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Maybe this is an obvious answer, and therefore not one you're interested in, but there's Siri. Although audio is sent to the cloud, you can choose whether it i

Maybe this is an obvious answer, and therefore not one you're interested in, but there's Siri. Although audio is sent to the cloud, you can choose whether it is stored or not, and whatever you pick, Apple's privacy policy is very strict. HomePods are mostly advertised as music playback devices, but I mostly use mine as a HomeKit control device. Homebridge allows you to control non-HomeKit devices via Siri: https://homebridge.io https://homebridge.io

bonniemuffin 5y ago
+1. I have Siri, Alexa, and Google home devices in my house, and Siri is the best in terms of competence and privacy. Alexa feels like being bugged by a creepo who keeps trying to sell me stuff. (We got rid of the Alexa.)
- fartcannon 5y ago
  They all spy. Alexa is just the most obvious. You should get rid of them all.
  - LeoPanthera 5y ago
    I hate writing "citation needed", but, citation needed. That's a big claim.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Apple owns up to sending a certain amount of telemetry[0] back home, but we have no way of verifying what it is since the traffic is encrypted. It's impossible to know what data it's collecting and sending back, or even how anonymized that information is. On top of that, Siri invocations are recorded and saved for 6 months, and then retained for an additional 2 years after being dis-associated with your account. Once again, there is no way for us to verify Apple's claims here; we could definitely have another iMessage scenario on our hands where they just keep all that data anyways, and when they're called out on it they simply blame the USA and try to look as powerless as possible. Like the other commenter suggested, it hinges solely on how much you trust a single company. This single company in question is located in the domestic United States, is known to comply with intelligence agencies, and has every reason in the world to kiss up to American authority. I'll let you do the math here. [0] https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/homepod-echo-google-home-how-secure-are-your-speakers/ https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/homepod-echo-google-hom...
    - colordrops 5y ago
      UFOs, cold fusion, and reptilian overlords are big claims. A company driven by profit with a history of questionable practices doing shady things with data is in no way a big claim. It's happened countless times.
  - marginalia_nu 5y ago
    I find it pretty funny how the business model is pretty much exactly that of BonziBuddy.
- Clampower 5y ago
  ?? I have Alexa through Sonos for years. It has never tried to sell me anything? What’s the context of these upsells?
danielheath 5y ago
I've never used Alexa and sort of assumed it was the same thing as Siri, but I'd permanently abandon the iOS ecosystem the first time Siri tried an upsell.
colordrops 5y ago
This is a terrible suggestion. "Taking Apple's word on it" is not a valid privacy strategy. Companies have shown time and again that they lie about what is happening behind the scenes, or even just change their policies for the worst. Then there are rogue employees, such as the Ubiquiti fiasco, and secret government data collection, such as PRISM, of which Apple was a participant. Apple has broken trust multiple times, including the FBI back door, and the CSAM fiasco. They are a public company beholden to shareholders, not your trusted friend from college. Even China has strong leverage over them due to their manufacturing and market there. They are fundamentally no different from Amazon. The poster is asking for a private solution this is emphatically not it.
- ummonk 5y ago
  Unless you design your own hardware and build your own fab to manufacture it, you're always taking the word of at least one company.
  - novok 5y ago
    Yeah the same logic applies to any network connected device you buy that has microphones on them.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    This is like saying that you might as well be an alcoholic since you smoke cigarettes. That's why you use VLANs on your home network and open source operating systems on your phone and computers. It reduces attack surface area. It's on your property and you can analyze where data is being sent. With cloud services, you have no idea what's going on with the data once it is on someone else's servers.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  > "Taking Apple's word on it" is not a valid privacy strategy. I respectfully disagree. If Apple says "we don't do X", and then is shown to do X, that would be a massive PR disaster. Whereas Amazon makes no privacy promises at all. In fact, they promise the opposite.
nullc 5y ago
> you can choose whether it is stored or not You choose to tell them to store it or not. Due to third party doctrine you have very little legal protection for material you voluntarily provide to a third party. Even if apple behaves honestly and has no vulnerabilities or compromises they may be forced to hand the data over. And the fact that you don't know this says to me that Apple is in practice unethically exaggerating the level of privacy they're able to provide.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  The third party doctrine has changed though, since US v. Warshak and Carpenter v. US, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States
izacus 5y ago
Apple is storing recorded voice data and sharing with 3rd parties - https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/apple-siri-voice-data-sharing.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/apple-siri-voice-data-shar... For awhile, they did so without even allowing the users to opt-out. This is a terrible suggestion if privacy is what you seek.
tzs 5y ago
Would it work to turn off the microphones on your HomePods, turn off listening for "Hey Siri" on your phone, iPad, and Macs, and set your Apple watch to the "raise to speak" setting, and then do all your voice control through the watch? If that works, that might be a solution for people who want the convenience of voice control but do not want an always-listening microphone in their house.

bonniemuffin 5y ago

+1. I have Siri, Alexa, and Google home devices in my house, and Siri is the best in terms of competence and privacy. Alexa feels like being bugged by a creepo who keeps trying to sell me stuff. (We got rid of the Alexa.)

fartcannon 5y ago
They all spy. Alexa is just the most obvious. You should get rid of them all.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  I hate writing "citation needed", but, citation needed. That's a big claim.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Apple owns up to sending a certain amount of telemetry[0] back home, but we have no way of verifying what it is since the traffic is encrypted. It's impossible to know what data it's collecting and sending back, or even how anonymized that information is. On top of that, Siri invocations are recorded and saved for 6 months, and then retained for an additional 2 years after being dis-associated with your account. Once again, there is no way for us to verify Apple's claims here; we could definitely have another iMessage scenario on our hands where they just keep all that data anyways, and when they're called out on it they simply blame the USA and try to look as powerless as possible. Like the other commenter suggested, it hinges solely on how much you trust a single company. This single company in question is located in the domestic United States, is known to comply with intelligence agencies, and has every reason in the world to kiss up to American authority. I'll let you do the math here. [0] https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/homepod-echo-google-home-how-secure-are-your-speakers/ https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/homepod-echo-google-hom...
  - colordrops 5y ago
    UFOs, cold fusion, and reptilian overlords are big claims. A company driven by profit with a history of questionable practices doing shady things with data is in no way a big claim. It's happened countless times.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  I find it pretty funny how the business model is pretty much exactly that of BonziBuddy.
Clampower 5y ago
?? I have Alexa through Sonos for years. It has never tried to sell me anything? What’s the context of these upsells?

danielheath 5y ago

I've never used Alexa and sort of assumed it was the same thing as Siri, but I'd permanently abandon the iOS ecosystem the first time Siri tried an upsell.

colordrops 5y ago

This is a terrible suggestion. "Taking Apple's word on it" is not a valid privacy strategy. Companies have shown time and again that they lie about what is happening behind the scenes, or even just change their policies for the worst. Then there are rogue employees, such as the Ubiquiti fiasco, and secret government data collection, such as PRISM, of which Apple was a participant. Apple has broken trust multiple times, including the FBI back door, and the CSAM fiasco. They are a public company beholden to shareholders, not your trusted friend from college. Even China has strong leverage over them due to their manufacturing and market there. They are fundamentally no different from Amazon. The poster is asking for a private solution this is emphatically not it.

ummonk 5y ago
Unless you design your own hardware and build your own fab to manufacture it, you're always taking the word of at least one company.
- novok 5y ago
  Yeah the same logic applies to any network connected device you buy that has microphones on them.
- colordrops 5y ago
  This is like saying that you might as well be an alcoholic since you smoke cigarettes. That's why you use VLANs on your home network and open source operating systems on your phone and computers. It reduces attack surface area. It's on your property and you can analyze where data is being sent. With cloud services, you have no idea what's going on with the data once it is on someone else's servers.
LeoPanthera 5y ago
> "Taking Apple's word on it" is not a valid privacy strategy. I respectfully disagree. If Apple says "we don't do X", and then is shown to do X, that would be a massive PR disaster. Whereas Amazon makes no privacy promises at all. In fact, they promise the opposite.

nullc 5y ago

> you can choose whether it is stored or not You choose to tell them to store it or not. Due to third party doctrine you have very little legal protection for material you voluntarily provide to a third party. Even if apple behaves honestly and has no vulnerabilities or compromises they may be forced to hand the data over. And the fact that you don't know this says to me that Apple is in practice unethically exaggerating the level of privacy they're able to provide.

kingcharles 5y ago
The third party doctrine has changed though, since US v. Warshak and Carpenter v. US, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Warshak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpenter_v._United_States

izacus 5y ago

Apple is storing recorded voice data and sharing with 3rd parties - https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/apple-siri-voice-data-sharing.html https://thehackernews.com/2015/03/apple-siri-voice-data-shar... For awhile, they did so without even allowing the users to opt-out. This is a terrible suggestion if privacy is what you seek.

tzs 5y ago

Would it work to turn off the microphones on your HomePods, turn off listening for "Hey Siri" on your phone, iPad, and Macs, and set your Apple watch to the "raise to speak" setting, and then do all your voice control through the watch? If that works, that might be a solution for people who want the convenience of voice control but do not want an always-listening microphone in their house.