patb86•24d agoProlific Poster

Wasted $350 on a 'disability friendly' smart home system that barely worked

I dropped $350 on a SmartLife hub and voice controls that claimed to be perfect for mobility issues. Turns out the voice recognition couldn't handle my slight speech slur (common with my condition), and the app was a nightmare to navigate with one hand. Customer support ghosted me after two calls. Has anyone else fallen for these overpriced gadgets that don't actually consider real disabilities?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.jade24d ago

Man I swear some of these companies just slap "accessible" on anything and call it a day. Got myself one of those voice controlled light switches that was supposed to work with my slightly shaky hands-took me 20 minutes just to get it to recognize "turn on bedroom light" without it thinking I said "tern on bedroom light" or just ignoring me completely. My neighbor's parrot can control it better than me, and he's not even trying to.

jessew8323d ago

Wait, the parrot actually works it better? That's both hilarious and kinda sad honestly. Voice control stuff is such a mess for people who actually need it. Companies rush to market with half-baked speech recognition and call it a win for accessibility. I've seen similar stuff with those "smart" thermostats that are supposed to help elderly folks. They end up more confused than before because the voice commands are super picky or the app has tiny buttons. Its like nobody actually tests these things with real users who have different needs. They just check a box and move on. The worst part is that the tech is there to make it work better. Google and Apple have decent speech recognition but these smaller companies use cheap APIs or train them on perfect speech samples. So if you've got any kind of speech impediment, accent, or just talk differently, you're out of luck. The parrot probably has clearer diction than those systems can handle.