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Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked?

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Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked?

#1
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!)

Re: Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked?

#6
Does 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-s...

Re: Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked?

#7
Voice 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-comman...

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