I don't buy it (no pun inteneded)… it's not escaping the matrix, all the horrible stuff these companies do is out in the open now

I'm not saying some couldn't still be fooled, but enough to make these spyware gear commercially viable at those prices and in the current economic enviroment?

They could also just continue collecting data while the mic is muted and hold that until the next time the device is unmuted. Then upload their spy data at the same time as legitimate data to hide it.

no, it isnt… traffick would be encrypted (and if it isn't, that would be an even worse privacy/security nightmare)

Do you know if the traffic is encrypted or not?

Don’t even need to do that, haven’t had one in a while but when I did, I remember I had it on mute and said hey Google. It responded immediately with “the microphone is muted.” How did it know to answer then?

I don't recall accusing the nest of anything except earning my distrust. I'm more the type to open it and solder my own switch in, which is what I did.

sounds like win/win