[Tyrannosaurs]

Doing 2 on a smartphone feels like it would be something which would start draining battery really quick which would be a giveaway.

With this it's running on mains, it could upload in the middle of the night when it would probably be undetected

Plus, why do one or the other? Sure you want to get someone's phone but why not another device too?

[bryanlarsen]

Modern smartphones are always listening for "siri" or "ok google", and are regularly sending keep-alive packets, so I doubt that the battery drain for spying would be significantly noticeable, if done properly.

> why do one or the other?

Because resources are limited, even at government agencies. Effort spent hacking a device that will probably sell in the tens of thousands when they could be targeting devices that sell in the hundreds of millions just seems silly.

[Tyrannosaurs]

I agree that hacking the Echo might be pointless because it won't sell many is reasonable but that's a somewhat different argument.

Still, personally if I had concerns about privacy and secrecy I'd be looking to limit the number of devices in my own home which had an always active microphone.