What do you all think of Amazon Echo? I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of an always-on microphone

What do you all think of Amazon Echo? I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of an always-on microphone.

>I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of an always-on microphone.

Do you own a smartphone? I hope you don't....NSA is always listening :)

(((Big tech)))

I think it's shit made for retards.

When I leave the room my friend start to order retarded shit, then I come home to a amazon box at my door.

I want the nip version with the holographic waifu.

The more important question is, why would anyone want a Siri knockoff that was designed to facilitate you spending more money?

I'm wondering if Amazon contracted out to one of those shit manufacturers who don't even bother changing the default password on these things. The internet of things has been a gold mine for hackers.

Outside of the basic issues like understanding commands and functionality ... what the fuck is the point even if it would work perfectly? I don't want to talk to my computer and don't get why anyone else would want to.

ordered mine yesterday, incoming today.
will have more opinion but shit is future mate

>being an asshole
>friend

voice automation

This.

It's literally just a box that'll make it easier for you to buy shit on Amazon.

Why anyone would pay for something that is essentially a commercial is beyond me.
Are Americans really this addicted to buying things on Amazon? This is just like my American cartoons.

The echo isn't any more obtrusive than your smartphone. If your smartphone has siri or ok google or microsoft's one then it's always listening.
It's always running speech to text on everything you say, holding it forever and using it to advertise things to you.

The echo is actually a step down since it isn't always carried on your person.

Put a pin on voice orders. I still come home to memes on my to-do list.

It's bad news. It's always on, and figures out what you say by literally sending your voice to a remote server for analyzing.

It's conditioning people to accept surveillance, and they mask this conditioning by advertising it with cheery music and making the device say silly jokes.

It's really bizarre, feels like we're living in a dystopian novel or something

Random devices can bluetooth pair to them.

It's a Jewish trick

Seems unnecessary to me. Maybe I'm a Luddite but using a TV remote feels more intuitive than having to enunciate "Alexa, engage channel changer" or whatever

>The echo isn't any more obtrusive than your smartphone. If your smartphone has siri or ok google or microsoft's one then it's always listening.

Unless you turn off Siri. I don't know about those other ones. My iPhone doesn't even have the "Hey Siri" function as a possibility unless it's plugged into the charger. Apple only recently made full time Hey Siri available on the newer models. But even then, you can simply turn Siri off, and test it by seeing "Hey Siri" no longer works.

yes, relative on mine spends 10k a month on shit from amazon

Only after it recognizes its trigger word does it start sending your voice to Bezos. Run Wireshark on it if you want to be sure.

It's the ship's computer from Star Trek, but tied into Amazon. So it knows what kind of panties you've been looking at.

You can't guarantee that it isn't still listening though.
All you've done is turn off it responding to you.

>You can't guarantee that it isn't still listening though.

You can't guarantee that it is still listening though.

It's ok. I would never buy one myself but I've grown attached to it and found some usefulness from it after being given one as a gift several months back.

I've found that the key is to treat it more like a frontend and use another device (in my case I use my android tablet) for most of the serious scripting for automation tasks you want to set up. You can theoretically add new channels to the Alexa thing but I think it's way too much effort and easier to use the tools already available on Android. Anyway IFTTT works well enough to trigger a push notification into the tablet which takes things from there, so most of what I do besides simple tasks (set a timer, turn lights on/off, etc) is done that way.

Though I do wish I didn't have to say "trigger" every time, but it's not that bad I guess.

Oh, there's also a script out there where you can emulate a phillips hue wifi thing and do custom commands this way, but I think it only really works for PC/laptop/raspi/whatever and I don't have one handy to act as an always-on server to react to commands, so I found Android to be more convenient with just the push notifications to trigger stuff. Can't remember the name of it but you could find it pretty quick in google.

>I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of an always-on microphone.
and yet you have a phone...
really makes you think

I live alone and am quiet in general so I don't think the microphone is a big deal. Even when I listen to stuff I always use headphones. I would be more worried if it was watching me but listening I don't really care.

i don't understand why would i want one. all the security and creepiness aside, i don't want to say things.

also, am not a native english speaker so it would be weird.

what can it do? is it just ordering shit from amazon? i don't do that.

Was probably just a joke, I assume he paid him back for it after.