fat fingers<\/a> in the Amazon app that had led to a purchase? Had I accidentally clicked a one-click purchase online somehow?<\/p>\nI went into my email, and found an email from Amazon dated at 4.13am. It confirmed my order!<\/p>\n
Now, I should confess that the previous evening I’d gone for a couple of drinks with friends, but I hadn’t gone to bed that<\/em> late, and I certainly hadn’t got up in the middle of the night to order a film that I already own. As a rule, I don’t wake in the small hours and make random DVD purchases.<\/p>\nI couldn’t tell from the email or from my Amazon order history, through what means the DVD had been ordered. But I began to wonder if it had somehow been ordered via Alexa. I’ve heard of other people “accidentally” ordering stuff that way. But that’s never happened to me.<\/p>\n
So I opened the Alexa app to see my recent history. And then things got really crazy.<\/p>\n
I use Alexa a reasonable amount, but the previous evening I’d got in late, and left early the following morning. On neither occasion had I really used Alexa.<\/p>\n
But my Alexa history showed a lot<\/b> of interaction since the last time I remembered using it to listen the radio the previous morning.<\/p>\n
Amongst other things, it seemed I’d asked:<\/p>\n
\n- Alexa to introduce her\/it-self<\/li>\n
- What is bluetooth?<\/li>\n
- How do you get along with Siri?<\/li>\n
- What the weather is<\/li>\n
- To buy an Amazon Echo Dot (this didn’t go through fortunately)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Are you sexy vehicle costume? (Nope?)<\/em><\/li>\n
- What is five plus eleven?<\/li>\n
- What is pi to the dress? (No idea)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Do you think I’m handsome? (Er…)<\/em><\/li>\n
- What is the weather? (Again, it seems)<\/em><\/li>\n
- What the New York Knicks score was? (I’m not especially interested in either them or the NBA in general)<\/em><\/li>\n
- To play Drake? (I don’t especially like Drake)<\/em><\/li>\n
- To play Grace? (I don’t know who this is, but Amazon does)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Tell me a joke<\/li>\n
- Set a timer for one minute<\/li>\n
- Would you like to go on a date with me? (“She” is an inanimate object)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Where can I hide the body? (Worrying)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Do you know Siri?<\/li>\n
- What is the weather? (I’m clearly very interested in this)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Tell me a joke<\/li>\n
- Trending story<\/li>\n
- Riley party (Absolutely no clue)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Convert cups in grams<\/li>\n
- Set a timer for one hour (I assume the one minute timer finished)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Play You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi<\/li>\n
- Okay Google (That’s not going to work on Alexa)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Order “Lost in Translation” on DVD (This went through, and I got a confirmation email at 4.13am!)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Hello<\/li>\n
- What is an Xbox on?<\/li>\n
- Add milk and eggs to my shopping list (I’m OK for both thanks)<\/em><\/li>\n
- Play Dire Straits<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Now I was worried. The Alexa app doesn’t time-stamp these queries that I can see. But clearly this activity had happened in the middle of the night based on that Lost in Translation order.<\/p>\n
I was confused.<\/p>\n
Had another Alexa ended up on my Amazon account? Was some neighbour asking stupid questions through my letterbox? (I don’t have a letterbox, and the only children in my block are very young and unlikely to be playing around in the middle of the night.)<\/p>\n
This was actually a bit disturbing.<\/p>\n
And then I remembered that I had started a YouTube video on my TV before I fell asleep. I’m a heavy sleeper, and can fall asleep to background audio. But the TV would have been turned down.<\/p>\n
I consulted my YouTube history.<\/p>\n
I had been watching a video about the Raspberry Pi.<\/p>\n
Yes, I know. At night, after a few drinks. I’m a nerd. What can I say.<\/p>\n
But YouTube autoplays more videos when one has finished, and here’s a list of the following videos “I” streamed. I think this explains the otherwise unfathomable behaviour:<\/p>\n
\n- Echo Dot Impressions<\/li>\n
- Amazon Echo Dot: A week with review<\/li>\n
- Google or Amazon? Which is better? (Meaning Alexa or Google Home<\/i>)<\/li>\n
- Google Home vs Amazon Echo – Which is Best?<\/li>\n
- Why you should buy Google Home over Amazon Echo vs Siri and Sonos<\/li>\n
- 4 things Google Home can do to beat Amazon Echo in 2017<\/li>\n
- Google home adds 70 new features<\/li>\n
- Google Home hacks for the smart home<\/li>\n
- Home automation: a beginner’s introduction<\/li>\n
- Google Home and App Setup + IFTTT Guide<\/li>\n
- If This Then That (IFTTT) Tutorial<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Basically I “watched” a lot of videos about Alexa and Google Home, and my Echo tried to respond to various audio cues that came from these!<\/p>\n
The DVD I didn’t want only cost \u00a32.90 and I’ve tried to cancel it online. But it won’t be the end of the world if I end up with a second copy. I’ve learnt my lesson and disabled voice purchasing in the app.<\/p>\n
The moral of this tale?<\/p>\n
Don’t leave Alexa or Google Home alone with YouTube tech videos reviewing what Alexa and Google Home are capable of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This story started earlier today when I got a notification from Amazon’s mobile app that my order of a Lost in Translation DVD had been sent out for delivery. What? It’s a wonderful film, but I hadn’t ordered a copy. Indeed, I already own it on DVD. I was confused, and a little worried. Was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[711,153,712,769],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6422"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6426,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6422\/revisions\/6426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.adambowie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}