Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.
I think if you realize youve been cooking rice for about 7 minutes you will definitely think in terms of time LEFT and not at what time o’clock it should be ready. “Oh it’s been cooking for about 7 minutes then it needs another 8”
Ok I’ve tossed this comment around in my head a few times, and I can’t fathom why you bothered to make it. What the fuck is the difference between an alarm that goes off at 9:15 and a timer that goes off at 9:15?
Timer counts down time and can be paused; an alarm goes off at particular time and can only be snoozed after it goes off. Alarms take into account timezones and time changes, timers are absolute and independent of “clock” time
My wife cannot set timers on our Nest Hub. It just doesn’t understand her command. I’ll say the exact same sentence right after and it’ll work. We did reset her voice profile, remove/add her back, checked all settings possible, nothing worked. Such a decent piece of hardware (speakers are actually pretty good, and the screen is decent and bright) that’s ruined by shitty software. It’s been unplugged for the last month and I didn’t even care. It’s going on Marketplace next week lol
I would have thought the same thing if it wasn’t that it used to work just fine, then one day it stopped working for her. One day, she tried setting alarms for dinner like she did every day before that, and it refused to comply, going “I don’t understand” or something like that.
This broke for me a few months ago. It just randomly… won’t start, despite saying otherwise.
“Set a timer that goes off at 9:15 am”
*It proceeds to lecture me on the difference between an alarm and a timer, also, sets neither. *
Ah, I think the wording confuses it.
Timers are set for a duration. Alarms are set for a time. Which makes sense btw, you can’t set an egg timer to 9:15 either, you set it for, say, 21 minutes (if it’s 8:54 right now). And you don’t set your alarm clock for “in 6 hours”, you set it for 8:00.
It’s a bit arbitrary, but this is exactly where I feel models such as Gemini or ChatGPT can actually improve things, because they can more readily leap from the keyword “timer” expecting a duration to that you actually meant “alarm” from the rest of the input, you just said timer instead.
Yeah I understand, I got the lecture from Siri.
The point is all timers are alarms, the end result of a timer going off is an alarm. If I’m cooking and I realize the rice has been on for about 7 minutes so it should finish up at 9:15, then that’s how I’m thinking about it, not doing the math to figure out what the specific number of minutes is between now and 9:15. That’s the goddamned robot’s job.
I think if you realize youve been cooking rice for about 7 minutes you will definitely think in terms of time LEFT and not at what time o’clock it should be ready. “Oh it’s been cooking for about 7 minutes then it needs another 8”
Ok google, make it stop
lol
Well they are different, so why would it set one if you didn’t specify what do you mean exactly
Ok I’ve tossed this comment around in my head a few times, and I can’t fathom why you bothered to make it. What the fuck is the difference between an alarm that goes off at 9:15 and a timer that goes off at 9:15?
Timer counts down time and can be paused; an alarm goes off at particular time and can only be snoozed after it goes off. Alarms take into account timezones and time changes, timers are absolute and independent of “clock” time
Yeah in theory but not if I tell it when to set the alarm off. It’s just useless pedantry. Like your virtual assistant is a redditor or something
The setup.
My wife cannot set timers on our Nest Hub. It just doesn’t understand her command. I’ll say the exact same sentence right after and it’ll work. We did reset her voice profile, remove/add her back, checked all settings possible, nothing worked. Such a decent piece of hardware (speakers are actually pretty good, and the screen is decent and bright) that’s ruined by shitty software. It’s been unplugged for the last month and I didn’t even care. It’s going on Marketplace next week lol
My wife has similar issues. I think it was just trained on male voices.
I would have thought the same thing if it wasn’t that it used to work just fine, then one day it stopped working for her. One day, she tried setting alarms for dinner like she did every day before that, and it refused to comply, going “I don’t understand” or something like that.
I think this happened to me once when the assistant was trying to use another clock app than the native one.