No, the processing for the trigger is done locally, no network communication until the trigger is recognized. That's why you can only have one of a couple of trigger words.
Re:Alexa: Amazon's Operating System
by kajecounterhack on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @02:38PM
(#13321351)
The same is true of most modern android phones with Google Now AFAIK. E.g Moto X was one of the first phones with a low power dedicated ASIC for wakeup-word recognition to further make it sustainable on mobile devices.
Yeah I read somewhere that it was all sent off, but everything else I've looked at says it's all local.
Re:Alexa: Amazon's Operating System
by hackmiester on Wednesday January 04, 2017 @02:12PM
(#13321140)
The data is not sent to a server all the time - only when someone is using the device.
Source: tcpdump
Do you have a rough guess as to how compressed the outbound audio is?
I was under the impression that the audio is stored locally while listening for the trigger word. Once the trigger word is recognized, Alexa begins recording and sends the result to be processed.
I'm not normally really intense about privacy (relative to other tech people I know), but all these devices creep me out.