There is an old saying in Persian: “No yogurt seller tells you my yogurt is rotten.” Well, that’s true most of the time. We, the Smart Home Automation Integrators, usually talk about our happy clients. They enjoyed our solution and had their life easier with our lighting or security automation system, whether it’s Control4 or Crestron or any other system.

In this blog post, I want to tell you the story of one of our unhappy clients! A well-off, handsome gentleman in his 60s retained us to improve his experience with his smart home gadgets in a luxurious house in Downtown Toronto. After our initial talks on the phone, I assumed I knew what he needed. He already possessed automated Somfy blinds, a few Sonos speakers, a Logitech Harmony universal remote, some giant Sony TVs, Lutron light switches, Nest Doorbell, Hikvision cameras, a few Google Mini devices and a few Alexa devices in different sizes.

I had worked with all of these devices and knew their capabilities. What he wanted from me was some tweaks and adjustments with his voice recognition devices to run his commands and get the results he wanted. He was entirely open to the budget I proposed to him. Seemed like an easy project. After two sessions in which I fixed his networking problems and updated all devices, we got to the primary purpose of Dana Smart Homes being hired as an integrator! He explained how hard it was for him to ask Google to turn his TV on to his favourite channel in the morning, ask Alexa to turn the blinds off, etc. I suggested eliminating one of the Voice Recognition devices. This would at least solve one problem; he chose Amazon Alexa, and I adjusted all gadgets to work with Amazon Alexa skills.

In the subsequent two sessions, my colleagues went to his place, and I got a progress report. One day I got a call from this friendly client, a polite and prestigious real estate lawyer, sounding very disappointed. He said you guys have been here four times, and “still nothing works.” I asked some questions and realized that the commands he gave to most devices did not work as he expected. This made him very frustrated. I set up an appointment to take the paper version of all written commands based on his need and renamed some of the rooms and gadgets to make the command shorter. I also explained the limitations of voice control with Alexa or Google and smart home gadgets. He tried some of the commands, and I felt this was it! He is happy now.

The next phone call I received had taut language. He was trying to be polite, but I could tell his temper was getting out of control. I tried to calm him down and told him that since he had all these gadgets, I didn’t propose a professionally installed Home Automation system, but now I want to propose that. It made sense that when there are so many devices and each of them is being controlled differently, the system was not harmonized enough. I programmed and installed a Crestron system for him, and part of the problem was immediately solved. I made custom scenarios, custom light switches and so on.

The last time he called, he shouted at me because his Alexa assistant could not play a song in his playlist through Crestron on Sonos. I started to remind him that there are limitations on how Alexa understands things, so I suggested a new command, but he hung up on me!

I felt sorry. I felt sorry for myself and our company when we put our best foot forward and tried many angles to accommodate this client with his luxurious smart home. I felt sorry that he paid so much and still was not satisfied with our quality of services. I escalated the issue, and my manager tried to get one more appointment with him to sort things out, but he did not answer any of his emails and voice calls.

Since that experience, we have tried to make the limitations of voice recognition devices clearer to our clients, and it works in the business sense when you use it like a disclaimer. But in the back of my mind, I never forgot that day. The day we could not satisfy a client. Whenever I heard an update about Alexa, Siri, Google and all other voice recognition devices, I looked for improvements. Of course, many of those two-line commands are now shorter and more accessible, thanks to better algorithms and data gathering. But I still did not get the confidence to entirely sell a Control4 or Crestron system without giving a speech about the limitations of Voice Recognition!

JOSH.AI is what changed this for my colleagues and me in Dana Smart Homes. We tested Josh and said WOW! This is what we needed all this time. Not only a more intelligent system but a system dedicated to smart home automation. If you’ve heard about Josh, you know that you can’t ask all questions that Google can answer from him. But Josh is what gives a real sense to a Voice-Driven Smart Home System.

Being a Control4 Authorized dealer, we confirmed that we could start selling Josh confidently, which, although similar to other Voice assistants, is a whole different animal.

Josh is far more intelligent when it comes to Smart Homes. It can recognize each family member and process very complicated or different commands with no problem. When tested with a Control4 system, you hardly find any part of your smart home that cannot be controlled with Josh.

Besides, Josh is very discreet about your voice and data. It does not listen to you to sell your targeted advertisement; it does not listen to you to make you buy more items from Amazon. Josh is there to make your smart home an even more brilliant experience. We will write more about Josh.AI in our following blogs, but for the time being, trust us, “Our yogurt is not rotten.”