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I love playing around with tech and smart speakers are the latest things on the block. But which of the big 3; Apple's Homepod, Amazon's Echo, or Google's Home, is the right one to get? Actually any of the 3 could be the right one, depending on what you want to do with it. Here's some comparisons the each. I'll start with the weakest one.
Apple Homepod - Yeah, it is the weakest of the bunch, mostly because Siri is the weakest of the 'digital assitants' out there. Since Apple brought out Siri they really haven't done much with it. The Homepods claim to fame is the audio quality. Look at the ads, that's what they talk about. And it is well deserved, it does sound amazing compared to the other two.
But for home automation Homekit and Siri are weak, and all because Apple chose not to do as mch with them as Amazon and Google have done. The selection and breadth of gear is more limited at the moment. That might change going forward as Apple is supposedly making some changes about how Homekit devices work with Apple.
The HomePod play music from your iTunes library and from any app/device that can do Airplay. It can do voice texting, which neither Home or Echo can do without 3rd party apps/support. You can Handoff a phone call to the speaker, but you cannot make calls from though both Home and Echo can. It has a bit more limited Siri support than does the iPad/iPhone/Macs have though I'm not sure how much limitations are there.
Biggest issue for using HomePods around the house as you would with the Google Home or Amazon Echo line is that there is only one version of HomePod and it costs $349 each!!!
Google Home - The Home products are limited to 3 smart speakers. Sound quality is not as good as HomePod, but on the Home Maxi is pretty good. The real strength of the Home products is search as you would expect. It will control a lot of different 'smart' things in one manner or another and there has been an anouncement of getting some video pieces involved, though it isn't clear when or who will do it. I found the Google Home/Assistant to be more forgiving as you command it to do things.
Amazon Echo - The Echo line of gear is very broad. You have the speakers, Echo, Dot and Plus. You have the video, Show, Spot and a camera. Quite extensive. The Echo line is the oldest line of smart speakers and it shows. Virtually anything 'smart' will work with it in one way or another. Some comparably inexpensive stuff too! I use the Show in the kitchen and can do recipes totally hands free, that is handier than dealing with a tablet or computer.
Sound quality on the Echo and Plus isn't bad but nowhere near as good as the HomePod. The Dot and Spot being smaller, don't have quite the volume or quality of the Echo and Plus. The Show falls somewhere in the middle for sound quality.
With Show and Spot u can make video/voice calls, video being limited to those with a Show or Spot or those using the Alexa app.
But Alexa sometimes has problems with commands. Usually it seems to get confused with what device you are wanting to do something with and that because of naming. No real guidelines, but naming things can be an issue though a relatively minor one. And sometimes I'll do something like "Alexa turn on the Kitchen", it reports it did, but the lights didn't turn on.
Apple Homepod - Yeah, it is the weakest of the bunch, mostly because Siri is the weakest of the 'digital assitants' out there. Since Apple brought out Siri they really haven't done much with it. The Homepods claim to fame is the audio quality. Look at the ads, that's what they talk about. And it is well deserved, it does sound amazing compared to the other two.
But for home automation Homekit and Siri are weak, and all because Apple chose not to do as mch with them as Amazon and Google have done. The selection and breadth of gear is more limited at the moment. That might change going forward as Apple is supposedly making some changes about how Homekit devices work with Apple.
The HomePod play music from your iTunes library and from any app/device that can do Airplay. It can do voice texting, which neither Home or Echo can do without 3rd party apps/support. You can Handoff a phone call to the speaker, but you cannot make calls from though both Home and Echo can. It has a bit more limited Siri support than does the iPad/iPhone/Macs have though I'm not sure how much limitations are there.
Biggest issue for using HomePods around the house as you would with the Google Home or Amazon Echo line is that there is only one version of HomePod and it costs $349 each!!!
Google Home - The Home products are limited to 3 smart speakers. Sound quality is not as good as HomePod, but on the Home Maxi is pretty good. The real strength of the Home products is search as you would expect. It will control a lot of different 'smart' things in one manner or another and there has been an anouncement of getting some video pieces involved, though it isn't clear when or who will do it. I found the Google Home/Assistant to be more forgiving as you command it to do things.
Amazon Echo - The Echo line of gear is very broad. You have the speakers, Echo, Dot and Plus. You have the video, Show, Spot and a camera. Quite extensive. The Echo line is the oldest line of smart speakers and it shows. Virtually anything 'smart' will work with it in one way or another. Some comparably inexpensive stuff too! I use the Show in the kitchen and can do recipes totally hands free, that is handier than dealing with a tablet or computer.
Sound quality on the Echo and Plus isn't bad but nowhere near as good as the HomePod. The Dot and Spot being smaller, don't have quite the volume or quality of the Echo and Plus. The Show falls somewhere in the middle for sound quality.
With Show and Spot u can make video/voice calls, video being limited to those with a Show or Spot or those using the Alexa app.
But Alexa sometimes has problems with commands. Usually it seems to get confused with what device you are wanting to do something with and that because of naming. No real guidelines, but naming things can be an issue though a relatively minor one. And sometimes I'll do something like "Alexa turn on the Kitchen", it reports it did, but the lights didn't turn on.
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Doesn't the Amazon Echo Dot have an audio out so you can have it play music through an existing audio system? I would think that would be the best audio experience teamed with the Echo ecosystem.
And Sonos is still offering two Sonos One Smart Speakers with Alexa for the HomePod's $349 price, so that's effectively a "Buy One, get the Second for $50 off" sale. Gives you true stereo sound, not a computer's idea of what it thinks you should hear.
I have not found a "need" for an audio assistant in my home. Of course, I didn't buy a microwave until the late 1990s, so that may factor in to my decision.
And Sonos is still offering two Sonos One Smart Speakers with Alexa for the HomePod's $349 price, so that's effectively a "Buy One, get the Second for $50 off" sale. Gives you true stereo sound, not a computer's idea of what it thinks you should hear.
I have not found a "need" for an audio assistant in my home. Of course, I didn't buy a microwave until the late 1990s, so that may factor in to my decision.
Supporting Founder
Really excited for this season with Kentucky having a new coach and some really exciting recruits. Probably won't last long, but here's hoping this season is great.
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TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87N42NxLPC0
Direct YouTube Link - 8 U.S. States Sue OpenAI Over Safety Concerns With Younger Users
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TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87N42NxLPC0
Direct YouTube Link - 8 U.S. States Sue OpenAI Over Safety Concerns With Younger Users
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
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Pub Member / Supporter
On Tuesday, I recorded the first episodes of the new season's NCIS shows on CBS (Dish provided, not OTA). The new New York series and Origins will both do Auto Skip, but the original, now season 24 does not. What's stranger, when I do a search for NCIS, Origins and New York show the current recording and the next episode it will record, but the original show only shows the current recording and some other channel showing the very first episode of season one. It makes no sense. When I set up the timers, I was able to use search for Origins and New York, but for the original, I had to scroll ahead in the guide until last Tuesday when the show was airing. Then set the timer from there. You can see its timer type is DVR where the other two are Seek. What am I missing?
Thanks!
Thanks!
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372 views
Pub Member / Supporter
Cutting Edge
I created this thread on the original Edgecutter Cutting Edge Forums site. It's simply a place for those to review the latest software available for those using Windows 10 and Windows 11. To date it has received 112,559 views. I have been asked by staff to continue this thread here.
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To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.
For niche use cases, yes I agree. Kali for ethical hacking and security testing, and running a Cacti server for network monitoring are the two things I have experience in. Plus thousands and thousands of other things, but for every day use I just can't see it. The owner of the GMRS repeater that I pay to access is changing the Tx DPL tones tomorrow, while Chirp is available on Linux, the software to program my MXT500 is not.To each there own but I've found that Windows can't do much more than Linux can. Can't have everything.
I run Fedora and Ubuntu in VMWare, honestly I don't care much for the UI of either of them and I don't feel like spending days/weeks to customize the UI to make it look Windows-like when I could just use Windows. The cartoonish dock at the bottom of the screen reminds me of Apple products.
As I said above, and, FWIW, I run Win11 Pro and Arch on separate 250 GB NVME drives, using F8 to select which I boot to, with a 1TB SSD for storage, accessible to both OSs and a third formatted Nvme I want to use to learn Kali. It was much faster to setup Arch than it was to strip down Windows. Windows still takes much longer to boot.
Staff member
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Hard getting used to the new younger Gibbs, Mark Harmons son had the right look but I understand he didn't want the role.
Still I'm enjoying, pretty good job with Franks.
Still I'm enjoying, pretty good job with Franks.
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Pub Member / Supporter
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HERE TO HELP YOU!
Cutting Edge
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
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Pub Member / Supporter
Lifetime Supporter
Wasn't exactly sure where to post this. Just had a customer come in inquiring about internet. He has HughesNet and had heard good things about mine. He asked if we provided email addresses and it kinda caught me off guard. I said he should be able to keep whatever email he had been using....my sister in law is still using a BellSouth email addy and they haven't been around here for many years. He said he had gotten a letter from HughesNet stating that they had until Nov 16th to save, move, forward, whatever, their Hughesnet emails because they would lose them after that date.
I have never heard of a company simply mass-deleting email accounts (the customer still has his HughesNet service). From what I understand, in the past, the company who was ditching their email service simply sold the customer base to a company like Google.
Anyone else getting this letter. He said he would show it to me tomorrow when I go out there and set up his internet.
I have never heard of a company simply mass-deleting email accounts (the customer still has his HughesNet service). From what I understand, in the past, the company who was ditching their email service simply sold the customer base to a company like Google.
Anyone else getting this letter. He said he would show it to me tomorrow when I go out there and set up his internet.
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Still the same number of years, just more Sunsets…Wouldn't we then die of old age sooner?
Lifetime Supporter
Starting a thread klang !
After an amazing first 2 seasons and an 8 episode 3rd season still coming this year, season 4 has now been greenlit.
After an amazing first 2 seasons and an 8 episode 3rd season still coming this year, season 4 has now been greenlit.
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One episode into season 4 that dropped today...
Supporting Founder
Lifetime Supporter
This thread is a place to discuss the 4K events that appear on channel 540. We are getting, at this point, one college football game a week. Let's hope there is more coming.
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Hmmm, I'm not seeing anything like those events in our Hopper 3 guide for tonight or Saturday.
I went into the Tools menu and requested a Guide Update. I'll try looking at it after the update completes.
edit — I now have the 148-01 4KFox events for Saturday, but not anything for 148-02 or 148-03 which don't even show as available channels. I do have 148-04 4KUSA.
As I recall you have the Flex package. Do you sub to multisport? -02 is FS1 and -03 is ESPN. -01 is Fox so you would get that if you sub to locals.Hmmm, I'm not seeing anything like those events in our Hopper 3 guide for tonight or Saturday.
I went into the Tools menu and requested a Guide Update. I'll try looking at it after the update completes.
edit — I now have the 148-01 4KFox events for Saturday, but not anything for 148-02 or 148-03 which don't even show as available channels. I do have 148-04 4KUSA.