How Can I Use My Smart Speaker to Prevent My Assistant From Spying on Me?
Since this is Lifehacker’s last column of tech tips before that big Boxing Day next week, it’s only fitting that this week’s question comes from a reader who needs a little help finding a gift for themselves. In fact, a few gifts – and he doesn’t want any companies to spy on him after he started them.
Question
Lifehacker reader Robert writes:
I want smart speakers that don’t listen. I really don’t like the idea of having Alex, Siri or whatever to listen to everything that happens. I currently have speakers connected to the Airport Express to which I can stream music from my iDevice. At some point, my little mesh network will have to be upgraded (hopefully it will survive until Wi-Fi 6 turns off) and I will lose this great feature. Do you know any alternatives? I need speakers in different places (store / garage / outside …) where I can share music. I don’t care if they can run the app, I can share music from my device, whether through a streaming service or just music on the device, I don’t need voice control.
Doctor’s advice
It’s fun – connected speakers with no voice access. Data privacy is close and dear to my heart , and I totally understand why you don’t want anything in your home to listen to your every word (even if it’s just to determine if you want the device to activate and respond to a command).
My initial thought was that you can choose from a variety of smart speakers with mute functionality either through the app or via a hardware switch on the speaker itself. I like the last option, because the microphone is always guaranteed to be turned off; who knows if some kind of software update or app reinstallation accidentally turns on what you want to turn off. (In terms of mute specifics, Google describes the process here and Amazon here to name the two most popular smart speaker companies.)
Turn off the microphone on the smart speaker, and it won’t be able to hear everything you say, and what you say won’t end up in the cloud, by accident or otherwise. You can still stream to your devices using whatever compatible apps you prefer, but talking to them won’t do much.
Similarly, you can search for devices like Amazon Echo Link or Echo Link Amp . Neither has a built-in microphone, but both allow you to connect your own speakers and stream music via Alexa Cast. It’s the same with Google’s Chromecast Audio . You cannot talk to it, but you can cast to it (and any connected speakers).
Moving away from Amazon and Google devices, you can also grab a smart speaker with streaming capabilities like the Sonos One and not configure the Alexa component. (Pressing the button at the top of a speaker will mute its microphone .) If you don’t have a speaker linked to Alexa, your speakers won’t bother hearing a trigger command, and you can confirm this by checking that the microphone activity LED is off.
I think any of these three options are good, depending on your budget and how willing you are to tolerate the transition versus not having an integrated digital assistant at all. I haven’t even touched on a true multi-room system, which would require a receiver or amplifier, wire routing to dedicated speakers throughout the house, and a lot of patience and time to get set up on weekends, but that’s also an option. You can also buy a portable speaker Bluetooth and take it with you wherever you go – or that – something more durable (and retro), which you connect to the wall where you want.