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Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked?
Last night around 4am, the Echo in my bedroom decided to tell me that "Electronics Plus in San Rafael is open at 9am". Then it did it again about five minutes later. The bedroom was, of course, silent at 4am.
A humorous but annoying bug. Just wondering if others have experienced this, and how often.
I looked my Alexa query list, and that query was too old to appear (though I'm reasonably sure I've asked her in the past. Coincidentally [I hope..] I asked Google home only a few days ago for that exact information!)
- akhilcacharya 9y agoThat has definitely not happened to me, but I can't wait until a horror film decides to use a possessed Echo as a plot device.
- n1000 9y agoyour wait is over: https://youtu.be/J9gUIhkzNDk https://youtu.be/J9gUIhkzNDk @OP: Better don‘t watch ;)
- leonroy 9y agoheheh, that was well worth watching! There was an awful case about three years ago where some guy hacked into a baby video monitor and started yelling at the 10 month old child: http://time.com/79170/stranger-hacks-into-baby-monitor-and-screams-at-child/ http://time.com/79170/stranger-hacks-into-baby-monitor-and-s... I think as IoT spreads we're going to be seeing some real life horror stories unfortunately. These devices are just barely secure at the best of times and I don't think their network stacks are anywhere near tight enough.
- davelnewton 9y agoOh, sorry, that was me. ("Of course" it was silent at 4am?)
- geoah 9y agoYap, done it twice the past week while we were talking Greek.
- anilr 9y agoDoes the Alexa app have a recording of what triggered her? The app used to be very good at displaying most, if not all, interactions with Alexa. I find now that sadly many interactions are now missing. Oh, and there's also this: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16265906/ultrasound-hack-siri-alexa-google https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16265906/ultrasound-hack-s...
- liberal_098 9y agoVoice recognition systems can be activated without saying a word by sending commands at very high frequencies (ultrasound). It is because of the ability of microphones to detect these frequencies. This could be used for jokes when an assistant like Alexa will say something while nobody has heard anything. Or by hackers, for example, to unlock a phone. https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/hackers-send-silent-commands-to-speech-recognition-systems-with-ultrasound/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/hackers-send-silent-comman...
- Uhhrrr 9y agoSpitballing: Daylight Savings Time related, perhaps?
- myblake 9y agoYeah it definitely does sometimes. I use "echo" as the wake up word and it certainly has woken up on entirely unrelated words.
- Terretta 9y agoYou’re successfully using a two syllable wake word? So far every assistant seemed to have been requiring three: Hey Siri (3), Alexa (3), Computer (3), Cortana (3), OK Google (4), Hey Google (3)...
- openmosix 9y agoIt happened to me a couple of times (not during the night) but when the room was totally silent.
- jakestein 9y agoYes, although not when things are silent. Once every week or two the Echo misinterprets something as a command and breaks into our conversation with a seemingly out of nowhere response. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's annoying. I can't recall ever having this issue with "Hey Siri" and I don't own a Google Home
- james-skemp 9y agoI've noticed this with Alexa on a new Fire 10 over the last week. I think she's picking up on something on TV since we've been home with a newborn, but seems like this just started within the last week and a half.
- criddell 9y agoNo, ours doesn't do that, but it doesn't something equally stupid. I think our ISP does upgrades and network changes in the middle of the night and sometimes our gateway is rebooted. For some reason, the Echo feels the need to loudly proclaim that it can't connect with the mothership even though it's 4 am and we've never once used it at that time. It wakes us up with "HOLY SHIT I CAN'T SEE THE FUCKING INTERNET!1@!@!". Those aren't the exact words, but when you are startled awake at 4am that's what it sounds like.
- davelnewton 9y agoYeah, it's kind of annoying. And the screen really wants to be on despite me turning it off. IMO once I turn it off it should stay off until I tell it to go back on, or I touch it, or something. I'm light-sensitive when I sleep and really don't want it on until I tell it to be on >:|
- zippergz 9y agoI've never had this exact situation, but ours starts talking in response to unrelated things we've said, stuff on the tv, or even random sounds in the house (e.g. a book being dropped set it off once) several times a week. I've been getting tempted to unplug it.
- hammock 9y agoNo. Has never happened
- globeadue 9y agoCommand words don't rull full analytics I would think. My command word "Computer" on my echo is triggered by unrelated words that in hindsight have the same inflections etc or high match %. A lot time while listening to music softly I it triggers and I hear it volume down. I can regular play with my dog and say things like get the ball or some such and get it to trigger.
- dsnuh 9y agoThis is slightly OT, but a great prank is to use the 'say' application on OS X (there is a ladies' voice option that sounds very similar to Alexa but the name evades me) and hook up the Alexa as a BT speaker. You can also use a sleep before the say command so that you can be away from the computer and have deniability. I did this to my family last April Fool's Day and it was hilarious.
- krallja 9y agoThe Alexa voice is also available on AWS’ text-to-speech service, Polly: https://aws.amazon.com/polly/ https://aws.amazon.com/polly/
- j_s 9y agoOr when someone on TV (I'm looking at you, https://twitch.tv/CohhCarnage https://twitch.tv/CohhCarnage) asks Alexa to play a song by Mudvayne as a gag.
- waynepan 9y agoIt hasn't done that but the dot would constantly disconnect from the internet (and bluetooth speaker) and announce it. They should really add a "Do Not Disturb" time window.
- fraXis 9y agoI just had it happen to me. She all of a sudden started talking about a Halloween song that I had asked her to play weeks ago (she acted like she just finished playing the song). I checked the app, and the last query was when I asked her the weather from earlier this morning. Must be a bug in the latest update they pushed out.
- evilfish77 9y agoHave you tried writing JeffB for an answer? I heard it works well...
- JiNCMG 9y agoNever had this done in a silent room. I have had it go off in the middle of a movie. We had to disconnect the Google Home because it would go off in the middle of the night. Currently own a Echo Dot and a Google Home.
- michaeltravis 9y agoYeah that's a hot mic. I was going crazy and thought it was all the Tylenol I was taking for my pancreas lately - but no. It sure can be a nifty device to live with, but sometimes I pull the damn plug out of the wall. My dwelling isn't exactly an ashram, but to hell if I'm living with that thing monitoring me around the clock.
- csomar 9y agoWhere you asleep at that time? Maybe you talk while you are asleep? Obviously, you can't know that until someone tells you.
- jmdocherty 9y agoYes, this happens to me on an Echo Dot. The responses I've noticed don't seem to be replaying previous queries but rather completely unrelated queries to the people in our house or our location. It's like a classic "crossed wires" from the old telephone operator. I guess it happens once/twice a month.
- creeble 9y agoInteresting, this was an echo dot for me too. I have both a dot and regular Echo and haven't heard anything from the Echo, although it's in the other room and I might not notice at night. Maybe a Dot thing.