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My partner and I have both an Alexa and a Google Home Assistant and we leave the mic off on both devices. The Alexa we got because we have a Blink doorbell and

My partner and I have both an Alexa and a Google Home Assistant and we leave the mic off on both devices. The Alexa we got because we have a Blink doorbell and it connects to the Alexa in order to make a sound when someone rings the doorbell. The Google Home Assistant came with the Google Nest Wifi Mesh extender. We both care about privacy so that's why we turned them off (but not enough to not have the physical devices in our house). I sometimes wonder if those mic switches are hardware switches and can amazon or google override them. edit: fixed typo, missing a "to" in "to not have"

m3rc 2y ago
I don't think it's a good idea to have that doorbell, or any doorbell that is surveilling at all times and you don't own the recordings. Who knows who is watching them.
jjulius 2y ago
>... we have a Blink doorbell... >We both care about privacy...
- dylan604 2y ago
  That contradiction stood out to me as well
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- uoaei 2y ago
  They care, just not enough to justify losing a single convenience that they didn't know they needed.
mmooss 2y ago
> we leave the mic off on both devices How is this controlled? They wouldn't at all be the first devices that deceitfully redefine 'off', or in their documentation say 'off, except ...', or just don't bother to implement it carefully because it's not a priority. Generally, I would trust something that physically turns it off - a physical switch that didn't just trigger software, but broke the circuit to the mic.