I can attest this does happen. When we had our echo dots, my little ones caught on when they heard me say Alexa and then a voice came and did what I asked. I tried to pass it off as obedience until they started shouting “ah lo x a” and she responded. Now it’s Hey Siri, and they go “hey you, hey see reeeeeeee”. It’s cute. I’ve created clones.
My nearly-two granddaughter has been heard uttering “OK Google” on occasion.
And if that doesn’t give my age away, when my kids were born I got my first cellphone — a lovely Nokia TDMA phone (long since forgotten the model but it was barely pocketable and no SMS as it wasn’t digital) — and I was carrying an (alphanumeric!) pager for work.
As someone who just had a baby at the start of January, ditto! And I’d love to hear any other ideas anyone has.
I confess we had no such cool automation for the delivery.
The only useful semi-baby-related automations I can think of that I’ve set up are:
A shortcut to select one or more photos (and a separate one for videos) and one or more of a few selected contacts (family members), add a message, and have a separate message be sent to each of them individually.
(A recent addition that I haven’t tested in practice yet) Shortcuts to wake the Apple TV, open Stan or Netflix on the TV, and show the remote control on my iPhone. For those breastfeeding sessions that go on a bit longer than you’re expecting but you forgot to pick up the Apple TV remote before you got stuck just out of reach…
I would love to hear any other ideas that anyone has to share.
Hands are to humans as ports are to new MacBooks. There’s not nearly enough.
We have had spotty success with getting Siri to turn on our Apple TV and to hit “play,” in case that shortcut doesn’t work out. (I.e., “Hey Siri, turn on the Apple TV” and “Hey Siri, play the Apple TV” both work… sometimes.)
I also really really wish the HomePod’s ambient sounds (i.e., white noise) could be activated in Shortcuts. The only way to trigger those scenes is by speaking at Siri, which you really don’t wanna do if baby’s just falling to sleep. Sadly, other options (e.g., Dark Noise) must be AirPlayed from another device.
I do have one other silly Shortcut to share: calculate baby’s age in whatever unit you’d desire.
(I’d love to edit it so that it gives the full age—i.e., 3 weeks, 2 days, 10 hours, 11 minutes, and 15 seconds—just for fun. For now it just reports the nearest integer.)
As someone whose son is looking at college I would suggest another shortcut, ideally one that displays a widget on your home screen:
Assuming they will leave for college around September 1st of their 18th year, create a widget which shows how many summers until they leave for college. Granted, it won’t change all that often, but seeing the number go from 18 to 17 to 16…to 10…to 5… well, let’s just say in 18 years you’ll probably be telling someone the Maxim Of Raising Kids:
“The days are long,
but the years are short.”
Also: yes, take lots of pictures, but also take lots of videos, especially once they begin to talk. You will treasure being able to hear their younger-self’s voices again in a way that I cannot put into words.
May your life, and theirs, be truly and fully blessed.
(Though it doesn’t do seconds.)
