forced to buy an echo for new house. any suggestions? (lemm.ee)

submitted 3 months ago by yoshisaur@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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my family is moving into a much bigger house than we used to have. we use amazon echos as an intercom system through the announcement feature. because our house is bigger, i’m being forced to get one myself for my room. i haven’t needed one for years because i use their app on my phone and i can see their announcements as a notification and i can also kill off most of its tracking by DNS. unfortunately my parents don’t understand this and are forcing me to get one. what can i do to limit its tracking?

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[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If you just need one for that, the cheapest Echo Dot model. If you care about a nice Bluetooth speaker aspect then get an Echo. If you wanted a screen for whatever reason then an Echo Show. But Echo Dot is the cheapest model. Oldest version you can get is fine.

Leaving the microphone muted should prevent packets from going to the cloud but I can't find definitive information either way. They process the wake word locally so answering to say "the device is muted" (if they do, mine don't, but I've heard some do) doesn't necessarily imply it's sending anything to the cloud.

[-] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org -2 points 3 months ago

Who is forcing you?

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this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024

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