[nostalgk]

Is there evidence that the big name home devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo actually collect your speech? I was under the impression it was just a small ARM board that uses recognition to execute commands. My mom has a Dot, but I am clueless.

[howard941]

https://winbuzzer.com/2018/12/20/amazon-accidentally-sent-pe...

[nostalgk]

Thanks, somehow never noticed this article. For the record, my parent comment isn't rhetorical or sarcastic, I've just entirely avoided the trend and am not the target market.

[rootusrootus]

The device itself has enough processing power to detect the wake word, everything you say after that goes to their datacenter to be processed.

[nostalgk]

Interesting. I guess I was fooled then when I took a cursory look at the specs (months ago), and only really noticed the first part. Definitely won't be buying into the trend myself.

Any ethical alternatives out there?

[sib]

Yes - it's been very clearly communicated since the launch of the Echo in 2014 that the speech goes to the cloud after the wake word is detected (which happens on device).