Disney Alexa in all rooms?

[ajollyholidaywithjo]

Because your phones aren't listening to you?

Lol exactly this. All the comments here seem very concerned, but don’t seem to realize that the smartphone in your hand is also listening and tracks your moves?

 

[DeeBee3]

Glad we are not the only family who hates all these "listening" devices. It's bad enough my phone is tracking me and everything I do. Sometimes I wonder why people aren't more concerned about their privacy. I mean it's not about doing bad/illegal stuff, it's just your dang privacy!

 

[Brett Wyman]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

 

[DLgal]

It doesn’t bother me but I understand why others wouldn’t want it. How many of you have a smart phone with a virtual assistant? How do you know that isn’t listening?

I disabled mine.

 

[DLgal]

Lol exactly this. All the comments here seem very concerned, but don’t seem to realize that the smartphone in your hand is also listening and tracks your moves?

Not if you specifically turn that feature off. Do people just leave their phones on the default settings for everything?

 

[bwvBound]

More info from Amazon's product announcements video. Disney's Josh D'Amaro introduces Hey, Disney starting at 2:53. Curious comment in closing this segment about consumers at home purchasing this app?
Link:

Note: The Echo Show 5 is pretty old and super slow. I have one. I toss it in the trash now and again ... but later retrieve it. It is a tolerate/hate thing ... walking a fine line even when I know I have full control of the security settings. I really wouldn't want one in my hotel room w/ unknown, modified or admin-controlled settings. Ewwwww!!!

 

[pianomanzano]

For those comparing this with cell phones and the information they track, I think the big difference is that we knowingly (or for some of us unknowingly) agree to that when we purchase our phone, for the same reason I chose to use "free" e-mail, social media, music/video streaming services. I'm willing to give up that data privacy in exchange for the services being provided.

The difference with something like sticking this in hotel rooms is that our data (read: spending habits and preferences) our now being given to Amazon and in return we get some assistant with seemingly basic functionally--Disney IP give us personalized messages or answering basic questions like what the time park opens or requesting towels, things that we can already do on the phone (that tracks our every word and movement). If they were really focused on making this all about improving guest/user experience, they'd build it into the Genie app or build a standalone app (or MDE?) supported on all devices, rather than pushing it on to some Amazon device.

 

[AdamsMum]

Because your phones aren't listening to you?

Ha! My phone doesn't even have location activated on it. I think these things are just creepy, and even worse in a hotel room. I hope they can be uplugged.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Maybe I'm vacationing all wrong, but just how much discussion do some people have in their hotel room regarding "spending habits and preferences"? If you bugged my room, all you'd get is 2 or 3 hours of "We need to get going, #@*%!", "What time is our reservation?" or "Hang on, I need to use the bathroom before we go". And a fair amount of arguing. 75% of the time we're not even there.

Maybe you'll find out we're eating dinner at Boathouse on Saturday at 7:00, but you'd already know just about all of my on-property activities by virtue of MDE. Disney already knows where I am, where I'm eating dinner, where I had lunch, when I entered each park, what credit cards I have linked to my account, what tchotchkes I bought at the Emporium, what beer I had at Biergarten and Geyser Point, my address, phone number, email, you name it. Hell, when DME was a thing, they even knew what airline you were flying and your flight number.

Are folks planning on doing the whole "Hey Alexa, how is my Goldman portfolio performing today?" while getting ready to catch the bus to MK? I get the whole Big Brother thing, but seriously how much of anything important does anyone say in their hotel room at WDW? And anyway, the NSA is listening to everything already anyhow...

 

[AdamsMum]

If you bugged my room, all you'd get is 2 or 3 hours of "We need to get going, #@*%!", "What time is our reservation?" or "Hang on, I need to use the bathroom before we go". And a fair amount of arguing. 75% of the time we're not even there.

You forgot," where's my magic band?"
I still think they're creepy.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Not to mention smart TV's that are already in many rooms, as well as the always-forgotten hotel WiFi that allows hotels to log into their servers to view browsing histories. THAT is what I'd be much more concerned with.

Inarguably creepy though.

 

[Narcoossee11]

Because your phones aren't listening to you?

THIS !!!!! You could not be this naive to think that most smart devices ALREADY know so much about us. Welcome to this world.
Let me tell you a little secert.. MDE and GENIE is recording your info.

 

[Carol_]

This is a horrible idea. There are so many privacy concerns with these things. I'd unplug it.

Upon entering, we’d unplug it too.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

For those that say you turn off location tracking and voice recognition on your phone, how do you know that it is REALLY off? Just because the location services icon isn’t coming on doesn’t mean the aren’t tracking you in the background and just not being honest about it.

 

[kanerf]

If they are installing Echo it would be nice if they had smart bulbs or sockets to go with. That is what I use it for most, turning lights and plugged in devices on and off. I have a standing fan in the living room for example and just have to say 'Alexa, living room fan on' instead of going over and switching it on or off. Lazy, yes, but I can also do this remotely if I want to start cooling down the room before I get home.

 

[DonMacGregor]

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you."

-Joseph Heller

 

[DCJ]

I would have been happy to just have the clocks back in the rooms.
My days of trusting Disney to do the right thing are over. Unplugging that thing when we get in the room.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the digital devices, if activated to do so, don't record hundreds of thousands of hours of audio files, for Jeff Bezos' minions to salivate over in darkened rooms, they (or their connected overlords) create transcripts which are then scoured using an algorithm to identify and flag key words germane to their search parameters. Still eavesdropping to be clear, but it's not like your creepy neighbor tapping into the same frequency as your baby monitor.

 

[Chuck S]

I love my Alexa. I like being able to control my lights remotely from anywhere. And get the weather, and music. If privacy i your concern, cell phones and computers aren't your friend either, neither are credit cards, online shopping, or magic bands.

 

[sethschroeder]

Lol exactly this. All the comments here seem very concerned, but don’t seem to realize that the smartphone in your hand is also listening and tracks your moves?

Disney doesn't fully control my smartphone and all software on it. I trust Disney pretty little, Amazon a tad more but not much, and Google/Apple much more in this regards.

If you are saying Hey Disney then that means they have their software on top of this with full control.

I love my Alexa. I like being able to control my lights remotely from anywhere. And get the weather, and music. If privacy i your concern, cell phones and computers aren't your friend either, neither are credit cards, online shopping, or magic bands.

None of the benefit though will be built in to this likely. They are not replacing all of their light control for this. In the end it will be a neat little couple phrases and that will be it.

Golden Books on Google Home would likely be a better use inside of rooms with all the primary Disney Golden Books in your room.

Also unless its changed its exponentially worse with Amazon since if someone were to hack your profile they can access a large database of all your interactions which were recorded with the Echo. While Google has something similar its not the live audio. If this has changed forgive me I ripped out all the Echo hardware after I did some initial testing and development on the platform a couple years ago.

I want to add you are not going to be logging in likely on this Amazon device so that means all that recorded content will land inside the profile tied to that account. Which means its likely directly in Disney's hands and they have some language buried in that they are good to record you in the hotel room.