Everyone Should Be Terrified of Amazon’s Alexa Microwave

Megalith

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Plenty of Alexa fans opened their wallets this week after Amazon unveiled a range of updated and brand-new devices. One of the more peculiar and unexpected releases is an AmazonBasics microwave, which happens to offer voice functionality when paired with an Alexa device. While some would question why anyone would need such a feature, Wired points out this is just part of Amazon’s clever plan to seed Alexa into any and every home appliance.

The sheer number of Alexa developments announced this week felt almost like Amazon had loaded a bunch of Alexas into a gun and fired it at a wall – but don’t be fooled. There is method here. And now Amazon is making its own hardware it can partner with installation companies and home builders to put Alexa devices in homes before you even move in.
 
Lacks the ability to scan/identify which food you are about to cook, sync up with your health app, and deny your request to cook junk food based on your weight. Beware, it is coming though, and your employer paid health insurance will require it.
 
Lacks the ability to scan/identify which food you are about to cook, sync up with your health app, and deny your request to cook junk food based on your weight. Beware, it is coming though, and your employer paid health insurance will require it.

And I'll heat up my spaghetti with extra meat sauce in the oven instead. Take that cyborg overlords!
 
Don't worry guys it is alexa enabled, but does not itself have alexa built in. It is just any other microwave if you don't pair it with an alexa device.

The TV I just bought is alexa-enabled too. Since I don't own nor plan to own an alexa device the feature is pretty well wasted on me. Good thing the TV has other redeeming qualities.
 
Meh microwave is pretty useless for me, but I'd love an alexa - enabled gas oven / range. I really only use my echo to check the weather in the morning and set timers while cooking (and the occasional measurement conversion for a recipe) and having the ability to tell an oven what temp I want for how long would be super handy. All the tinfoil hat people make me laugh. No shit they're spying on everything I say, just like they're spying on everything you say (and where you go) if you own a cellphone. The cat's been out of the bag for a LONG time, you might as well get some utility out of it.
 
oooooooh ... AmazonBasics Toilet with Bidet.

"Alexa, call my broker and then start washing my ass .... Yeah, Tom? I was just sitting here getting my ass washed and I thought of you."
 
The dark cyberpunk future is happening now.
Both Apple and Amazon are the first two true megacorporations on the planet, and this is at least how Amazon begins its control over ever facet of society, government, and other "smaller" corporations to bend to their will.

Crazy to think that they started as an online book store in the 1990s... :borg:
 
The dark cyberpunk future is happening now.
Both Apple and Amazon are the first two true megacorporations on the planet, and this is at least how Amazon begins its control over ever facet of society, government, and other "smaller" corporations to bend to their will.

Crazy to think that they started as an online book store in the 1990s... :borg:

Well, if it is coming, I can't wait for those skimpy plastic outfits. Gigitty! :D
 
Don't worry guys it is alexa enabled, but does not itself have alexa built in. It is just any other microwave if you don't pair it with an alexa device.

The TV I just bought is alexa-enabled too. Since I don't own nor plan to own an alexa device the feature is pretty well wasted on me. Good thing the TV has other redeeming qualities.

That will work until the neighbor responds yes to her Alexa gizmo's question, "Do you want to pair with the TV?" and suddenly, yours has been assimilated.
 
Crazy to think that [Amazon] started as an online book store in the 1990s... :borg:

Bezos never thought of Amazon as only a book store - he just chose books as his starting point because it was terrible hole in the retail market. While there were plenty of retail bookstores, none of the retail stores could stock all the titles, none of the stores made sure they had all the titles within a series that they did stock, none of them properly cross-referenced the genres or offered any system for comparative shopping, and none of them had user reviews or book clubs formed from the people who purchased within a genre. Bezos was pretty clever to choose books as his first target, it was a high-markup item that was easily warehoused, easily shipped, and easily cross-shipped, and books were in desperate need of computerized cataloging.

A coworker took a job with Amazon when Amazon was barely a year old, and he started working on the apparel schemas. That was three years before Amazon started selling clothes.
 
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I wonder if Amazon is just doing this to see what the reaction is, or just to draw attention?
 
Meh microwave is pretty useless for me, but I'd love an alexa - enabled gas oven / range. I really only use my echo to check the weather in the morning and set timers while cooking (and the occasional measurement conversion for a recipe) and having the ability to tell an oven what temp I want for how long would be super handy. All the tinfoil hat people make me laugh. No shit they're spying on everything I say, just like they're spying on everything you say (and where you go) if you own a cellphone. The cat's been out of the bag for a LONG time, you might as well get some utility out of it.

The telco may be tracking me, but I doubt google is tracking my cell phone. I have a cell phone but really just for emergency purposes. When I get home at night I turn it off and usually leave it in my motorcycle jacket. Since, in general, I don't like phones, I use a pay-as-you-go plan and I disable cellular data and WIFI. I have no desire to peruse the web on a small screen when I've got dual large screen monitors on my work computer and on my home computers. My yearly cost for my cell phone service is probably close to most peoples monthly cost ($70 last year). I would have stayed with a flip phone except that I wanted a reasonable scientific/programmers calculator app and a smart phone was just as cheap ($29 for a Moto E, gen 1).

In regards to Alexa, it's not welcome in my house.
 
And I'll heat up my spaghetti with extra meat sauce in the oven instead. Take that cyborg overlords!
DUDE! Get a frying pan, a little olive oil and fry the leftover spaghetti. Put a little char on it and it AWESOME!
 
DUDE! Get a frying pan, a little olive oil and fry the leftover spaghetti. Put a little char on it and it AWESOME!

Werd! Fried leftover spaghetti is AWESOME.

My washer died over the weekend, now I need a new one. All of the new ones use some crazy ass computerized timer system and half of them can notify you of status through an app. NO NO NO. The simple electromechanical timer is the only thing that HASN'T failed on the old one.Oh, sorry, that combination of cycles doesn't work, it's a firmware bug. You just need to buy a new $300 CPU board and it will be fine... NO NO and HELL NO. It's bad enough that a single failed RESISTOR on the motor board means replacing the entire, otherwise good, motor. Excess e-waste? who cares!
 
That will work until the neighbor responds yes to her Alexa gizmo's question, "Do you want to pair with the TV?" and suddenly, yours has been assimilated.

He could have done like I did on my new TV: "Oh, you want me to agree to you recording everything I do on my TV in order to sell me ads? How about I don't agree ot these terms of service?"

"But you won't be able to use all the apps we built in!!"

"I have an HTPC and a PS4. I don'e need your apps. TOS declined."

So my TV complains that I can't use it's apps, I remove it from the wifi and it becomes... a TV with all the same capabilities through other means without yet another company selling my habits.
 
I keep my Echo Dot under my TV so the interweb spies can listen to episodes of American Horror Story. I also talk a lot of nonsense to keep things interesting. I figure the best way to combat the ever increasing loss of digital privacy is garbage in, garbage out.
 
what voice commands can you do with a microwave?? i mean, the only thing they do is you open it.. place item in it, hit the time.. done
 
This is just more voice control where it's not needed/wanted. At the bottom of the article is something scarier... Amazon is working on a ROBOT. Alexa, please don't murder me!

"What‘s next for Amazon in the smart home? According to Bloomberg, the big secret is it’s working on a home robot. "
 
I can enter commands faster than I can say them. Plus I actually have to put the food in the microwave in the first place. This entire concept is fail. I have one "smart" device in my house and that is my Nest thermostat. I have zero need for anything else.
 
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