The device is always listening (unless you mute the mic), but that doesn't mean it's always sending a stream to Amazon. The device has to continuously process

The device is always listening (unless you mute the mic), but that doesn't mean it's always sending a stream to Amazon. The device has to continuously process audio to listen for the wake word (upon which it does start sending everything to amazon) and a few seconds of the buffer before that so you can just bark out commands rather than waiting for it to acknowledge you.