So this just happened…Alexa started on own

Go to your Alexa account and check the voice history, to see what the speaker thinks it heard.

I admit Alexa is more sensitive to wakening, but I wouldn’t call it ‘scary’. More annoying when it ducks unnecessarily. That’s why I don’t enable Alexa on the HT setup.

Jeffrey...what are you doing Jeffrey?

It is really scary because you can’t tell me it was a random occurrence, it was one of those words mentioned above that were the trigger words. When I say it has happened numerous times before I mean it has happened dozens of times before in the Kitchen when my family has just been having a conversation and some, let’s call it “keywords” are said out of context. I am not a conspiracy nut but if you don’t think that some entity isn’t capturing those conversations and filtering them then I think their is a naivete there I don’t understand. No thank you.

In your  original post, you said that Sonos was lightly playing when it beeped and ‘woke up’.  Any chance it wasn’t your conversation that triggered it, but that the  Sonos device heard itself, some reflection of it’s own audio, or your words mixed with what was playing and was triggered?

It seems unlikely that your speaker has secret keywords that it’s listening for,  That would require that the speaker was updated by Sonos (possibly with code from Amazon) to do so, since the keyword isn’t processed in the cloud.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  If you can get all your voice control needs meet with SVC, then that is the way to go.

But what does the voice history on the Alexa account actually say?

So, there are 3 different triggers at exactly the same time and another 3-1 minute later as a continuation. The word was election that triggered it which I guess I can see but still...

Considering the keyword has to to account for accents and slight mispronunciations, it seems very reasonable.  The next step would have to that the assistance better understands context, meaning that it’s not triggered if the word doesn’t start off a sentence or something of that nature.  That’ would require more smarts and/or more listening.

But I would agree that as wake words go, Alexa seems like it was chosen more for marketing reasons  that practical use as a wake word.

Alexa - election. I can see how the speaker would react to this word…..

I can imagine it’s scary to be honest. When you connect it to a service like Google Assistant or Alexa, the mic is recording everything on their servers. And what they have in their possession is theirs. Compare it to Facebook, everything you post, including pictures, they can do what they want with it. We  may think it’s ‘free’ but they earn money by selling stuff to third parties.

That’s why I moved to SVC as soon it came out. Nothing stored on servers, all processed locally on your devices. And true, you can’t control other items in you smart home. You have to consider is controlling a smart home more important than your privacy? We have light-switches for the Philips hue and when I’m to lazy to get my ass from the couch, I ask my wife to turn the lights on/off 😂 (jk)
We have everything else on Apple’s homekit. So I can control everything with my iPhone, can make automations and don’t feel the need to use voice commands to control the rest. And If I really want, I can use the Siri-remote from the Apple TV or on my Apple Watch. 

Now I’m thinking about it.. our lifestyle is changed tremendously in the last 20 years. Now it’s normal to have a fully automated home for a lot of people, we actually drown in electronic devices which make our lives comfortable and seemed to get used to it.
Back in the day’s we had to walk to the tv to switch a channel or turn up/down the volume and we had to flick a light-switch to get a lamp working.
It’s kind of funny to realise that I think.

To me, it’s a big difference between a recording device that only records when you know that it’s recording, and one that is recording when you were told it would not record.  The latter being much more concerning obviously.  But it’s worth pointing out that  everyone has a phone in their pocket that could be used to record you without knowing it, not to mention cameras and other devices.  And we are only talking about voice.  Your phone and other devices can track your location, search history, and just about anything you do on your phone.

SVC is a start, and I’d eventually like to move all smart home control to be cloudless as well one day.  I I really only want to use the cloud when I need information that isn’t contained in my home, like the weather or what time the nearest Home Depot is opening today.  Even then, I don’t want my voice sent to cloud, just that I made a request about the weather….if that’s needed.

I think this transition will happen, because I don’t think voice data is really as important to business as our habits and purchasing trends in terms of what information can be sold for marketing reasons.  And some of that isn’t all bad to me as a consumer if it helps companies make better products for me, or targeted ads that I’m actually interested in.  I’m not saying it’s all good either.

In some ways it has made life easier, but, at least for me, I tend to fill my life with more complication as a result.  Just looking at lights, yes they are easier to control and many are automated, but I also have a lot of lights that I don’t need and with different color options that I never would have gotten if they were not smart.  In general, I have so many more ‘systems’ in place in my house that have to be maintained and all that.   I wonder sometimes if it’s worth it.

As I understand it Google only sends to their servers the things that are said immediately after the wake word.