
Ask HN: Why are my Echo Dots uploading 300MB of data in 3 days? - RemingtonLak
I have several Echo Dots scattered throughout the house as well as Google Mini&#x27;s.  Finally trace mac&#x27;s to their data usage and found two of my 2 Dots that are most heavily used (heavily I mean may be 5 commands total throughout the day to do simple things like lights and outlets, nothing at all complicated like read me news, stories etc.)<p>In 3 days, each of the 2 Dots uploaded over 500MB of data I don&#x27;t know what. WTF?<p>Has anyone scoped it out and see what kind of data is sent?  I haven&#x27;t wiresharked it or anything outside of finally now realizing the data usage.<p>As a comparison, I use my Google Min for about the same amount of commands of similar types; lights&#x2F;plugs on|off and also exclusively talk to my harmony remote.  Actually G&#x27;s Mini gets about 3x more commands but in the same period of 3 days, it only uploaded 24MB.<p>I realize voice files can get large, depending on sampling but damn.. 500MB in 3 days??!  That&#x27;s 500MB each!
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bigiain
Possibly this:
[https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/08/ai_in_brief/](https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/08/ai_in_brief/)

“ Yet punters noticed their Google Homes had been recording random sounds,
without any wake word uttered, when they started receiving notifications on
their phone that showed the device had heard things like a smoke alarm
beeping, or glass breaking in their homes – all without giving their approval.

Google said the feature had been accidentally turned on during a recent
software update, and it has now been switched off, Protocol reported. It may
be that this feature is or was intended to be used for home security at some
point: imagine the assistant waking up whenever it hears a break in, for
instance.”

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slightwinder
Echo dots are from Amazon, this article is about the competing product from
google. OR you wanna implicate that amazon is doing the same?

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RemingtonLak
Yes, actually Amazon has had this feature for awhile now. Although it is
supposed to be enabled as you leave the house, no really telling if its on by
"accident" or not.

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slightwinder
I think you wanna correct your numbers. Is is 300 MB? 500 MB? Total or each?
Or is this some kind of parody I don't understand?

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RemingtonLak
Sorry, clarification; I have 2 Echos where one had >500MB upload while another
had 300MB. Here's a snapshot:
[https://imgur.com/a/8EIFDA0](https://imgur.com/a/8EIFDA0)

