I use Alexa in limited areas of the house just as a voice control for radio, lights, and timers.<p>After playing the timer reminder alert today, I got the scariest message I've ever heard, something very like: "I can remind you to take a drink of water when I hear you cough. Do you want me to do that?" I hadn't coughed, but the fact that Amazon can and will now bypass the Echo's hardware wake-word recognition with continuous audio surveillance and recognition is chilling.<p>I no longer trust Amazon at all. I find voice control handy, so I'll be looking for local voice recog hardware and software in the near future to replace the two Echos...