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Your reminder to remove the microphone from your TV remote today (thelemmy.club)
submitted 6 days ago by to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[–] 35 points 6 days ago (21 children)

Microphone? They put microphones in TV remotes nowadays?

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  • [–] 23 points 6 days ago (15 children)

    Yes, it's for "easy searching." I dunno about current offerings, but even Roku boxes from five-ish years ago had them; you'd hold a button and talk into the remote.

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  • [–] 9 points 5 days ago (1 child)

    They still have them. This was from a Roku stick but has been repurposed for Flirc. The devices it was once connected to had a productive meeting with a pipe wrench.

    The mic is right below the power button and you held down the mic button above the play/pause button to use the voice search.

    A Roku remote

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago*

    Roku remotes are perfect for Flirc dongles. I repurposed one for Flirc as well. The Roku device it was attached to is long gone 😅

    I wonder if the microphone can be repurposed for similar shenanigans? 🤔

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  • [–] 7 points 6 days ago (12 children)

    Why? What can I say to remote? "Switch to channel 15?" Isn't it easier to press a button?

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  • [–] 17 points 6 days ago (7 children)

    It's for searching (so you don't have to type words on a virtual key pad with a remote with no alpha-numeric key pad).

    It would actually be OK, if they all had a hardware switch that cut power to the mic, but I doubt that how they work.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 days ago (5 children)

    Having the mic on the remote always on and streaming back to the host would drain the battery in about a day.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

    Less. They're usually just a couple AAAs, so like 1800 mAh.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 days ago (1 child)

    I don't know how they work but I would assume that the mic is not always streaming, as you say it can't be due to battery.

    I do not feel comfortable to assume that there is ZERO possibility that the mic can be made to stream without the physical button pressed ...

    ... unless I did the work to understand how it's wired and controlled, something I don't care to do. So I'll just assume they are unsafe spy devices until proven otherwise.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Streaming services have a search feature, but you have to scroll through each letter of the alphabet to spell out whatever you’re looking for. The microphone does away with both this process, and privacy.

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  • [–] 6 points 6 days ago

    It would be okay if it was local, and a simple voice recognition could work. Smart phones have that ability when the connection isn't present. But they're going to make it cloud driven because that's easier and opens up more "features".

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