Amazon to kill Echo's local voice processing feature in favor of Voice ID [u]

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AppleInsiderAppleInsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited March 16

If you own an Echo smart speaker, it will soon lose a key privacy feature -- and be replaced with cloud processing of all voice commands.

Three smart speakers with fabric exteriors are aligned diagonally. Each has a glowing blue ring on top, with buttons visible for control.
Amazon will soon disable users' ability to process voice requests on-device.



Users of Amazon's Echo smart speaker will soon receive an email from the company detailing changes to the device's voice request processing. Beginning March 28, everything users say to Echo's Alexa engine will be sent to Amazon.

The move will disable local processing of voice requests in favor of a new Alexa+ feature called Amazon Voice ID, notes Ars Technica.

This feature will allow Echo devices to recognize different users, and will be implemented for all existing Echo devices. The change allows different users to check or modify their own calendars, music libraries, or reminders.

By contrast, Apple devices that support Siri have been able to recognize multiple users since 2019. That said, prior to 2021 Siri had to ping Apple servers first when processing voice requests.

With the debut of iOS 15, all speech processing and personalization can be handled without an internet connection using machine learning -- including setting alarms, launching apps, controlling podcast/music playback, and system settings.

Internet access is still required on smart speakers across all brands for current answers to topical queries, and for installing system updates.

"As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support [on-device processing]," the company said in its email to users.

Use it or lose it



Amazon's email reminds Echo users that they will be required to turn off the existing "Don't save recordings" feature. The company warns that if users do not disable that feature, "Voice ID may not work" -- effectively bricking the Echo as of March 28.

Previous reports have said that Amazon employees can also listen to personal requests. Bloomberg noted in 2019 that workers listened to as many as 1,000 audio samples per day to help train natural-language understanding and speech recognition systems.

The company also has a history of paying fines for privacy violations. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission charged Amazon with allowing employees and contractors to view customers' video recordings from Ring cameras.

Later that same year, the company paid a fine of $30 million in penalties for the Ring privacy violations. The fine also covered accusations of Amazon storing recordings of child interactions with Alexa devices.

In its new email, the company says it will now delete recordings after cloud processing. However, users must disable the "Don't save recordings" control on their local devices in order for the Alexa+ feature to work.

Amazon appears to be setting the stage for further subscriptions, as the Alexa service has been unprofitable for the company. The move will effectively force users to choose to either share recordings, or lobotomize their existing Echo devices.

Update 03-16-2025: Amazon has reached out to to clarify that the "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" feature will be discontinued as of March 28, 2025, and was an opt-in option only in the US. The company will not save voice recordings as the default unless users change their settings.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    DAalsethdaalseth Posts: 3,232member
    I’ll add this to my (very long) list of reasons I avoid if at all possible doing business with Amazon.
    williamlondonihatescreennamesbaconstangFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
     4Likes 1Dislike 0Informatives
  • Reply 2 of 4
    kempathonnodgekempathonnodge Posts: 22member
    Ah yes, all your data goes to their servers for them to farm out all your personal information. And what has happened to all the legal protections you Americans have all enjoyed from the FTC… oh yes, they’ve been gutted by your current leader… goodbye privacy and any notion of free speech?
    baconstangDAalsethdjames4242skippingrockwatto_cobra
     5Likes 0Dislikes 0Informatives
  • Reply 3 of 4
    forgeforge Posts: 2member
    I  put my money where my mouth is last week, ordered another Homepod and two Minis. I now have one Echo Studio, two Echo Dots, and three Echoes awaiting donation/recycling/landfill. It's not about trust. I don't trust *any* corporation to choose "don't be evil" over "be rich". They're all psychopathic money whores. That said, my Apple stuff has not sold my info to third parties obviously, and hasn't made threats/assertions that it'll be selling me more overtly going forward.

    Both my Google devices and Amazon devices have clearly used and/or sold my personal not-to-device speech to advertisers. I've seen many innocuous conversations that could not reasonably be interpreted as interactions with the "assistant" turn into pushy Amazon recommendations the next day. It's enough. I'm out. FU Jeff Bozos.
    DAalsethihatescreennamesFileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    macguimacgui Posts: 2,542member
    I'm not particularly concerned about AMAZON or anybody mining my voice commands for fun or profit. Eavesdropping on me for any reason is a concern for me. Given that proviso what really bothers me is echo devices is 99% useless when they lose an internet connection. Whatever local commands they're allegedly capable of performing go out the window with mothership processing.

    I've got two Echo shows and during a major portion of the day they're useless to me. My main use is to see the time at a distance. But for some time now they've been feeding me ad after ad throughout the day, relegating the time to a small footprint in the corner. Sometime in the evening the ads lessen and the time is once again the main feature of the display until sometime the next morning. Rise repeat hurl.
    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra
     1Like 0Dislikes 1Informative
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