A day with Sonora, from someone who lives with one

I've had a Sonora on my kitchen counter for four months now. Not a prototype on a test bench, the real thing, in my actual home, getting in the way of my actual mornings.

People ask what it's like to live with. So here's a normal day, the boring kind, which is exactly the point.

Morning

I don't reach for my phone first thing anymore. I make coffee, and while it brews I just ask. What's the day look like. Sonora reads my calendar, the weather, the one thing I flagged last night so I wouldn't forget it.

It's a small change that turned out to matter:

• No screen glare before I'm fully awake

• No falling into email before I've had coffee

• The day arrives as a voice, not a feed

I didn't expect to care about this. I care about it a lot.

Through the day

This is where it earns its place. Not big moments, just the small stuff that used to pile up:

• "Remind me to call the landlord at two"

• "Add olive oil and stamps to the list"

• "Set a timer for the pasta"

• "What's twelve percent of ninety"

I say these from across the room, hands full, not looking at anything. Half the time I forget I'm talking to a device at all. That's the highest compliment I can give it.

The call thing

I screen calls now without screening calls. When my phone rings and I'm cooking, Sonora can pick up, find out who it is and what they want, and tell me. The robocalls never reach me. The real ones do, with context, so I decide whether to stop what I'm doing.

It's a strange kind of relief, not jumping every time the phone buzzes.

Evening

By the end of the day it mostly goes quiet, which is the part I didn't anticipate liking. It's not pinging me. It's not glowing for attention. It sets the morning alarm, dims when the room dims, and otherwise stays out of the way.

A few honest notes from four months in:

• It's not magic. Sometimes it mishears me, and I say it again.

• The voice you pick matters more than you'd think. I changed mine twice before it felt right.

• The thing I use most isn't fancy. It's timers and reminders. The boring stuff is the killer feature.

Who it's actually for

I work on this device, so take this with that in mind. But the person I think about most isn't a tech person. It's my mom, who never set up the smart speaker we bought her because the app defeated her on step one.

Sonora is for her. For the people who want the help without the homework. You talk to it, it talks back, and there's nothing to learn.

That's the day. Unremarkable, on purpose. The best thing I can say about living with Sonora is that, most of the time, I don't think about it at all.