I love an automated assistant experience. I have lighting, heat and air, TV’s, dedicated assistant devices like Hub, phones, you name it. Lately though, the entire system is a flakey mess. Here are just a few of the failures that are plaguing the Google Assistant experience in my house that will likely lead to people looking to Amazon Alexa as a replacement, especially with their ever increasing device integration and open ecosystem:

• Amazon face recognition on Google Nest Hub Max – settings go missing. The Home app shows it no longer is set to recognize owners/users. Things like reminders and the ability to perform actions like removing a pic from the slideshow stopped working, as it no longer recognizes me. Settings in Google home are greyed out, and only removing the device, setting up facial recognition etc. brings them back.
• Google Home Nest Max stops recording and alerting activity that it sees. Much like the above, the Max and Google Home settings are jacked without a change on my part. Recording and notifications just stopped working. Greyed out in menus, and cannot connect. Remote Nest app shows that the device is no longer connected to the internet, but the Home app while home just shows the settings are all removed.
• With the latest patch (December 2019??) Google assistant just stopped working on my phone. I sit in the car and say “OK Google, should I switch to Alexa??”. No response. Not even a snarky reply, as it now doesn’t work at all. Settings again, completely reset. (not to mention the auto screen rotation setting that is re-set every fucking time I get a system update).
• Assistant devices on new devices like Sonos Beam and Move act like red-headed step children. They are listed as in my home and part of rooms just like any device, but they are ignored like 3rd rate citizens, most of the time they cannot control Nest or anything other than Sonos (poorly) and complain that they don’t know what I am talking about – though the same command works on the Google branded assistants.
• The new shopping list integration into Bring lists is cool, but half the time I say “OK Google add razorblades to slit my wrists to the shopping list” it puts it into the insanely useless default Google shopping list instead of Bring shopping list. I then leave the store without 5 things and curse automation, harking back to killing trees and using pencils.
• Routines… OMG. They so rarely work, maybe the team leading routines could at least add a damn “Test this stupid routine out” button so I can tell (much more quickly) that it will never work.
• Sonos integration – OK this one is not a Google issue I guess, but trying to control a Sonos device using voice is the most frustrating thing in the whole world. Add to that a ridiculously broken Spotify integration, and I never even try anymore – I just use the dedicated apps. This may be a Sonos/Spotify issue, but to the user, Alexa is way better and regardless of that, it feels like a broken Google Assistant. Don’t get me started on other integrations like viewing Arlo cameras on Hub devices, holy crap that sucks. The list can go of literally all day for Sonos. How about “groups”? What about “on all of the sonos devices”? Maybe Shuffle or Repeat? What about… fuck. Forget it…
• I can’t tell you how sick I am of “I’m sorry I don’t know how to help with that” when I say things that work on a second try. Add to that the “OK Google turn on all the lights” with a response of “12 lights are now off” as I stand in the dark. That makes me want to throw things.
• Take a look at the user groups that support home automation of Google stuff for the nightmares surrounding IFTTT, HomeAssistant.io etc etc. You will run for the hills. It’s a nightmare.

Amazon has a pretty good scam going with Google Pixel 4/4XL pre-orders. If you were duped like me into buying from Amazon by pre-ordering the new device, you probably found out today that your order is now going to arrive a month later instead of by the end of the day. I purchased a white version of the phone from Amazon with the same deal, a $100 gift card – comparable to the Play Store $100 credit that was being offered last week, and a great release day delivery date last week when the device was announced.

So what is the scam? Well, if you are like me, today the shipping date slips to 1 to 1.5 months later with a new range of November 22 to December 15th. OK, I get it. Amazon sold something they didn’t have their hands on, and the supply chain failed or something, maybe they took too many orders, whatever. Sad. But the issue here is that they ship the $100 gift card the second you order the device. So you get a $100 card in the mail a day or 2 later, and READ THE FINE PRINT – NO REFUNDS OR RETURNS. WTF! Now I have a $100 forced purchase with Amazon, and no phone. I now get to choose from 2 terrible choices: wait forever for the device and get the deal they promised, or cancel the order and find it somewhere else and BE FORCED to spend $100 on Amazon. That is a SCAM. They probably sold a million devices, with 50% or more likely to cancel when they see the “Oh, sorry you aren’t getting this anytime soon” email, they rack up 50 million dollars in sales DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I love me some Amazon goodness, and have been shopping with them since the early days of books only. This experience has really put me in a new place with them though. I think this is really a deliberate move on their part to drive sales knowing that they win, without having to provide an actual product. Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m guessing that there are a bunch of people out there that just got a mandatory $100 purchase forced on them today should they cancel and grab a Pixel somewhere else. Way to piss off a customer base Amazon, you do evil.

With all of the Google Home Assistant users out there that clamor for a better alternative to the “OK Google” and “Hey Google” methods of accessing the Assistant mode on your phone or Google Home device, I have often wondered why calling it “GiGi” wouldn’t be the perfect solution. Even better than that would be to have to say nothing at all, and have those devices just know when you are speaking to the intelligent helper, but there is no practical way to do that, as well as no way to solve the implementation of having it always listening and trying to discern what the always on recording of your life means to privacy and recognition of a question asked of the “machine” vs. asking your dog if it’s hungry.

It seems to me that calling it Gigi makes the most sense. Apple uses Siri. Amazon is Alexa. Microsoft is… Well. Who really cares? Making it a woman’s name has precedence. Gigi is a nice name. Easy to say. Google has 2 G’s in it. Saying “OK Google what is the weather today” is way harder than “Gigi what is the weather today”. Two less syllables, and kids can never say Google right anyway (I have a 5 year old). The default voice for Assistant is a woman, so she can now be GiGi. Or GG, or whatever and it totally makes sense.

Google added manners a while back. Fire up Assistant and say “OK Google what time is it” and it responds. If you say “Thank you” you are saying it to a machine that responds to you with a polite response. But saying “Thanks GiGi” would be so much more personal and like your personal assistant, who has a name, who helps you every day, who is a part of your life, who is respected and valued as something other than a machine, that this just really makes sense.

My assistant needs a name. Google assistant is my go to life automator now, and I’m really tired of “OK Google”. Make her Gigi. Make her real. Do some fun stuff with deep fake Max Headroom type personalities that make her a member of my family or something – appearing in mirrors, TV’s, monitors, my Google Home devices, whatever. Have her follow me and use voice recognition or biometrics that have her travel with me to other people’s devices. Make Gigi have a persona that is removed from the machine, and part of my world.

I have a bunch of Sonos stuff, so let me start off by saying I am a fanboy of the awesome products that they put out. The audio quality of the Sonos line is great, and when you throw in the convenience of great apps, the convenience of linking all of your favorite streaming services like Spotify, and zones, party mode, and Google Assistant and Alexa integration on some of the newer devices – you just can’t go wrong with them.

Then the Sonos Move came along this week (9/2019).

I went ahead and preordered the move hoping that all of the hype would make this just another solid product in the Sonos line. Let me say, I was completely mistaking. This little Sonos is a game changer.

First off, the setup was a breeze as usual. I just plugged it in, opened the app, hit the + button and followed along for a few minutes of connecting, a quick update to the device and it was now a part of the system. I went ahead and added the Google Assistant integration, and it nicely threw me into the Home app and I was able to add it to the home automation devices there.

First up? Well, this thing is pretty. Great design and looks awesome, wherever you put it – and guess what? It’s called the Sonos Move, and you can put it anywhere!

And that is the game changer. I have had bluetooth speakers of all shapes and sizes. The Sonos Move is the top end of this genre though, at just under 10 inches tall – it’s fairly large and as any decent speaker is, heavy too. With that heft comes BIG sound. I mean like really BIG SOUND. Like I look at it with a puzzled look sometimes wondering how they could possibly have packed that into this thing, that while large for a bluetooth device, is pretty small for what this thing kicks out. This easily fills a large room with great dynamic range, impressive bass, and crisp clear highs. It really is amazing for the size.

But the magic is that this speaker sounds like a million bucks, and truth be told, it’s roughly $400 – so part way there – it’s not cheap. But that is the game changer, it’s not cheap. It has an amazing design, with sexy lines, touch buttons, perfect lighting, just enough grill to see the nice sized speakers, a great handle in the back to grab it and move to the deck, or a nice soak in the tub. This thing is portable, and instead of some tinny semblance of music on the go, you bring bass and great all around sound with you.

There are a ton of features packed into this amazing unit. Google Assistant and Alexa are built in, and they work just as well as the dedicated devices in the house we own. There is a set of microphones that magically adjust equalizer settings when you tote it into a new space that dynamically adjust the sound of the unit for the surroundings. The charging ring is a simple affair that charges the unit at lightning speed and acts as a additional stabilizer in it’s “home” spot at 10V, 2.5 amps.

The battery holds a ton of juice and has easily taken all day listening jams without a top-off and has been left alone on stand-by for days, only to come right to life when summoned by the mobile app or PC. You can also hook up a USB-C cable, and depending on the power supply, can charge in that fashion though somewhat slower.

There is a dedicated bluetooth button on the back side for pairing and switching from wifi to bluetooth. This makes it worth every penny. I have seriously grabbed this thing while on bluetooth, walked to my car, thrown it on the seat and rocked out on the way to my destination just as happy as if my awesome truck stereo had been on – all without skipping a beat. Oh, and wait until my camping neighbors hear this thing! They are going to LOVE me! 😉

I’m all in on this new speaker from Sonos. I’ll be buying another to pair for stereo and taking it to the pool, in my car, trips to the park and beach, to picnics with friends and outside while I garden and wash the car. This thing is amazing. I bought into the Sonos ecosystem long ago, and it just keeps stepping up a notch, making me oh so happy that I am the fanboy that I have become. This changes the game.