Do you or would you have and Amazon Echo? I need advice please.

[letsjog]

We have been ever so kindly gifted one recently. It's the tall Echo one so a lovely speaker.

I have and I'm a frequent user of Amazon prime and the Fire TV stick. I saw one working at said friends house and they use it mainly to ask it to play music as the speaker is really nice and she mentioned she will probably use it for phone calls whilst she's cooking/busy with other things and they will set it up so it works with the tv too.

DP told me I'm more than welcome to but he won't use it. He's very wary of things like that and using his card for online purchases and so on in general.

I'm in two minds as I probably don't know enough about it.
I can see there's a button so you can choose to switch the voice activation/speaker off when you don't want to use it. I also saw that once you have the app on your phone you can opt out of Amazon using the voice recordings for research and in order to improve the devices understanding.

I don't know if I'm being paranoid about it for a good reason or due to DP. My FIL also saw it and went "oh oh oh! You don't want one of these in your home!"
But AIBU that a part of me thinks it's not that terrible? Everything runs on Google/Windows/Amazon in general. Phones/iPads etc often pop up with adverts for things you haven't even googled yet but barely mentioned out loud in passing to someone.

Would having an Alexa/Amazon Echo be such a terrible thing?

Does anyone have it or anyone against it?

Any insight or views would be very much appreciated.

We stayed in a holiday cottage with one and I really liked it.
I wouldn't get one though because it is listening all the time. Otherwise how would it know you said Alexa?
My DH works in the Internet of Things and he says no way would he ever have one

So, if we had a different government, and you had a differemt political view to the one you are "meant" to have and they heard you, then what? Just an example. In East Germany many people had listening devices put in their homes, now people are even prepared to pay to have them installed as they think the devices are fun.....

I have them all over the house. I'm disabled and it helps me keep my independence as I can do things I can't physically do with voice commands, like turning the lights on and off.

There is scaremongering with every new technology that comes out, so people scaremonger about alexa. It's almost all bollocks.

We have two, mainly used for the lights/heating and as a timer for cooking. MI5 have not kicked my door in and arrested me for calling boris a twat as yet.

I have the 'Dot'(Well actually 4 of 'em) and 5 light bulbs.

(Best thing about the dot is when I go to sleep I ask alexa to 'Open Ocean Sounds' and she plays the sound of waves breaking on a beach all night ... brilliant to help me deal with insomnia ).

They are a gadget really ... but have some uses

Well, I don't have a smart phone.
But my tablet is hardly listening to every single thing we say in this house. Not comparable.

No. We are agreed that we do not want to be spied on. Neither do I use a phone that can be tracked.

I hate that loyalty cards spy on us, that is enough.

It's not illegal to call Boris names, is it?

Smart phones cant listen if the mic is off. I hope grin

Oh dear @EmeraldShamrock , I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Smart phones can not only record you and send that info on when the microphone is off, it can also film whatever the cameras can see and send that information off as well.

It's a trade that we've made as a society, we've traded our privacy for convenience.

But as for Alexa listening in, I don't worry too much about it, yes it hears some stuff that I'd rather it didn't but I like it to put the kettle on or switch my lamp on so I ignore the more sinister side to it, same with my mobile. For the moment, I trust the corporations and governments to not use the data against me, if I was doing anything really illegal or was in a position that could be exploited I would drop them in a heartbeat.

But my tablet is hardly listening to every single thing we say in this house. Not comparable.

It may well be, depending on what is installed on it. I'm not being flippant, but if you feel really strongly about not wanting Alexa to be listening to you, you might want to get rid of the tablet too. Most modern technology has the ability to listen to you.

We are a google house, google home hub and two minis, one up, one down. I love them. The husband not so much. He's a paranoid so and so though.

We have 3. They are used for:-
News
Weather
Alarms
Music
Questions
Phone calls
Shopping list

I have one - I use it for music and to listen to DAB radio stations. I have to say I've been considering getting another.

@Bunglefromrainbow Bloody heck.
Not that my life is very interesting, its creepy.

I'm afraid I have some bad news for you. Smart phones can not only record you and send that info on when the microphone is off, it can also film whatever the cameras can see and send that information off as well.

@Bunglefromrainbow

Is this right? Can you explain please? How can it record you if the microphone is off? Or does the button on my phone that supposedly turns the mic on/off not actually do anything? I have always thought that smartphones recording your conversations only applied where the mic was always on, waiting to hear your command ("Hey Google", or whatever). My mic is always off. Are you saying that even with voice commands disabled, and the mic off, my smartphone could still be recording me? I have just tried to google this for an answer but can't find anything. Would be really interested to know more, because I thought I had this sorted.

Trillis I didn't pay full attention but I recall it was Siri who recorded when it wanted. The others are all capable though.

There is a mute button on Alexa and it does seem to work. Either that or she ignores me when the cat has sat on her a bit.

No. I find them creepy, always listening.

DH is also a tech geek and wouldn't have one in the house, interestingly his tech colleagues say the same... Makes me wonder why, they are not the tin foil hat sort of people, so if thy wouldn't there must be a good reason.

We love ours. We are always on prime anyway. We use it for music all the time

I live abroad and have 3 at the mo - I use them to turn my aircon on and off, lights on and off, play radio 4 and access mine and my partner's music collection.

I like Alexa and I'm really, really nice to her so that when skynet goes live she gives me a heads up.

I have a house full of them too 😁 The WiFi went down the other day and I couldn't even turn the light on 😂

Bungle I agree, at the moment we don't need to worry, but I think that if the time came that we did have to worry about government/large companies being a threatlots of people would be so dependent on these devices that getting rid of them would be virtually impossible, or at least very difficult.

Doesn't sound fun amylou8

I refuse to have one in the house, it is bad enough that mobile phones know what you are thinking all the time, it is too like big brother.

@TheQueef "Trillis I didn't pay full attention but I recall it was Siri who recorded when it wanted. The others are all capable though."

On my phone I have a toggle button that says "allow apps to use microphone". I can toggle this on or off. If on, I have a list of all the apps on my phone and I can toggle this permission for each app, individually. I have exactly the same options for the camera. I believed that if these were toggled to 'Off' then my mic/camera could not be activated.

I am now concerned that if what @Bunglefromrainbow says is correct, then my phone could still be listening/recording, even though I have taken precautions to try and make sure it doesn't. I am still using an old windows phone, btw. Will need to replace with android/iphone when windows stops support in a couple of months, so that will be another learning process.

Sorry if this is too much of a derail.