[dangero]

Alexa does not send data unless you say “Alexa”. This happens at a hardware level. This is confirmed by hardware schematics and by security researchers who have sifted through every piece of data that leaves the device.

What you are saying isn’t true. It cannot be.

[majewsky]

How reliable is the keyword detection? Last week we had this story about Apple where Siri heard the word "Siri" out of random noise like creaking furniture.

[DarwinMailApp]

My point exactly.

Just last night myself and my girlfriend were talking and Alexa decided to activate itself without us saying Alexa first.

[heavenlyblue]

Alexa rarely, but quite regularly activates from my TV in the same room.

[maximente]

the device can't magically detect the world Alexa - there is some lossy process of translating incoming noise into a vector that has some probability of being the hotword, and above this probability the device enables.

a more accurate thing to say would be:

Alexa does not send data unless, in the course of listening for the hotword Alexa, it interprets some noise or utterance to be close enough to Alexa to start sending data