An F For C Is For Cookie
When voice fails.
My younger daughter loves the song C Is For Cookie. She’s never seen the video. She likely couldn’t pick out Cookie Monster in a line up, but the song has a certain energy to it. Cookie Monster’s passion towards cookies is so compelling that you can relate to him not wanting to talk about anything else starting with the letter C.
The prime time for music with the kids is in the car. This is also the time that I have the least ability to be the DJ. Fortunately, voice provides an excellent way to have handsfree interaction while driving. I’ve commented before about how impressed I’ve been with Google Assistant working on the S10 even while driving.
However, there are times when things are going smoothly and then they hit a wall. It’s happened a few times with Google Assistant while driving. Today, it was getting C Is For Cookie to play for an exhausted toddler. “OK Google” bam, wake word triggered. The lit up border is a great indication as the delay between trigger and Bluetooth sound would cause issues. “Play C Is For Cookie”…. bam! Speech-to-text was captured perfectly too. “OK, playing C is For Cookie from Spotify.” Bam! Bam! Bam! Intent and entities were properly identified. “Play” as the intent, “C Is For Cookie” as the entity (song title) and even the target integration was added done. Spotify launched! Bam!! OK, we’re so close…
Then nothing. The song that had been playing before continued to play. There was no C. There was no cookie. There was an angry toddler thinking I was playing some trick on her. I tried a second time and had the same experience. It was only when I was safely able to do so that I could find Spotify, press the search bar, enter the song title, and then press play that Cookie Monster made an appearance.
The issue with voice in car is that there is usually a limited ability to take over when things go wrong. The stakes are much higher. What’s probably needed more so than in other scenarios is a watchdog to ensure that the target integration actually followed through on the request. Maybe this is the next rev for Google Assistant?
