
Ask HN: Does your Amazon Echo talk to you without being asked? - creeble
Last night around 4am, the Echo in my bedroom decided to tell me that &quot;Electronics Plus in San Rafael is open at 9am&quot;. Then it did it again about five minutes later. The bedroom was, of course, silent at 4am.<p>A humorous but annoying bug. Just wondering if others have experienced this, and how often.<p>I looked my Alexa query list, and that query was too old to appear (though I&#x27;m reasonably sure I&#x27;ve asked her in the past. Coincidentally [I hope..] I asked Google home only a few days ago for that exact information!)
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criddell
No, ours doesn't do that, but it doesn't something equally stupid.

I think our ISP does upgrades and network changes in the middle of the night
and sometimes our gateway is rebooted. For some reason, the Echo feels the
need to loudly proclaim that it can't connect with the mothership even though
it's 4 am and we've never once used it at that time.

It wakes us up with "HOLY SHIT I CAN'T SEE THE FUCKING INTERNET!1@!@!". Those
aren't the exact words, but when you are startled awake at 4am that's what it
sounds like.

~~~
davelnewton
Yeah, it's kind of annoying.

And the screen really wants to be on despite me turning it off. IMO once I
turn it off it should stay off until I tell it to go back on, or I touch it,
or something. I'm light-sensitive when I sleep and really don't want it on
until I tell it to be on >:|

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liberal_098
Voice recognition systems can be activated without saying a word by sending
commands at very high frequencies (ultrasound). It is because of the ability
of microphones to detect these frequencies. This could be used for jokes when
an assistant like Alexa will say something while nobody has heard anything. Or
by hackers, for example, to unlock a phone.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/hackers-send-silent-
comman...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/06/hackers-send-silent-commands-to-
speech-recognition-systems-with-ultrasound/)

------
jakestein
Yes, although not when things are silent. Once every week or two the Echo
misinterprets something as a command and breaks into our conversation with a
seemingly out of nowhere response.

Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's annoying. I can't recall ever having this
issue with "Hey Siri" and I don't own a Google Home

~~~
james-skemp
I've noticed this with Alexa on a new Fire 10 over the last week. I think
she's picking up on something on TV since we've been home with a newborn, but
seems like this just started within the last week and a half.

------
akhilcacharya
That has definitely not happened to me, but I can't wait until a horror film
decides to use a possessed Echo as a plot device.

~~~
n1000
your wait is over:
[https://youtu.be/J9gUIhkzNDk](https://youtu.be/J9gUIhkzNDk)

@OP: Better don‘t watch ;)

~~~
leonroy
heheh, that was well worth watching!

There was an awful case about three years ago where some guy hacked into a
baby video monitor and started yelling at the 10 month old child:
[http://time.com/79170/stranger-hacks-into-baby-monitor-
and-s...](http://time.com/79170/stranger-hacks-into-baby-monitor-and-screams-
at-child/)

I think as IoT spreads we're going to be seeing some real life horror stories
unfortunately. These devices are just barely secure at the best of times and I
don't think their network stacks are anywhere near tight enough.

------
dsnuh
This is slightly OT, but a great prank is to use the 'say' application on OS X
(there is a ladies' voice option that sounds very similar to Alexa but the
name evades me) and hook up the Alexa as a BT speaker.

You can also use a sleep before the say command so that you can be away from
the computer and have deniability. I did this to my family last April Fool's
Day and it was hilarious.

~~~
krallja
The Alexa voice is also available on AWS’ text-to-speech service, Polly:
[https://aws.amazon.com/polly/](https://aws.amazon.com/polly/)

------
michaeltravis
Yeah that's a hot mic. I was going crazy and thought it was all the Tylenol I
was taking for my pancreas lately - but no.

It sure can be a nifty device to live with, but sometimes I pull the damn plug
out of the wall. My dwelling isn't exactly an ashram, but to hell if I'm
living with that thing monitoring me around the clock.

------
zippergz
I've never had this exact situation, but ours starts talking in response to
unrelated things we've said, stuff on the tv, or even random sounds in the
house (e.g. a book being dropped set it off once) several times a week. I've
been getting tempted to unplug it.

------
jmdocherty
Yes, this happens to me on an Echo Dot. The responses I've noticed don't seem
to be replaying previous queries but rather completely unrelated queries to
the people in our house or our location. It's like a classic "crossed wires"
from the old telephone operator. I guess it happens once/twice a month.

~~~
creeble
Interesting, this was an echo dot for me too. I have both a dot and regular
Echo and haven't heard anything from the Echo, although it's in the other room
and I might not notice at night. Maybe a Dot thing.

------
globeadue
Command words don't rull full analytics I would think. My command word
"Computer" on my echo is triggered by unrelated words that in hindsight have
the same inflections etc or high match %. A lot time while listening to music
softly I it triggers and I hear it volume down. I can regular play with my dog
and say things like get the ball or some such and get it to trigger.

------
fraXis
I just had it happen to me. She all of a sudden started talking about a
Halloween song that I had asked her to play weeks ago (she acted like she just
finished playing the song).

I checked the app, and the last query was when I asked her the weather from
earlier this morning.

Must be a bug in the latest update they pushed out.

------
j_s
Or when someone on TV (I'm looking at you,
[https://twitch.tv/CohhCarnage](https://twitch.tv/CohhCarnage)) asks Alexa to
play a song by Mudvayne as a gag.

------
waynepan
It hasn't done that but the dot would constantly disconnect from the internet
(and bluetooth speaker) and announce it. They should really add a "Do Not
Disturb" time window.

------
JiNCMG
Never had this done in a silent room. I have had it go off in the middle of a
movie.

We had to disconnect the Google Home because it would go off in the middle of
the night.

Currently own a Echo Dot and a Google Home.

------
csomar
Where you asleep at that time? Maybe you talk while you are asleep? Obviously,
you can't know that until someone tells you.

------
myblake
Yeah it definitely does sometimes. I use "echo" as the wake up word and it
certainly has woken up on entirely unrelated words.

~~~
Terretta
You’re successfully using a two syllable wake word? So far every assistant
seemed to have been requiring three: Hey Siri (3), Alexa (3), Computer (3),
Cortana (3), OK Google (4), Hey Google (3)...

------
openmosix
It happened to me a couple of times (not during the night) but when the room
was totally silent.

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evilfish77
Have you tried writing JeffB for an answer? I heard it works well...

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geoah
Yap, done it twice the past week while we were talking Greek.

------
Uhhrrr
Spitballing: Daylight Savings Time related, perhaps?

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davelnewton
Oh, sorry, that was me.

("Of course" it was silent at 4am?)

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hammock
No. Has never happened

------
anilr
Does the Alexa app have a recording of what triggered her?

The app used to be very good at displaying most, if not all, interactions with
Alexa. I find now that sadly many interactions are now missing.

Oh, and there's also this:
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16265906/ultrasound-
hack-s...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16265906/ultrasound-hack-siri-
alexa-google)

