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Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

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Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#11

Post by abetusk »

This is more of a "DIY" approach but all the tools are there for FOSS and OSHWA solutions.

Mozilla has DeepSpeech [0] and, while not as advanced as the stuff from Google or Amazon, my experimentation left me feeling pretty hopeful that it could reliably recognize at least keywords.

The Raspberry Pi is quite capable though you'll probably need some dedicated microphone to reliably catch voice data. I know ReSpeaker [1] but maybe some off the shelf conference USB microphones would work as well.

[0] https://github.com/mozilla/DeepSpeech

[1] https://wiki.seeedstudio.com/ReSpeaker_4_Mic_Array_for_Raspb...

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#12

Post by bonniemuffin »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

+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.)

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#13

Post by danielheath »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#14

Post by colordrops »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#15

Post by fartcannon »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #12
LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

+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.)

They all spy. Alexa is just the most obvious. You should get rid of them all.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#16

Post by vulcan01 »

I've heard of https://getleon.ai before, not sure if it fits your needs. A quick browse through their docs suggests that you'd have to write a package for the lights, but it doesn't seem that hard at first glance.

(It might be harder than it looks especially if your lights' API isn't documented well.)

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#17

Post by lcvw »

I’m also very interested in an answer. We use Alexa a lot, but this week I had to unplug every Alexa in the house because a distant family member had gained access to the family Amazon account and was trying to use the “drop in” feature to listen to our conversations. In the course of our investigation I found out that Alexa does not log privacy related events at all (there is no record of a drop in stored anywhere), and the UI for locking down which profiles and contacts have access to which feature is unbelievably bad. At this point I can’t prove that this person doesn’t still have access somehow (every single contact taken from your phone has unique permissions to drop in) and I can’t delete the profile this person created without contacting customer support. So the devices are going to stay unplugged until I have time to nuke the Amazon account and create a new one.

To be clear, I’m not concerned about cloud processing or even mining my data. Just something I can have a reasonable amount of control over and that doesn’t constantly enable features I don’t want on its own.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#18

Post by ummonk »

colordrops wrote: post #14
LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

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 time…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#19

Post by LeoPanthera »

colordrops wrote: post #14
LeoPanthera wrote: post #2

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://ho…

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 time…

> "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.

Re: Ask HN: Private Alternatives to Alexa?

#20

Post by LeoPanthera »

fartcannon wrote: post #15
bonniemuffin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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.)

They all spy. Alexa is just the most obvious. You should get rid of them all.

I hate writing "citation needed", but, citation needed. That's a big claim.
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