A few hotels already have tablets pointing cameras at the room (including a recent Marriott I stayed at). This just adds more crap I have to unplug or disable. Lovely.<p>I can't wait until we all find out these things have all been systematically rooted and collecting blackmail on folks.<p>It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
What could possibly ever go wrong putting a third party corporate spying machine in each room? It's unbelievable how much blind and naive trust there is.
BTW the last few times I've checked in to a Marriott, the TV has been on, playing some kind of ad trying to sell me a temporary Netflix subscription or something. I find this incredibly annoying. I never use the TV in a hotel room, and I'd like to find a hotel chain that has no TVs in the rooms period.
Friendly reminder about the time Marriott fired customer support employee to get back in China's good books<p><a href="https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-employee-for-liking-a-tweet-by-a-tibetan-separatist-group/" rel="nofollow">https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-...</a>
Is there a reason for why major tech companies are heavily pushing their smart speakers? Their seems to be a lot more marketing push going on than when they were pushing out new phones/tablets/hardware etc in the past (Amazon fire, Google Pixelbook, Google Chromecast, Amazon Roku etc.)
On the one hand, I could see this being incredibly useful. Program it to answer all sorts of typical guest questions including those specific to the property/location. On the other hand, I can't really argue with those who don't feel comfortable with the idea--which is probably why this has taken so long.
I like Marriott hotels in general. This just means I'm going to unplug the device, remove its batteries, and wrap it in foil as soon as I check in.<p>[Note to self: Pack foil on next trip.]
I stayed at a hotel which had Amazon echo in the room a few weeks ago. It was awesome to ask it to play various kinds of music while we lounged by the pool. Or to check the weather forecast for the next day.<p>I enjoyed it enough that we bought an echo dot the day after we arrived home.<p>Personally I think you all need to lighten up. It would be 100x easier for government, previous guests or the hotel to install hidden microphones or video than to hack into the Echo. Amazon have sufficient commercial interests that personally I'd be sure enough that they'll behave properly. I'm not planning a military coop or anything though.
So basically all Marriott hotels will be bugged for whatever host country they are in. I can’t see conducting sent I’ve business in them. Now they don’t have to bother doing targeted spying becuase now it’ll be everywhere.
There's something a little sad about this. Unlike at home, hotels are a place where you <i>already</i> have a voice assistant - the concierge, that'll give you restaurant recommendations, pick up your laundry and call a cab for you. And do a much better job than any automated voice assistant will do. But I don't doubt for a second that this will eventually be paired with a strong rollback of real humans manning phone lines.<p>Sigh.
Ok... That's one more thing I need to be sure I unplug or cover when I'm in the room. Although all of this compounds the reasons I don't stay in hotel rooms, and opt for Airbnb whenever possible. That, again, is another place for concern, but at least I can get to the circuit breaker and flip it off to disrupt things, and run a network sniffer to look for hidden cameras. Hell hath no fury as a paranoid woman traveling alone.
Me and my wife both agreed (on separate occasions) that "Alexa, turn the living room/bedroom on" feel so missing at hotels.<p>disc: Amazon employee
I know it's of little solace to many, but the truth is, I mostly feel safe in knowing that whoever is collecting data on me, I'm not really worth spying on.