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A comment on The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this holiday season. Parent comment

Re:The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this ... by thg on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @03:57PM (#16017968)
Having the microphone always-on drains a lot of power. You would notice it very quickly were your cell phone to transform into an always-on surveillance bug.

You're technically correct that cell phones leak all sorts of meta data that can be used for surveillance, but they aren't always listening. Voice assistants, however, are designed to be always-on and that is the key difference.

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Re:The Echo Dot was the best-selling product on Amazon this ... by mikeash on Wednesday December 27, 2017 @04:00PM (#16017995)
My phone is always listening already. Battery life is just fine.

Some phones aren’t designed to always listen, but voice assistants aren’t designed to record everything and upload it, so what’s the difference? In both cases, you’d need something that goes beyond the advertised functionality.

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