Are they the Future, or Just Another Fad?
A few weeks ago, I bought a Google Home Mini for myself. I excitedly set it up, this being my first digital home assistant, awaiting all the possible things I could use it for. Four dots lit up in a line across the surface of the Google Home.
'Hi, how can I help?' it asked.
I decided to start with something simple. 'Okay Google, what's your favorite color?''I like blue, yellow, red, and green, they're Google's colors' It responded.
A bit gimmicky but okay, let's try another. "Okay Google, what's seventeen times fifty-six?"
'The answer is nine hundred fifty-two"
That's useful... I guess. Let's have it play some music. "Okay Google, play hmmm... Despacito."
"Choosing songs is only available to Spotify premium subscribers."
Okay, I guess I'd better buy Spotify premium. Jokes aside, let's discuss digital home assistants. They seem like the way of the future, but are they really all they are put out to be? As the days went by, I noticed that I had been using my Google Home less and less. I just didn't need it. Half of the time I didn't have access to it because I was at school, or doing some extracurricular activity. When I was at home, I was usually using some sort of device that allowed me to look up the question I had, or complete the task I wanted with greater precision and thoroughness than the Google Home ever could on its own.
It's like one of those fancy kitchen devices that you buy off of Amazon. A pineapple cutter is only useful until you stop buying pineapples. Why can't I just cut my pineapples with a knife? Chances are after a few weeks, I'm just going to cut my pineapples with a knife, and the pineapple cutter in going to be sitting in a drawer somewhere collecting dust.
That's the analogy I would use for digital home devices anyway. They just aren't practical enough to warrant their use in daily life. No sane person is going to use their digital assistant for every question and problem. Granted, there are Pineapple cutter, for reference people who will use their digital assistant more than the average consumer. This doesn't take away from the fact that most people will not get the use out of their home assistant as many hope for.
Do I still use my Google Home? Yes, but only once every few days. Maybe my life isn't busy enough to make good use out of it, or maybe I'm not curious enough to ask it more questions. Has it made my life any easier? I don't know. What I do know though it that it will be sitting on my shelf collecting dust, just like that fancy fruit cutter you bought on Amazon.
