A simple tip for owners of Amazon’s Alexa (or Google Home) – consider pressing the “silence” button before you leave in the morning, before your house is shown.
And … require a code when ordering things from Amazon. You don’t want someone coming in and ordering 20 bags of dog food, right?
This is a great article (read the whole thing)
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The default Alexa settings allow anyone within hearing distance of your Echo device to order goods and services on your Amazon account;
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This includes children and voices on the radio or television;
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Alexa will offer to sell you things even if you are not looking to buy them, for example if you or your child were to say “Alexa, what’s a popular drone?” it will offer to sell you one;
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You cannot tell Alexa to cancel a purchase. You have to use the app or Amazon website;
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You can protect Alexa’s voice purchasing feature by adding a confirmation code;
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You can turn off the voice purchasing feature completely;
Still think it’s funny that a few news broadcasts about Alexa ordering things have caused a swath of Alexa’s to do the same thing.
I’m surprised Alexas are still being sold in the market considering this issue isn’t really something that should be taken lightly. Imagine if you forgot to turn off the mic and it heard you joking around about wanting to order 50 toilets!
That is interesting. I remember the old “Siri delete my address book” issues on the iPhone from a locked screen, but had not thought about someone ordering products for you. I hope they don’t order any of the $10,000 TVs!