Me: “Alexa, go to h*ll”

Alexa: “Sorry, I don’t know that one.”

When I read on Bluesky that Alexa “didn’t know that one” about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by right-wing extremists, I was appalled but not surprised. I verified it, trying many forms of the question. I even asked how many participants had been pardoned by the President. Amazon Alexa still didn’t know anything about it, yet could tell me who won the recent Superb Owl and give me the score.The reason I am not surprised is that I know that Bezos leans so far to the right that a light breeze could tip him over.

The only reason that I used the Amazon infrastructure was that I’ve always been a smart home geek, going back to the days of Wink hubs and Quirky + GE light bulbs, which were annoyingly quirky but so beautiful. When Wink faded into obscurity, Apple didn’t have a serious offering, so I settled for the Amazon system and a variety of mediocre bridges.

I cannot in good conscience go forward with Alexa. Yesterday, I got a HomePod from Apple and am awaiting a Hue Bridge and a half dozen light bulbs, which will be my trial setup. For now, I can turn on lights using an app and a mediocre bridge. I might even use the wall switches. My satisfaction of giving away something Amazon fully outweighs any temporary inconvenience.

If you want the three Echo Dots and an Echo Show, I won’t judge you. We all have our own pain points when it comes to politics; this is one of mine. I just hate to see anything useable going unused.