There may be an Amazon or Google smart speaker in your 21st-century home right now, in which case none of these things will need an explanation. If not, well it is a speaker, but one that does more than pump out your favourite tunes.
Need to make a shopping list? Well, you just ask it to include items as you think of them, call them out and it will remind you as you leave the house to do the shopping. This is all thanks to an artificial intelligence virtual assistant, a robot if you like, albeit one that doesn’t move.
Thanks to wireless connectivity, you can potentially tether it to other smart devices in your home if you have them, such as your telly, or even your heating system. Feeling a bit too warm? Well just tell the speaker. Want to change the TV channel or record a programme? You know what to do. You can even buy stuff online just by asking the speaker to do it for you.
Apparently, about 40m Americans have one of these in their homes — give the things a vote and we may even have an intelligent speaker as president one day.
I don’t have one — Amazon Echo devices became available in Ireland only in recent weeks and retailers don’t yet stock Google Home Mini — but someone who does told me theirs has become something of a family pet. They regularly ask it to bark like a dog and it does, presumably with the bonus that it won’t soil the carpet or try to hump your leg.
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But hang on a second, Fido, what about privacy? It seems some people have serious concerns about these devices, including the American Civil Liberties Union. The worry is that their always-on microphones could allow a vast amount of data about you and your family to be collected by corporations, law enforcement agencies or even hackers. Buy one of these and you may willingly allow yourself to be surveilled, in other words.
Apple, joining the party uncharacteristically late — it’s three years since the launch of Alexa — is about to launch its version, the Apple HomePod and, cleverly, the smart-tech giant is using concerns about security as a main corner of its marketing strategy, along with its claimed sound quality.
It will be “safer”, according to the company’s website, in terms of your personal data, as the microphone will come on only when you say the words “Hey, Siri” (Siri is the iOS personal assistant, as opposed to Alexa who is Amazon’s creation and the unimaginative Google, from Google).
Predictably, being Apple, a wealth of resources have gone into its design and it is sleeker and more elegant than its rivals. It will also be much more expensive, probably just under €400 by the time it gets to Ireland, compared with a little under €60 for the mini version of the Amazon Echo, the Echo Dot. I might just get a dog instead.