Skip to main content

“Human, the milk has spoiled.” Soon Alexa will run your smart home, and your life

what if amazons alexa could initiate a conversation amazon echo gall
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Yes, there’s a lot to love about Alexa. The list of her skills grows daily. But one thing she can’t do? Initiate a conversation. Now, that might be by design, as some people would it find it creepy — or just plain irritating —- to have Alexa start talking while they’re in the middle of a phone call or TV show.

Yet if your voice assistant, be it Amazon Alexa or Google Home, could start talking of its own volition, it would actually be very useful. You probably already have breaking news alerts on your phone; Alexa could give you a quick audio update when something big is going down. You’d want to specially tailor these of course, because while, yes, I’m interested in knowing that four-billion-year-old fossils were found (a news alert that recently popped up on my phone from two different news sites), I don’t need Alexa to tell me right now. Still, it’s intriguing, right?

Amazon told me it can’t speculate on what may or may not happen in the future, but there’s been speculation that push notifications are coming for a few months now – and it could really change the smart home, particularly as more appliances start using Alexa or Google Home to communicate.

Alexa, interrupting

“Voice-controlled appliances have been in the works at GE for years, but it was all from the ground up, and it had never taken off,” Lauren Platt, Lead Industrial Designer at GE Appliances, told Digital Trends. “It was expensive, and just not as finely tuned as it is now. And when the Amazon Echo launched, it gave us kind of a jumping off point.” From Whirlpool to Samsung, manufacturers are working on ways to let you ask if your laundry is done before you lug the basket downstairs.

If Alexa could start talking to you first, it would change the way our smart home behaves.

As part of the team working on voice integration, Platt had to figure out how to give Geneva, GE’s Alexa skill, personality and purpose. “Voice control is useful when you’re trying to accomplish a complex task and you’re trying to simplify it using your voice,” she said. With a single voice command, you could ask Alexa to instruct Geneva to preheat your oven to 350 degrees, set a timer for 45 minutes, and turn the temperature down to 175 degrees when there are 10 minutes left — instead of you babysitting your appliance.

That still puts you in the driver seat, of course. Right now, if you want to know how many dishwasher pods you have left (GE has dishwashers that count them), you have to ask Alexa to ask Geneva. Instead, Alexa could let you know when you have five left, for example. “If you could have her chime in and tell you when your stuff is done and you don’t have to directly call to her, that would be ideal,” said Platt. “But I think there’s a lot of ambiguity around that scenario that we would have to design through, because there’s a lot of users who won’t like that, and it will be polarizing, and we’ll have to invent new methods.”

Image used with permission by copyright holder

How would Alexa know that you heard the notification, for example? Your Echo could listen for a few seconds after speaking for you to reply, “Thanks, Alexa.” But how many notifications should it send, and how frequently, if you don’t respond? Also, I’ve noticed an issue with Alexa’s current follow-ups. If I ask my Dot to turn on my office light, it will say: “I found several devices matching that name. Which one did you want?” Before I can reply, it answers: “Sorry, I couldn’t find a device or group named ‘want’ in Jennifer’s account.”

Auto-tuning through audio

There’s been speculation push notifications are coming for a few months now.

If those issues get ironed out, Platt envisions something like this happening: You tell Alexa you’re making Grandma’s lasagna. She’ll know what that means and set the oven temperature and a timer for you. Then, when you’re finished eating, she would ask, “How was dinner?” If you respond that it was a little dry, “She could manipulate that recipe and change the amount of time or change the temperature it’s cooking at and remember it for the next time,” said Platt. Alexa could also tell the dishwasher — perhaps silently — to set itself to the pots and pans setting, since you’ve got a big dish with baked-on cheese ready for washing.

GE would set up these cause-and-effect scenarios, so you wouldn’t have to. “The whole idea is taking that mental load away from the consumer and doing it ourselves, because we are the experts, we know all the settings,” said Platt.

“That’s kind of the beauty of where the voice control could be.”

Editors' Recommendations

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
GE Lighting launches Smart Hexagon Panels with support for Alexa and Google Home
The GE Lighting Smart Hexagon Panels installed in a game room.

Cync by GE Lighting has officially launched the Dynamic Effects Smart Hexagon Panels, making it the latest member of the ever-growing Dynamic Effects family. Compatible with both Alexa and Google Home, the panels are designed to offer a highly programmable lighting solution for home theaters, game rooms, or anywhere else in your home that might benefit from a pop of color.

The Hexagon Panels clock in at $190 for a pack of 10 -- putting them above similar products from Govee and other lighting brands. However, the GE Lighting panels are well specced, featuring 16 million colors, six controllable zones within each hexagon, and directional control for music and light shows. If you don’t want to create your own light shows, you can choose from a list of pre-built options.

Read more
U.S. government to launch a new cybersecurity program for smart home devices in 2024
The US Cyber Trust Mark logo on an off-white background.

Smart home devices are only becoming more popular, and it seems they’ve now piqued the interest of the U.S. government. On July 18, the Biden administration announced a new cybersecurity certification and labeling program for smart devices that will help customers find devices that are “safer and less vulnerable to cyberattacks.”

The so-called U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program is intended to get manufacturers thinking more carefully about the cybersecurity of their products and ensure they’re safe for the general public to have in their homes. It’s not expected to roll out until 2024, but the program would cover a wide range of products, including smart refrigerators, smart microwaves, smart televisions, smart thermostats, fitness trackers, and more.

Read more
Your Google smart home devices just got a lot less talkative
A person standing in a living room while looking at a Google device.

Smart assistants are an indispensable part of any smart home, making it easy to give hands-free commands and control a variety of gadgets. Google is looking to further streamline the performance of its smart assistant, with the expansion of chime alerts to cut down on how talkative your Google Nest gadgets are when responding to instructions.

For example, after asking Google to turn on a fan, you’ll now be able to hear a quick chime to confirm the assistant has heard your instructions. Previously, confirmation would come in the form of a short sentence, such as “OK, turning on your fan.”

Read more