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Your reminder to remove the microphone from your TV remote today (thelemmy.club)
submitted 5 days ago by to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[–] 17 points 5 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 4 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 4 days ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 1 point 4 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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