Alexa, bring me a Festool...

[Tinker]

The Boss and I were at our son's house for Easter dinner. After dinner, we were sitting around the living room and the subject of music came up. All the music I can hear are crickets, katydids and sometimes cicadas, so I have no idea how the subject came up. My wife is a fan of Wagner and she was telling a little of history of the German composer.  Finally, my son asked, "Would you like to hear some Wagner music, Mom?"

"I would love it." She is always ready to hear music from any of the old German composers and has many of their biographies committed to memory.

My son said, loud and clear, "Elizabeth, play some Wagner."  With that, the record player came on, went thru the motions to change a record (Hey, I grew up with the ancient 78's. I still have a cabinet my dad built for the old handcrank job with the horn on top. I don't have any idea what all this modern stuff is called. Y'all get the idea, I am sure) Suddenly, we were listening to Wagner.

I just figured my son had the whole thing set up and had a remote in his pocket.  I just came across this thread that explains all to me. I don't think I care for it. My wife would have the whole thing set up in our house so I would have to listen to her. My crickets and katydids would no longer be an excuse.  Ugh!

 

[demographic]

Same here. Especially now it's becomming clearer these big internet companies use everything they can to spy on you.

That.
Huge issues around loss of privacy, them selling your data to other companies and so on, you couldnt pay me to have one.

 

[AlexThePalex]

As far as listening all the time, it is listening for the "wake word", Alexa

Steve

you could be in trouble if your spouse was named "Alexa"

Hmm, I wonder what would happen if you were called Alex. [scratch chin]

As far as listening all the time, it listens ALL the time. Only when it hears the word Alexa it reacts to you. But in the mean time, everything you say is send back to headquarters and sorted for keywords. I can't believe you would allow that in your house just to save a few seconds on making a phone call and other trivial tasks.

I'd love to have a thing like in Star Trek when they say "Computer, do this, do that", but I'd like the computer to work for me, and not for somebody else.

 

[Kevin D.]

I just bought two more of them.  We don't use them much, but so far so good.  Works nice with the Ring video doorbell I installed last summer.

And there is a way to change it's 'wake-up' name from Alexa to something of your choosing.  I just haven't come up with a name yet.

 

[greg mann]

The only feature that would tempt me is if Alexa could let the dogs in and out.

 

[Bob D.]

The only feature that would tempt me is if Alexa could let the dogs in and out.

That is possible with HA and a connected pet door.

 

[mwolczko]

I recently hooked up a Dot in my shop to my dust collector.

 

[Gregor]

I’m looking for tips, tricks and add-ones.

Unplug, recycle, don't get any new alleged 'smart speaker' (as it's the opposit of both).

 

[vkumar]

I use these Amazon devices for home automation, news weather and music. I dont understand what the fears are of Amazon listening all the time. At the  most they will sell you more stuff you dont need. 

Unlike Google and Facebook that sell your  information to others with or without your permission. Amazon merely sells you more stuff inside their own website. I am ok with that. Of course your assessment may be different.

 

[Bob D.]

I recently hooked up a Dot in my shop to my dust collector.

I did the same for my room and filter. Unfortunately you can't tell Alexa to turn something on for a minutes or turn off after x minutes. I guess the safety concerns of those actions are why those commands are not available.

So I can turn it on or off verbally only. However it is possible to program a smart plug to turn off after it has been on for a number of minutes.

 

[Gregor]

To put

I dont understand what the fears are of Amazon listening all the time.
At the most they will sell you more stuff you dont need.

into perspective, these two sentences are logically equivalent with

I don't understand how it works and I don't care about someone being able to make me act against my own interests.

Does someone here really believe any someone, when already able to make you buy stuff you don't need, would stop there?

 

[vkumar]

Just for the record Amazon is not in the business of selling page views to anyone unlike Google or facebook or most other free to view websites.
You have your opinion and I have mine, no need to be condescending.

 

[AlexThePalex]

Amazon, started with books, now sells almost everything. I would not be suprised if the next things you find are a rocket to Mars, a battlecruiser, and your life story.

 

[Jesse Cloud]

I did an experiment with Alexa's listening behavior and the consequence.  For about a week I would say something like "I need a new drill" or "I wish I knew where to buy a drill" also "I wonder what a drill costs" a couple of times a day in front of Alexa when it was just in listening mode.  I expected to see ads for drills when I logged on to Amazon or at least an email mentioning a great deal on a drill.  Nothing happened.

Just an anecdote, but I found it interesting.

 

[mwolczko]

I’m hoping that after learning to listen to my planer and table saw Alexa will know when the blade gets dull and tell me to order a new one.

 

[Gregor]

Just for the record Amazon is not in the business of selling page views to anyone unlike Google or facebook or most other free to view websites.

Amazon (as google and basically everyone else in capitalism) is in the business of parting your from your money, employing whatever means the most effective from a cost/gain consideration as long as these just dosn't cross the line where the owners and/or top-level execs would no longer be able to weasel out of being lined up against a wall for their crimes against humanity. And the current hot thing is big data combined with 'AI' which allows to profile humans in a way that makes their reactions deterministic enough on a statistical scale that the results can be used to selectively influence on an individual basis in a highly predictable way.

We're being subjected to robots that are constantly watching our behaviour, with the goal to figure out how to push what of our buttons to make us behave as intended. And for that technology it's irrelevant if the goal is to push toward buying more (or higher markup) items, to vote for the ones that give the better tax breaks for the peer group of the robot owners (= the super-rich) or to support killing some another several hundred of thousands of humans (aka. the next 'peace'-intervention of $yourcountry).

The problem with that technology is that it works and it works better the more data it was able to digest, the more interactions it was able to observe, the more A/B test it is allowed to run.

You have your opinion and I have mine, no need to be condescending.

Sorry, intention wasn't to belittle you - I just see the need to point out the implication of what you said in words clear enough to make the problem visible, in the hope that more people realize that not knowing how that stuff works while hoping for the best isn't a good plan to end up in a future that's fun to be in. You shouldn't allow this technology in your life, in case your actually care for it, as this technology isn't made to serve you (but others who perceive you as a resource to be exploited) and is openly aiming at destroying (or at least subverting, as much as possible) your free will*.

YMMV.

*) whatever free will may actually be and regardless of it actually existing - but even in case we as humans would be fully deterministric in regard of our reactions to external stimuli we likely still wouldn't like the idea of someone knowing how to remote-control us.

 

[HarveyWildes]

I’m hoping that after learning to listen to my planer and table saw Alexa will know when the blade gets dull and tell me to order a new one.

Why not just get Alexa to install them for you as well?  I don't think I ever installed a set of blades as precisely as the factory - it would have been nice to have expert installation along with shiny new edges.  I'm waiting for the day when it will put a wet-sanded oil finish on my projects for me.  I just can't get my wife to do that - I've tried.

I tried changing the wake-up keyword from "Alexa" to "Computer" so I could sound like Star Trek, but I quickly realized that "computer" is a word we use much too frequently for that to work.

 

[Cypren]

As a preface to what I’m about to say, I’m a novice woodworker, but have been a software engineer for over twenty years; these devices are squarely in my area of expertise.

The Alexa device has two modes of “listening” to you. One of them is indeed always on: this one is controlled by a specialized microprocessor on the device itself and is listening for someone to say “Alexa” (by default) or the keyword you’ve chosen to wake the device. The other mode is listening to what comes after the wake word, sending that to Amazon’s servers, and processing it to understand what you said.

When the device is operating in the first mode, it’s not sending any data to Amazon. This can be (and has been) verified with tools that can monitor all network traffic from it. So fears that it’s listening and recording everything you say are vastly overblown; it’s provably not doing that. (And it’s not in Amazon’s interest to do that; it would be phenomenally expensive compared to the potential value.)

What does happen, however, is that sometimes the onboard processor makes a mistake and thinks you’ve said “Alexa” when you’ve said something else. At that point, it will start transmitting, but the servers on the other end (which are a lot “smarter”) will analyze what you said and discard it as a false alert. In that case, a recording has been sent to Amazon, and they often do keep these for analysis, because it helps the engineers working on the product figure out how to prevent it from happening in the future.

One nice thing about most of the Alexa devices is that they have a blue light-up ring around the top that glows when they’re transmitting to Amazon. If it’s not glowing, what you’re saying isn’t being recorded anywhere.

But with all that said, I have Alexa units all over my house, but not in the bedroom.

 

[Gregor]

... have been a software engineer for over twenty years; these devices are squarely in my area of expertise.

About the same here.

... Alexa ...

I agree with the general assessment of the functionality. The technical problem I see is that these are black boxes, with the ability to remote-update, sitting inside your network... which is a no-no for me, always has been, even before this guy. The non-technical problem is these 'smart speakers' (which they arn't, they're in the first place listening devices) leak too much of your life to their corporate masters and given the improvements in big data and deep learning my view is that being predictable to machines isn't what I want, ever. YMMV.

But with all that said, I have Alexa units all over my house, but not in the bedroom.

Did you skip the bedroom because blue led light is bad for your sleep cycle or are there other reasons?

 

[Cypren]

The technical problem I see is that these are black boxes, with the ability to remote-update, sitting inside your network... which is a no-no for me, always has been, even before this guy.

Fair, but note that if you use a cell phone or laptop that isn't completely open-source, including all hardware, then the same is true. I'm not sure if you're familiar with James Mickens, but I really enjoyed his lecture on computer security, where he describes dividing potential threats into "Mossad" and "not-Mossad". If a technologically advanced nation-state wants to get into your business, they are going to get into your business. There is literally nothing you can do as a private individual to stop them unless you have the resources of Bill Gates and the paranoia to devote a significant chunk of it to ensuring your privacy. (And maybe not even then.) Concerns about firmware being surreptitiously updated to become permanent listening devices fall into this class in my view; that kind of thing can't be done on a widespread scale without being detected, so it's really only a threat if it's done to a single targeted individual.

The non-technical problem is these 'smart speakers' (which they arn't, they're in the first place listening devices) leak too much of your life to their corporate masters and given the improvements in big data and deep learning my view is that being predictable to machines isn't what I want, ever. YMMV.

Everyone's tolerance for this is going to be different, but I don't think most people are aware of how much information they're already giving away by having a debit or credit card, or using a web browser with Javascript turned on. If you're doing either of these two things, your consumer habits have probably already been modeled to a level far exceeding what an audio tap picking up random conversations could do.

One thing that worries me when people raise privacy concerns is that they often seem to fixate on theoretical, low-risk violations of privacy like smart speakers while completely ignoring the primary vectors that data-harvesting operations actually use to build comprehensive profiles. Sometimes I almost wonder if this isn't the point, a sort of collective sleight-of-hand misdirection trick on the part of corporate America.

Did you skip the bedroom because blue led light is bad for your sleep cycle or are there other reasons?

I like having one room in the house where I know that whatever I say is going to be private and won't be leaked to someone else, even by accident. And it's not I room I spend a lot of time in while conscious.