Google really had trouble with his accent when he requested ‘Paul Wella’ and got silence. He may have had better results had he enunciated his R’s and said ‘Paul Weller’. 
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With all the criticism to the value and capabilities of voice controlled devices, which may be true today, I still find it very useful to have some simple and well recognized commands.
Simple things like “tv on”, “mute tv”, controlling volume, skipping or tagging songs can be very helpful. For me it works well and it is useful.
Yes, it does take time to get used to it but once you do, it’s very nice that I can do it from anywhere in the room without need to have anything with me.
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I have zero interest in shouting at my appliances, and I have a strong interest in reducing the number of devices which engage in audio surveillance of our home.
A device’s proudly touting that it now incorporates voice control is always a good argument for trying to find an alternative device.
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I think many of us use it for utility purposes, just not to play music.
Alexa lights on is all I can be arsed to use it for and even then it decodes to forget which lights it’s attached to the activity. Useless things .
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A few years back I connected the ‘Christmas tree lights’ to a Smartthings mains switch which Alexa could control.
‘Alexa, turn on the Christmas Tree Lights’
Alexa responded ‘There is no light called Three’…
That experiment didn’t last long.
No way could I trust it to get the right album to play in the right zone.
I have just been back through the same with Google… Which one of these lights is the Christmas Lights lights plug.
Google : I cannot find Christmas tree .
Next day : Turning on Christmas Tree
Why…
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I agree with your sentiment entirely. More fun looking for Gil Evans not Bill Evans than waiting for Alexa to figure out what I want. Just enjoy the damn music.
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I use voice control for a lot of things. What you name things makes a huge difference. Calling out albums is a nightmare though. We had a light in the bay window aptly named “bay” A half dozen times saying alexa turn off bay and getting back. Unable to find Bin Laden, it stops being as funny.
My then 8 year old grabbed my phone and renamed it bacon.
Alexa turn on bacon has never failed.
FWIW, google keeps sending me these Google Home Mini pucks when I buy stuff, and they are FAR more responsive than the Amazon offerings. IMHO.
Music. Music.
Keeping it topical.
Voice control has its uses. We have two HomePods setup as a pair in the gym, and Siri works reasonably well–not perfect, but well enough–to play artists, songs, and albums through Apple Music. And with both Apple Music and Roon (streamed through an iPad to the HomePod pair), being able to just yell “Skip!,” “Volume Up!,” “and Stop!,” without having to fiddle with a device or computer, is invaluable.
Sure, in the listening room voice control would be far inferior to the regular Roon interface; I would never use it there. But in the gym, the kitchen, the dressing room, etc., voice control is awfully convenient and sometimes the difference between putting on a song and not. If Roon worked well enough with one of the major voice-control platforms, I’d dump Apple Music and use Roon in all of these places outside of our main audio systems.
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