no one else is using that.
@@EdwardFirmo dumber*.
Yeap. 😂
I wouldn't be too dismissive of Apple. WWDC starts on 10th June and by the sounds of things iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 are going to be HUGE updates with regards to Apple and AI. The rumours are pointing to it being nothing sort of a brain transplant for Siri (which is much needed!). Give me an AI enhanced Siri on an Apple HomePod/HomePod Mini and I'd be a happy man!!
Basically the rumour is that Apple have made a multi billion dollar deal to put ChatGPT into every iOS device.
Maybe the guy who created RATGDO can crack the Echo open and use an ESP32 chip to make it work exclusively with Home Assistant. Great video, Paul!
Reading the article, Amazon has got a large language model (which cost $4 billion). The problem has been internal fights between those who control Alexa as it is now, and those who want to move on. It'll be two-tioer. Basic Alexa that will remain free, and the advanced one, that will incur a charge.
But why tho?
He could likely return more money, and therefore Yachts, through a more intelligent system doing his bidding selling you up at every opportunity.
Amazon can certainly choose to go that route, but they will seriously run the risk of loosing the foot hold they currently have in millions of homes. That is about 36 million homes, just in the US not including those homes outside the US. If I was Jeff Bezos, I'd think long and hard about my next few steps with Alexa.
I see where you're coming from, Paul, but I find it hard to believe MS will manage to put out a world-beating HW/SW replacement for smart speakers that will see major adoption. Who knows tho?!
Sounds like that could work.
2:02 fun fact, the reason Xbox Kinect's voice commands were "Xbox on" and "Xbox turn off" is because the "ff" sound is very difficult to pick up, so the system just assumes you want to turn it off if it hears "Xbox turn o". It was an intentional decision to avoid exactly this frustration.
You underestimate Microsoft to not f*ck it up!
To be fair, Sam Altmann is doing a pretty good job of doing that himself.
Lol, it already has. Copilot sucks. Googles search is better. ChatGPT used to be able to write code that worked but Copilot cant get it even close and makes crap up.
I think the biggest problem is Amazon is finding out that a home assistant doesn't translate to sales of Amazon products. I hear Amazon loses money on Alexa because of this. It's hard for him to justify giving more features to it. I believe it will get a chat GPT feature because that's inevitable but it will be another tiered pricing on top of Amazon Prime.
Localised GPT will be the future. As touted by Home Assistant. They are now collaborating directly with Nvidia to acheive this
That would be amazing!!
For the music industry, i made two techno songs and a country music song on udio in an hour and it blew me away
@@paulhibbert
I agree
I have chatGPT on my Amazon speaker already. You just need a bit of magic behind the scenes.
Elaborate?👀👂🏽
OMG that skit with Google ALMOST getting it right was hilarious. I had the same exact problem and that was my same exact reaction.
I love your optimism that Microsoft could put out a consumer device, but they are so business focused that they'd drop the ball.
Brings back nightmares of the old Windows Phone days. 🫣
@@user-is7es A moment of silence for Windows Phone…
Here I was, thinking this was just going to be another Great Paul Hibbert video, and all of a sudden there's a robot AI rapping. I'm soooo confused... Great show dude. Both of you.
My lights routines on Alexa are Illuminate and de-luminate 😂
They’re the best ones! 🤣
@@paulhibbert nah i use lumos and nox lol Harry potter spells if you didnt know.
I use, let there be light, and give me darkness
@@originalbrucesmith nice, i might switch to "i cant seee" and "ahh too bright" for shits and giggles
Aziz light
People laughed at me when I mentioned Cortana in smart home podcasts, I’ll accept their apologies graciously
Dear ChatGPT what is Pauls secret Project?
Paul Hibbert is a tech reviewer and TH-camr known for his content on smart home technology, gadgets, and consumer electronics. As of my last update, he frequently shares insights, reviews, and tutorials on various tech products.
If Paul Hibbert has mentioned a "secret project," it likely refers to an upcoming video or product review that he has teased but not yet fully disclosed to his audience. These projects are often kept under wraps to build anticipation and excitement among viewers.
For the most accurate and up-to-date information, checking Paul Hibbert's latest videos or social media posts might provide more specifics about his "secret project."
A toilet that hits you with a fish.
@@paulhibbertis it a new line of SwitchBot gear?
I bet it is
😅😅
Is paul baiting us cortana?
Okay the fly joke can go away, but please dont ever stop mocking Beff Jezos 😂
When I tell my Alexa to turn on a certain light It tells me that device is not working and to check its internet connection, but yet it still turns it on.
Amazon was never really 100% behind home automation. The main reason they got into the Alexa devices is because they thought if people could shop via voice they would buy more stuff. Turns out no one really wants to do that. And now Amazon loses a lot of money on Alexa devices. I think they may even try to get out of that market at some point.
I think they're already trying to do that. I have several of them in my house. At this point, I'd never buy another one. It just consistently gets worse and worse. I really only use it to control my smart lights, and even for that it can be aggravating.
Are those "ooh the zigbee" t-shirts really just for kids ?? I need the adult version !
Happy Saturday everyone! Something a bit different this week because something secret is happening! Find out what the secret thing is next week!
Consider myself bated... By the master! 😁
The bait is strong with this one 😂
Didn't Amazon invest a bunch into Anthropic who make Claude ai ?
And isn't the open ai CEO Sam Altman an almost Elon Musk level bellend?
nearly got me with the sexy Terminators!
@@CraigUKgamesWhat’s your point?
That dancing Terminator tho 😂
Chatgpt isnt the only LLM and to be honest its the most sensored and lockdown ... Personally i think the future of our smart homes is completely local
yep, LLM's are stupid and until we can run them totaly local they won't help with a smart home
Ollama has been great so far
I have to agree that it’s the most censored. I asked it to generate an image that it deemed to be “too conservative” and it refused my request by saying it was divisive and not inclusive enough. Believe me, my request had nothing to do with inclusivity matters. 🙄
I WILL NOT pay a monthly fee for Alexa!
Pretty much the only thing I use my two Echo devices for are listening to the radio and for Spotify playback. I don't see the point of smart kettles for example, given I have to physically go to the kettle to fill it with water anyway. I do see the point for some things, lighting and opening curtains automatically come to mind, but fridges, kettles, cookers etc. having smart routines for them just seems daft to me.
I wish I had a smart oven I could turn on from my office to heat up ready for me to then go down and put food in it. The two to four daily trips drive me mad.
Radiators, air con, presence sensors for lighting and appliances, voice control to launch Netflix, Disney+ etc. sash windows, blinds, water stop cocks when a leak is detected.
There are loads when you think about it, but you have to be really into this stuff to implement some of those examples
Another thing to watch out for with ChatGPT is that it often behaves like "that guy down the pub" that confidently knows everything about everything and spouts bullshit whilst his mates nod their heads. 🤣 Always worth asking it "Are you sure?" after every answer to hear it backpedal.😆
Home assistant is the way forward. Everything you’ve already got can link into it.
Nice idea but there are a couple of things. The amount of processing power needed for AI is pretty high so adding hundreds of millions front end requests and your costs will escalate enormously.
It's an interesting thought, but if there wasn't profit in it Microsoft wouldn't have bought in. I once told everyone that there was no way Alexa was recording and storing literally every conversation we had with her because the wav files would cost an astronomical amount to store. Turned out I was wrong 😳
Someone told me that all the gains the world had made in conserving energy in the last few years had been irradiated by the extra energy already used by AI servers. I don’t know if it’s true - maybe I’ll ask AI…
Training of AI is very processor intensive. Actually using it not so much.
That hasn’t stopped MS from offering anybody who wants it free access to GPT4 via CoPilot which is accessible via web, the Edge browser, the CoPilot app and the Bing app.
Paul did you mean to have every Alexa in the country to say - Sorry I don't know that one!
Hahahaha, I actually did consider bleeping out the wake word in editing like I normally do, and then I thought, nah, it'll actually drive the point home 🤣
Best video for ages. More of this please.
Am I missing something? Is Jeff Bezos back at Amazon? Isn't Andy Jassy Amazon CEO already for 3 years?
Oh the irony. An advert popped up at 8 minutes for Amazon. Did you write this in. Because if you did it was brilliant
I can’t even pay my rent let alone Alexa & everyone else charge for what I don’t even know how to use
In theory you're right. But I think that Microsoft has never left out a chance to completely destroy any software and render it unusable. I do not want to talk to my kitchen appliances nor do I want to have to reboot my house every tuesday.
Just asked my Google home mini to illuminate and it works, saying that instead of turn on the lights from now on 👍
Gemini on Android was spot on for a bit and then it started to drift through it got on's & off's right for a while but now it's slightly similar to predecessor!
My wife uses Alexa only as a cookery timer so when charges come in, she's gone.
Alexa, not my wife.........
I don't see them doing home speakers with free service as Amazon Alexa has proven that this consumer space of smart speakers with the big backend is a money losing proposition.
My Echo Dots are now gathering dust in a box in my garage. I got sick of the intrusion of Amazon into my life, trying to sell me stuff.
"wake words" aren't just a way of dealing with lack of AI but it is also for energy savings.
This would be great. The only thing that would make it the killer smart home device would be if it could work if offline. If that means it saves my interactions with my devices locally or that I have to make "routines" for when it's offline would be the end all be all for me. Obviously the question and answers portion would have to be connected online, but that's a given and fine.
From worst to okay its alexa, siri, google home. Micro$oft is never to be trusted either.
P.S. - Rap is the LOWEST form of "music" there is. I wouldn't even classify that trash as music.
It’s insane how Alexa and Google Home are not getting any better. I’ve been giving my Google Home commands for almost 4 years and it still struggles recognising what I say half the time.. You would think this would get better and better over time.
I've just recently bought my first smartwatch (Samsung) and I love it and it has Home Assistant and Bixby (meh) and Google Assistant (er...) and I was thinking, this is an actual computer, on my wrist, more powerful than my first few PCs. Alexa is just an Internet connected speaker/microphone. Rabbit R1 is the same, but with a screen. Why do we need these devices, when my watch could easily do all that they do with just an app and an API?
Discuss.
Money. 🤣. The buggers just want us to keep buying new hardware
Because if they can listen to you talking about needing a new fly swat, they know your age and habits and can start suggesting a new hyper bladed six fingered adjustable fly swat. The processer on your wrist won't send them that info.
@@paulhibberthey man. I just wanted to say that GPT4 has been able to connect to the internet for a long time.
It was free users on GPT3.5 that couldn’t use the browsing function. But now with the upgrade to GPT4o all users can get the model to access the internet for up to date information.
Hi Paul, how do I go about getting permission to use part of your video in my video? A video about Google home, which I still use in a quiet large home art and system.
Here have my money Microsoft...i need that smarthub NOW
In 2019, Microsoft began reducing the prevalence of Cortana and converting it from an assistant into different software integrations.[9] It was split from the Windows 10 search bar in April 2019. In January 2020, the Cortana mobile app was removed from certain markets, and on March 31, 2021, the Cortana mobile app was shut down globally. On June 2, 2023, Microsoft announced that support for the Cortana standalone app on Microsoft Windows would end in late 2023 and would be replaced by Microsoft Copilot. Support for Cortana in the Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft 365 mobile apps was discontinued in fall of 2023.
Also Apple is about to add ChatGPT to its assistant. So your right ChatGPT based assistants will win but it may not be Microsoft.
You’re 110% correct. And so was that AI Rap, you’re a legend. Xx.
I'm certain I'm going to sound like a Home Assistant Fanboy, which I am, but with a small amount of hardware (Raspi Speaker) and the voice assistant feature can be connected to chatGPT and it works rather marvelously! We don't have to wait for Microsoft to come up with a speaker device.
I see your point Paul - however you called ChatGPT "Artificial Intelligence" or "AI" several times, which it's not. It's not thinking, it just generates words based on having read lots of other words from the internet.
A language model in and of itself doesn't have any context when it comes to how to turn on YOUR lights - it might be able to understand your commands better and work out in general what should happen, but the hard part is taking your command and acting on it within the context of your devices. A language model alone is not enough to win this outright - you need a translation layer that connects it to a smart bulb/switch/ZigBee hub/etc to make the whole thing work. This bit IMHO is the harder part, e.g. turn on which lights, are they already on, which room am I in, etc etc.
I just said, "Hey Google. Illuminate." and my lights in the room came on. See you next week.
Maybe I missed it but can we buy one of these MS Cortana devices yet?
That Rap is so so cool, it's amazing what is possible these days using AI
Frightening eh??
Cyberman rapping with terminator go-go dancers is the stuff of nightmares.
Hopefully Microsoft don’t name their smart-home assistant Skynet.
Or the ^%^#ing paperclip
Paul's issues with Google speakers is the same issues I have with my Alexa speakers
Your air purifier rant sounds like me with one particular living room light!
The problem is "bi-directionality". I don't really understand why it appears to be so hard for Smarthome systems to check the state of a Device before performing and action.
Just wait for Jarvis to come out, some will do it.
I already have Jarvis in Home Assistant. 😎
@@Sparky_D I was just going to say that! :)
Amazon has Claude AI (anthropic) add to that the api through alexa and you have it done. I programmed an app using chatgpt using any voice through eleven labs, took me 2 hours. Imagine you have lots of money and staff. Amazon could change it very quickly if they wanted.
That basically means that Google will win it. Google's Gemini isn't that far behind ChatGPT, they already have the market integration with existing devices that likely will eventually switch to Gemini, and they have a much bigger wealth of data to train future models compared to ChatGPT.
A few if's there, but given Google has already closed down a huge chunk of the team and hardware running Google Assistant, it looks like they're already in the process of doing this. The only question is whether they make a stupid decision and brick all existing Assistant devices and force people to upgrade (which they likely will), or figure out how to get these devices running Gemini.
This may have been just an easy video to make but you bring a very big point. You focused more on how dumb these companies are but as a consumer I’m just left scratching my head. I’ve been left wondering why we haven’t seen our assistants leverage ChatGPT and actually become useful. Your video has given me some insight as to why.
Hahaha the air purifier lol
Yes once I can talk to ChatGPT through my home and just talk to it while it learns what we talked about and figures it out for me
I have had Echo's all over my house for years, the stupid things still can't tell the difference between "off" and "on". I'm ready for something else.
Walk in my family room and say illuminate, and it won’t be clear if you want the overhead lights on, the lights over the fireplace on, the family room lamp on, the lamp on right next to the family room over the kitchen table, etc. I wouldn’t know which should turn on if I simply say illuminate, so how could a smart device know? I have about 400 automations in my home, most of which happen automatically, however, I can also use Alexa to initiate any of them.
If there was more than one option then it would be conversational wouldn't it. You would be asked the same way as a person would ask you. Unlike whaf we have currently which would just be "I'm sorry, I don't know how to do that"
@@paulhibbert
Yes, AI won’t automatically know what to do if I have 3 or 4 different sets of lights in a room unless I’m more specific with my request, which is what I’ve already programmed today.
LOVE YOUR CHANNEL! YOU ROCK! Entertaining and informative. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I have my Home Assistant assist connected to Chat GTP. If local assist doesnt understand, it falls back to chat gtp.
I wouldn't count Amazon out of this just because they have not made major announcements. They own the majority of cloud computing, they're well established in the home automation space.
Most of these AIs are trash for any sort of "mission critical" application. They just make up answers instead of saying they don't know. Meaning, there's lots of time for Amazon to get in the game.
i mean i use both amazon and google but i don't have any issues with google.. even works with my voice when my asthma is bad and my voice changes pitch. granted i had to redo my voice match settings but works great regardless the not understanding maybe happens to be like 3 times a year...
I think they can take it even further if they're smart by adding in multi-modality. Once they have their AI speakers in every room of everybody's house, start offering internal AI security cameras, and use those as sophisticated presence & identity sensors throughout the home. Eventually no more need to set up automations, the AI just thinks about the state of the home, e.g. "I just saw John lie down in bed, it's 11pm, he's going to sleep so I'll turn off the lights". Not to mention you'll be able to ask the house AI about what it saw happened at any time and receive a coherent answer, plus relevant video clips from an NVR. It'll be a huge privacy invasion, but who knows how much people will sacrifice for the ultimate in convenience.
To be honest, Alexa as-is has some advantages at present. If you ask it to translate something to Chinese, it gives a pure Chinese local voice. ChatGPT 4o tries to read the Chinese pinyin text with the American voice really badly. Also if you ask Alexa for a story it will give you a pro audio book from Audible. However, sure, ChatGPT will be good at some point, but so will all its competitors, including anything made by Bezos. Also to clarify, ChatGPT will need to be retrained effectively for smart home use, but that'll be pretty straightforward if they give it the attention it deserves.
Wait, I thought you were Jeff Bezos
Nope, I’m Jonny Sins… don’t google that 🤣
@@paulhibbertthe man with many skills 😂
More yatch... to shoot special movies... 😂
Microsoft might make a middle layer for AI to home devices, but I don't think they'll get back into the home hardware space. They've cancelled just about every consumer hardware product they've ever released (Invoke, Media Center, Phones, Band, etc.)
I just bought an alexa dot and was ao disappointed because it indeed felt obsolete already. Maybe it's not so obvious to someone who bought it before chatgpt but obviously, I expected not to have to give exact commands.
Happy Hibbertday 😁
And to you my friend!
Problem is if companies try to charge a monthly fee to the everyday user for smart home devices it will fail miserably. I have no interest in paying a subscription service just to turn on and off my lights. They really need to figure some other way to monetize the system. If Amazon starts charging to use Alexa, I definitely will find alternative.
This would be for a much upgraded Alexa.
I really can’t see them putting the basic features of Alexa now behind a paywall. Almost certainly they’ll offer Alexa Lite (everything you get now) and Alexa AI Plus or something, where Alexa will be built on LLMs and be much, much better.
@@citizen3000 maybe, but just another fragmented market again will be the issue. Most won’t find any value in paying the monthly subscription. That’s where the paywall comes in. You want to control your smart home, pay me money.
Great video Paul! Very entertaining per usual.
Paul, did you watch the Build 2024 Minecraft demo that MS did?
Or the recent GPT4o demo that was done at the Viva Tech conference in France?
So pay a monthly fee over your prime subscription?
Google Home is looking to get better. Apparently they're starting to get a bit more serious with the local control and opening up their API. Only thing with that is Google themselves... They'll do it, just give ten years.
Microsoft invested in Chat GPT, and the smart home industry never even came up when they were making the decision.
I use to have the issues you talk about with Google, but recently I have had a lot less issues with it. I've found that Google seems to listen a bit to feedback if you keep sending it and for me it has become a lot more accurate.
I am not sure Microsoft will be a good option. They rarely stick to what they do for long enough. Cortana was arounda few years ago, then MS killed it off, and now they seem to bringing it back again...... I am not sure about this.
It’s an interesting playing field! Since I made this video Amazon have announced more investment in AI so I’m curious as to how it will play out now!
Oh Paul, you know why you always need to keep buying shiny new things.
Those CEOs aren’t stupid, they’re just optimising for profit (at your expense).
Really entertaining video. It will be interesting to see how Amazon leverages Bedrock and its growing catalog of LLM’s for its own products and services.
lol loving the gags 😂 I think that google on of one came straight out of my dads house
What do you think of what Google talked about in Google IO for Google home? Home API and Runtime are my favourite
The only problem with your argument is where is the financial advantage to Microsoft? You've rightly pointed out that Matter removes the "tied-to" hardware constraint so can MS really make enough money to cover the investment by selling the interactive devices that give access to Chat-GPT. I don't think the margins are good enough unless you know something that we don't
The day Amazon starts charging for Alexa is the day I'll happily say goodbye to it. I barely use it now because Home Assistant is way more convenient. Alexa's reliability seems to be going downhill anyway.
Microsoft isn't on the ball enough to do anything game changing with ChatGPT and link it to the smarthome in any compelling way. This is a company that tried to make a smartphone for teens that didn't have text capabilities. They think I want AI taking screenshots of everything I do on my PC (using up all the resources). I could see them having every advantage and head start on their side... and STILL fumbling. They will make the Windows 8 of smart homes, then spend a decade back-tracking.
The other problem with MS (IMO) is that they have never made an easy to use UI - Apple stole that crown and have the biggest user base of hand held devices (ok they swap with Android monthly) whereas MS is not in the mobile /tablet market in the same way. They purchased Nokia back in the day and look what happened to that. Doesn’t mean MS will be successful and do they have the right to sub-license if not others can get in, if so they yes they will become royalty takers..
Amazon didn't sleep through this one. OpenAI are leading the charge, but they are by no means the only player, and Amazon has partnered with several of the major AI developers, particularly HuggingFace and Anthropic Claude which at least until GPT4o come out was neck and neck with ChatGPT, even ahead in some regards. They have also been developing their own in-house models, so between SageMaker (the AWS system for building and customising LLMs) they have access to just as much AI-fu as MS do. If anything, AWS is a more popular AI hosting platform than Azure, which is still catching up with Amazon in that regard.
That rap is gold!! It should be the closing theme in every video!
I do love this idea! If only TH-cam's algorithm wouldn't bury me for extending the length of my video by 1 minute. 🤣. It will just have to be my imaginary ring music for my imaginary boxing matches.
I wonder what service was used to make it?
@@gossumx Probably Suno
Hey cortana, my cheese sauce is a bit thin.
Hello Chris, you may thicken up sauces by adding non toxic glue.
I’m not against paying a monthly fee for something useful, but currently I fail to see how Amazon can pull this off with Alexa. I reserve judgement until it happens… and I very much expect it to happen, but currently the benefits of Alexa (good price point, ease of use) are dwindling fast. It simply isn’t the assistant the modern public expect. I can’t wait for the day when our digital assistants are genuinely useful, even if I do have to change my name to Dave.
If Microsoft brought out a smart speaker it would likely take years for the AI to work, take Microsoft Teams (formally known as Skype). They brought it then 'improved' it by making it less useful, then upgraded it and the basic functions like Spell check still don't work 6 months later. Although im also rather amazed that Google Shame is soo bad, I dont have the 'on' problem, I get 'Sorry I dont understand' or 'Sure, turning 50 things off' - I wasnt aware I had 50 smart devices yet alone air purifiers but I tell ya the house goes very dark if it doesn't quite understand.
Cool video, Paul, liked the rap intro. It sounds like a game changer. Keep it pls & thx.