when my phone is locked (which it always is in a pocket) it can't butt dial.

whats the analogous behaviour for alexa?

also remember these are shared devices in a home, not a personal device in your hand. could i shout into somebody's window, "hey alexa send my browsing history to [email protected]"!

The analogous behaviour would be you being aware of Alexa's flaws and not triggering it accidentally.

While you may have never pocket dialled, plenty of people have. I've received more than a few accidental calls in the past.

I equate this to some phone users placing their devices hanging over the edge of tables - as if they don't care about them hitting the floor. Should phone makers toughen their phones and should Amazon improve Alexa anyway? Sure.

They can still call the police while locked, which is something that happened to a friend with an old feature phone while were were in the process of illegally hiding/dumping an old car.

Mike, is that you?

The "lock" analogue on an Alexa device would be the mute button on the top of the unit.

https://www.safety.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/mute-butto...

AFAIK, pocket dials have mainly been reduced by improvements in phones, rather than changes in user behavior; if the camera just sees inside of a pocket, it's unlikely to be an intentional button press.

I mean way back in the day when people had candy-bar phones and had to remember to enable the keypad lock :D

I made a number of emergency calls from my pocket on my Nokia 1100 even with key lock enabled. It was infuriating. It happened once when I was having a heated argument with somebody and it took some work to convince the dispatcher not to send a law enforcement officer. (There was nothing physical happening and no threats of violence, but we were speaking very sharply to each other.) I do not miss that about my Nokia 1100 at all.