Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

Re:Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was n... by taneq on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @02:56AM (#19206380)

> 2. They had future plans for the mic, but it was disabled, so it wasn't mentioned by the marketing department

If you design in something which is later not used, you don't populate that part of the circuit board. Not unless you're intending to use it later, anyway. Components cost money.

A software equivalent would be "we had plans to offer an integrated backup system but that didn't happen, although we still upload your contacts list and the contents of your SMSes to our servers."

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Re:Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was n... by michaelt on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @06:50AM (#19207185)

  If you design in something which is later
  not used, you don't populate that part of
  the circuit board.

In this case the microphone was discovered when Google added built-in 'Google Assistant' support to the 'Nest Guard'.

I think there is no doubt they intended to start using it later, because they did.

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Re:Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was n... by kalleboo on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @07:24AM (#19207302)

You can add hardware features in order to support features you want to support in the future, but not advertise them in case those features for some reason don't come to fruition. If they had advertised "contains a microphone" there could be users who claim false advertising if they can't use the microphone. It's stupid but I can see a lawyer making the argument.

As long as the microphone never recorded anything, they're no legal downside to including it and not documenting it. There could be a slim but potential issue with advertising a microphone that the customer can never use.

The response to this incident is showing that that view is changing though.

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Re:Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was n... by taneq on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @08:10AM (#19207515)

An extra co-processor or something, sure. A device which the capacity to invade the user's privacy and/or compromise their security? Not so much. It'd be like having a 3G connection hidden in a security camera and not telling anyone.

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Re:Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was n... by fixermark on Wednesday February 20, 2019 @09:09AM (#19207887)

Tesla has a suite of sensors installed that are not currently used because they intend to solve the self-driving car problem with them in the not-too-distant future.

Nintendo released multiple generations of consoles in the US with expansion ports for peripherals that ended up not making market sense to bring to the US.

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