An IMDB tomato
Member
Bloomberg's description of OpenAI's first piece of hardware finally makes the thing concrete, and I am not sure that helps. It is doughnut-shaped, roughly the size of a hockey puck, screen-free, meant to be carried from room to room or just left on whatever surface is handy. Voice is the main interface, but there is a camera and environmental sensors in there too, lights to show when it is listening or answering, and parts of the body physically move during interactions. Jony Ive and LoveFrom are involved in the design. Pricing has been floated around $300 to $400, with a release currently planned for 2027.
The reason I care on a home cinema forum is that this class of device always ends up sitting near the TV, and it is being pitched as something that plays media, answers questions and controls smart home gear. We have already lived through one round of that. My first-gen smart speakers are now expensive kitchen timers, and half the media control features they launched with were quietly removed when the services behind them changed.
A camera and always-on sensors in the room where I watch films is a harder sell than a microphone was, and OpenAI is asking a smart-display price for something with no display. The moving parts worry me more than the camera does, honestly, because that is a mechanism that will squeak within two years and cannot be firmware-patched.
What I would actually want is dull and specific: does it know my AVR is on the wrong input, and can it fix that without me finding a remote. That is a genuine problem in my room. A doughnut with expressions is not.
Anyone here still getting real use out of a voice assistant for AV control, or has it all collapsed back to the remote?
The reason I care on a home cinema forum is that this class of device always ends up sitting near the TV, and it is being pitched as something that plays media, answers questions and controls smart home gear. We have already lived through one round of that. My first-gen smart speakers are now expensive kitchen timers, and half the media control features they launched with were quietly removed when the services behind them changed.
A camera and always-on sensors in the room where I watch films is a harder sell than a microphone was, and OpenAI is asking a smart-display price for something with no display. The moving parts worry me more than the camera does, honestly, because that is a mechanism that will squeak within two years and cannot be firmware-patched.
What I would actually want is dull and specific: does it know my AVR is on the wrong input, and can it fix that without me finding a remote. That is a genuine problem in my room. A doughnut with expressions is not.
Anyone here still getting real use out of a voice assistant for AV control, or has it all collapsed back to the remote?
