Omg we just got Alexa

[reddressinggown]

Tell me what fun things she does

This is freaky!

Honestly this thread has made me think, it's surprising how many people seem to genuinely be scared and think it's a real risk that the government or amazon or both are going to start monitoring them and recording them in their own homes.

I honestly think if this is your fear, then it's really best you don't have one, or really any form of Wi-fi enabled tech in your homes, there is no poInt in folks like me trying to convince you otherwise, it's your real fear and that's something I think you just need to live with.

here is a link that shows how to do it.

Oh it just lists the things Ive asked Alexa to do.... no recorded conversations then.....

Also I’ve not increased my purchasing because of Alexa as I have purposely not enabled it to do that. Purchases can only be made on my iPad, laptop or phone using a password. Alexa CAN add items to my Ocado trolley but they are only purchased once I log onto my account and confirm purchase.

Nice desperate goading there 🙄

Just worked out why Alexa would not play Radio 4 for me this morning - I was calling her Siri . . .

Say "Alexa, Play 20 Questions".
You dont need to activate a skill for that one.

if the government wished to monitor its citizens it would hardly need to use a sodden echo dot

That's exactly what they would do, because it's presented to people as a fun gadget and they don't see it as anything potentially sinister.

When I asked my reception kids what they'd done in the holidays one of them replied with 'Talked to Alexa.' So they do childminding too.

I have an echo dot and love it, but the volume is sooo low when playing songs (obviously I turn it up, but it doesn't make a huge difference).
Does anyone else find this with theirs? Too small a speaker, I guess.

I have mine Bluetooth connected to speakers, so I just tell it to connect to speaker and it does, the dot also has a audio jack in the back so you can physically connect. I don't think the dot has a great speaker due to size, do you have an external one you can connect to?

I'm particularly enamoured of mine at rhe moment as we live in a three story house, so when I'm on the ground floor, and my husband is at the top in his office working we can now drop in on one another and not have to phone or climb all those stairs, plus we can now simaltaenously play music though all the speakers downstairs when we are socialising and have guests over. It's very cool indeed.

We have 2 dots and an echo and the volume is good on all of them. The dots get loud enough that I have to speak pretty loudly to be heard over them.

Whitecottonsheets. You are wasting your time trying to get through to people on here. Let them live in their Alexa naive bubble. As I said it’s an open microphone to your house.

Alexa vs Scots accent (swearing. so if offended...)

Yes @Upstartcrow
Stop calling it she and bossing her around...what are you trying to teach the dc?
IT spies on you and keep recordings of your convo's. ITs recorded a murder recently and Google refusing to hand over the data from IT as, many believe, it will reveal that everything is recorded, without our consent, then everyone will, @UpstartCrow, throw it in a bucket of water, and put it outside.. Job definitely done. Good job

I honestly have enough problems in my life that I genuinely don’t give a fuck if Alexa is recording my banal conversation.

I’m sure I’ve read articles on smart meters spying on you as well as smart TVs and even toasters.
It seems inevitable that we’ll all have devices spying on us.

I’m Scottish and she has no issue understanding my accent

Does a firestick use Alexa in the same way, can you communicate with a dot for example.

I don’t understand why all of this can’t be true. Yes Alexa can listen, yes that could be used badly, yes most people, on balance, don’t care.

I don’t have a Tesco club card as I think my data is more valuable to them than the few points they’d give me (and don’t get me started on whatever the Sainsbury’s equivalent is that gives you 3p for every £10k you spend). Boots, however, can have my data for a min 4% discount.

My banks know pretty much everything about me as we’re quite easily profiled by how, where and when we spend money. I’m not about to give up my bank accounts.

I’m not on social media as I think they’re nosey parkers and it’s a drain of my life but my nosey parker iPhone is in my hands 4 hours a day (it tells me it’s monitoring me quite openly).

Yes I think civil liberties matter and donate to charities that protect them, yes I think trying to fight technological progress is like trying to replace cars with horses. And yes I think there’s nothing like technology to make most people think they’re more important to the world, and interesting to powers that be, than 1 divided by 7 billion.

Why are some posters getting so mad and aggressive? The value of living in a democracy is we can disagree, and we have the right choose what is the right balance for us as individuals. We can choose what we’re happy to give up and what we’re not based on what we’re giving up and what we’re getting out of it. There can be flexibility.

I'm curious though, what do the folks scared of it think the government is going to hear when monitoring everyone's homes that will be worth the billions and huge infrastructure required to do it?

What info do you think they can get that they can't get from your bank account, internet browsing, on line shopping, telephones, social media , even sky, etc?

In my house, I genuinely can't think of one thing. But clearly others can, but what is is they think the government would want to hear that would make them want to do this?

For me the head of mi5 and Teresa May can come live with me, and like billions of homes, they still aren't going to hear anything that's of interest to them.

Did you not follow any of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Bluntness ?

Did you not follow any of the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Doesn't that prove my point, that's about face book, and it wasn't the government, so again the question remains, what will the government get that will warrant this huge investment and infrastructure creation, by listening into our homes, that they can't get from our phones, Internet, bank accounts, online shopping, phones etc?

This thread has convinced me to get one. I was on the fence. DH is a bit tin-hat over it but he'll get over it when he sees the baby dancing. Can't wait!

We use ours for alarms, reminders. Linked calendar to it too. Also use it for weather and how to spell tricky words and of course music. My Ds likes to ask it " alexa what day is it?" Or " alexa what time is it?" And of course "Alexa play the tidy up song" and "Alexa play its raining tacos"

Without CA it’s likely we wouldn’t be facing Brexit.
It wasn’t orchestrated by the government but ordinary humans data fractured our government.

Cambridge Analytica certainly do not ‘prove your point’.

Cambridge Analytica certainly do not ‘prove your point’

Huh? My point was that if the government wanted data from us they could use our bank accounts, phone records, online shopping, internet history, social media etc and don't need to invest billions into listeningnto and managing the huge amount of data that comes from listening into everyone's home.

How exactly does an example where social media was harvested not prove my point?