back to article Google aims disrupto-tronic ray at intercoms. Yes, intercoms

Vision of a connected speaker in every room to save shouting at the kids when dinner hits the table Google has taken on the might of the intercom industry with a device that makes shouting at your kids to get them to come to the dinner table redundant – for perhaps a couple of hundred dollars. The company did so on Tuesday …

  1. ratfox
    Devil

    the domestic intercom industry

    Man, that's another thousand-dollar industry that Google is destroying.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Can't see why anyone buy these instead of Amazon Echo. Particularly when Slurp is spyware as an industry...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I thought Slurp was MS, according to the same lame, tired old insults.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "I thought Slurp was MS"

          No, Slurp (also known as the Borg) has always historically been Google. A few have used that for MS since Win 10, but really they don't come close to Google in that regard!

          1. Richard Rae

            No, the BORG is Cisco - prolific acquirer of other companies

            1. TRT Silver badge

              Cisco, M$, Google...

              All merge into one.50 shades of slurp.

      2. jacksmith21006

        Have both an Echo since it came out in late 2014 and now several Google Homes. The two are actually very different and hard to see why people would still buy the Echo.

        The big difference is the Google Home supports natural language. So you can just talk naturally like you would talk to your wife. The Echo uses basically commands. So I was motivated to memorize the commands but my family was not. So our Echo my family referred to by my family as "my toy" versus everyone uses the Google Homes.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "So you can just talk naturally like you would talk to your wife."

          So you have to shout to be noticed and generally struggle to get a word in edgeways?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Man, that's another thousand-dollar industry that Google is destroying.

      Industries that stagnate will become disrupted sooner or later.

  2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    How quaint

    An excuse to have a spyware device in every room. How quaint.

    If it is communication you are after, a second hand 79xx series VOIP phone is 20£ on ebay. While in theory, you need a per phone license and a Call manager to run the setup in practice anyone who buys them for 20£ runs them using Asterisk(*). Add 50£ for a BananaPi (I would not want to run VOIP for more than one phone on a Razzie with its "entertaining" Ethernet) or a similar amount for a second hand NUC or a hackable "Thin" Client and you have a grand total of < 200 per household which you can actually use to communicate with the outside world as well.

    Compare that versus a 200£ spyware device in each room. Sorry, no contest.

    (*)I have ~10 of those - one off ebay, one bought 15 years ago for real money and the rest collected from skip diving at various places I worked for.

    1. AMBxx Silver badge

      Re: How quaint

      Alternatively, most DECT phones have the ability to page and make internal calls.

      1. Richard Jones 1
        WTF?

        Re: How quaint

        DECT well at least my DECT setup will also do an all stations broadcast and alert all attended phones to a call from a known number.

        Functions used for years are so old hat these days, they need something new and shiny to make them feel loved. - - - or do they?

        I do not need to re-buy functions I already have so why bother?

        1. AMBxx Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          something new and shiny

          Just tell the kids what time they're expected. If they don't turn up, they go hungry,

          1. FredTheBaddy

            Re: something new and shiny

            go hungry cos I spent all the money on dumb google toys!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How quaint

      @Voland.

      Or just use a baby monitor for a fraction of the cost and hassle.

      And we wonder why people think IT people are nerds.

    3. MacroRodent

      Re: How quaint

      Or simply use WhatsApp or similar on a normal smartphone, which everyone nowadays has anyway, in the pocket or otherwise nearby. Around my house, they all are joined to my local WLAN, so there is no charge for the messages. (Whether or not WhatsApp admins can read the utterly boring messages ("come up for dinner") and VOIP calls is irrelevant, but supposedly they are nowadays end-to-end encrypted).

  3. AMBxx Silver badge
    Big Brother

    OK Google

    Tell my wife to bring me a beer.

    I wonder how far up me she could push the little speaker.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OK Google

      Ask Google, they probably can work it out from your browsing history.

      1. HieronymusBloggs

        Re: OK Google

        "Ask Google, they probably can work it out from your browsing history."

        With this they can work it out from your talking history.

        1. TRT Silver badge

          Re: I wonder how far...

          Ask Lovsense.

    2. Warm Braw

      Re: OK Google

      There's probably some startup out there called Ober recruiting an army of supposedly-self-employed waiter/butlers (to be replaced with robots when possible) to listen in for such demands and be ready to whizz around to your house on roller skates or hoverboards to comply, with the USP that it eliminates domestic tension of this kind. And, in the febrile minds of investors, somehow make money from it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: OK Google

        be ready to whizz around to your house on roller skates or hoverboards

        Naked, I hope? All this tech and money making is bringing out my Tralanick-Weinstein complex.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So which company will end up as B'n'L?

    You would have to be really f*cking lazy not to get off your fat arse and go and talk to your kids upstairs.

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Congratulations, Google

    Great idea. What a wonderful family environment we are preparing ! I'm sure the next generation is not at all going to feel bereft of family connections when a speaker tells them to do things. I'm sure that educating your offspring via loudspeaker is not at all going to make them feel like they're in bootcamp and you're the master sergeant (who likes their master sergeant in bootcamp ?).

    You have kids. Talk to them. Interact with them. Show them you care.

    Otherwise they will leave you one day and never, ever think of calling you.

    1. John Lilburne

      Re: Congratulations, Google

      I'm sure that educating your offspring via loudspeaker is not at all going to make them feel like they're in bootcamp and you're the master sergeant (who likes their master sergeant in bootcamp ?).

      But the Kids listen to their device. One could use this as a child minding service. Just have some pre-recorded messages which it barks out from time to time

      Stop that.

      Play nice.

      Don't hit your [brother|sister].

      Be quiet.

      ...

      Leave the cat alone.

  6. Phil Kingston

    "Broadcast just leave my pj's on the landing, I'm trollied"

  7. rmason

    I'm ignoring the "is this a brilliant idea or not debate" (which is very valid) in this reply, but just as an aside;

    They're doing this because echo had this baked in since day 1. No other reason (other than to sell multiple devices per home).

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We used to have intercom at home from the attic to the basement. Four story house.

    It was really useful!

  9. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Does it drag them out of bed?

    If not, nobody's going to school.

    1. Swarthy
      Devil

      Re: Does it drag them out of bed?

      Rather than dragging, I prefer the idea of frozen marbles.

      Store marbles in the freezer, and pour them into the bed when needed. The kid can't roll away from them, and they don't get the sheets wet. And once the kid is up, you can collect the marbles and put 'em back in the freezer for the next time.

      1. ElectricRook
        Alert

        Re: Does it drag them out of bed?

        Mom used to let the dogs in from the cold, pull back my covers and point them to my bed. They'd jump on and rough-house, lick me--cold noses, muddy paws, claws and all. Can't take your frustrations out on the dogs.

  10. RyokuMas
    Devil

    Ok Google...

    ... here's all the data on our day-to-day routine at home, and when we're regularly out.

    Over my cold dead corpse.

  11. GruntyMcPugh Silver badge

    I just stand at the bottom of the stairs and shout 'BOING!' (I always wanted a dinner gong, but haven't got room in the hall.) That seems to do the trick.

  12. fedoraman
    Coat

    Vogon Guards will hate this

    It's like Shouting(TM), but upgraded!

    1. TheVogon

      Re: Vogon Guards will hate this

      "It's like Shouting(TM), but upgraded!"

      No it's still shouting - just with the added advantage that you can now read poetry at them from a distance.,..

  13. Arthur the cat Silver badge

    It's easier not having kids

    although that's not really an option for those who already have them.

  14. Oldish Git
    Devil

    Why would anyone want this?

    We have a ship's bell (from an old MTB) fixed to the wall at the foot of the stairs. The reaction to it is predictably Pavlovian, and I haven't needed to change any batteries since we bought it.

    You can also express frustration, etc. in the way you ring it, as in, "Get down here NOW, with CLEAN hands, or your dinner is going out on the back lawn for the starlings." They understand the code. Totally. They even look sheepish when they sit down.

    Can't imagine how Google can possibly improve on that.

  15. Omgwtfbbqtime

    I think there is a rule that there is always an XKCD that is relevant....

    Will this work with Google shopping?

  16. ThatOne Silver badge

    Thank god children will stop dying of starvation now we have a means to call them to dinner!

    Anyway you look at it, those "assistants" remain a solution in search of a problem, and while I know creative people have found uses for them, there is no really compelling reason for them to exist, so they need to advertise *any* potential use, no matter how insignificant or ridiculous.

  17. WolfFan Silver badge

    Kiwi fuming

    Which will do two things: anger New Zealanders, who wonder why they're excluded, and; give the domestic intercom industry beyond the anglosphere a warning it's in the sights of Google's disrupto-tronic innovation-ray.

    Kiwis have trained sheep they can use to carry messages.

    The domestic intercom industry in certain countries is safe: France is not going to allow Google to mangle the purity of the French language (stop laughing in the back, there) with their Google-translated merde. Germany fears that the things may, somehow, be nuclear powered. Russia will allow it in only if it broadcasts pix of the Shirtless One and his pony. (And hands over a slice of the profits.) And the government of the great People's Republic will object on the basis that it is the only entity allowed to spy on its citizens.

  18. ellisgl

    There's an app for that.

    CB on Mobile.

  19. ElectricRook
    Trollface

    Imagine a Bewolf Cluster of those

    Does it broadcast to your neighbors too?

    That could be fun . . . "Google broadcast It's time for sex."

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