Almond VS Killed by Google

The key feature I haven't seen any of these opensource projects implement is microphone response coordination: If you have multiple microphones and speakers, which one responds? My google home's are terrible at this: often one in another room responds, but at least it's only one. When I tried to run Genie (https://genie.stanford.edu/) I had multiple devices responding simultaneously. It was a disaster. For me,... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago

It's incredibly easy to do (caveat - at least if you're familiar with software dev already). Most thermostats are literally just digital thermometers that control a relay that turns the furnace/ac on and off. A simple arduino (or much cheaper IC) can easily do the same thing if you wire it in. And then on the software side... there's several large, open-source projects that exist in this space and provide nice api... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago

Because there's surely enough software available, right (i.e. susi.ai, Mycroft, Kalliope, DeepSpeech, leon, Jasper, Vosk or Genie)? Source: about 2 years ago

On the home assistants, it’s actually a cool solution. What they do is actually use a local ML algorithm to recognize the alert word (hey Google, Alexa, etc.) and only when they hear it do they stream the audio to their inference servers. There are things like almond which is entirely self hosted option I’d like to move to eventually. Source: about 2 years ago

I think a key feature of a smart speaker is the voice assistant. The only privacy aware I know of is Almond (AKA Genie) from Stanford[1]. I don't think there is any commercial speaker using Almond out there. However, Im betting you could DIY it. [1] https://genie.stanford.edu/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago

I was already starting to feel a little cornered in the whole Google ecosystem and a bit limited with stuff like backups, vendor lock in, etc. (and you always have the obvious hanging over your head) and ultimately, I think I just find the mental model of a SQL database more intuitive compared to a NoSQL database. So I thought to myself; "the longer I leave it, the harder it'll be to make the switch". - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago

Https://killedbygoogle.com/ Their reputation is deserved. Google domains was killed only last year! - Source: Hacker News / 23 days ago

And this isn't even the first time I've been burned by Google's decisions. If you're familiar at all with the Google Graveyard, you'll know that Google has a long history of killing off products and services that people have come to rely on. This has happened to me a number of times, in both a personal and professional capacity, and frankly it's getting old. - Source: dev.to / 30 days ago

> Those who trust the Google’s app to listen to podcasts have almost three months to export their subscriptions to another app. Alternative take: Those who trust any Google app or service to do anything should reconsider, or at the very least keep a permanent and up-to-date contingency plan for when Google inevitably discontinues it. Fooled you once, shame on Google. Fooled you 294 times, shame on you.... - Source: Hacker News / 30 days ago

This will be in the Google Graveyard https://killedbygoogle.com/ by mid-2026. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago