All major smart speaker makers have been rapped for not making it clearer they hired human workers to transcribe user conversations (Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg/Getty) One in every five homes in the UK is estimated to use one, and they have been praised by disability campaigners for enabling less able-bodied people to interact with technology in simpler ways, and for helping to combat loneliness in older users. While Amazon, Google and Apple always resist officially confirming how many devices they’ve sold, analysts are confident that global smart speakers sales had crossed the 200m mark by the end of last year and estimate the market will be worth a whopping $35.5bn (£27.2bn) by 2025. Omg Spotify sent me a free Google Nest Mini! □Ĭan’t wait for my free google nest mini for spotify premium, £9.99 a month for unlimited music AND a government spying device ?! what a deal!!Īlthough it’s impossible to know whether the impetus behind the giveaway was Google was looking to shift a load of unsold stock or a blatant stunt to get more Nest Minis in our homes (or a combination of the two), the stunt is an interesting illustration of our conflicting attitudes towards smart speakers.Īmazon was the first to lead the charge with the launch of the Amazon Echo in the UK in 2016, much to the chagrin of any girl named Alexa, and was swiftly followed by Google’s Home and Nest Mini (formerly Home Mini) and Apple’s HomePod.Īll three work in much the same way – an AI digital assistant answers questions with information drawn from the web, playing music on request and controlling connected devices, including smart lamps, TVs and kettles – and have spawned a plethora of cheaper knock-offs around the globe. No way I’m downloading the COVID app how do we know they’re not using it to spy on me !!! “Imagine caring so little about your data privacy you jump on getting one of those free Google Nests from Spotify,” added one disgruntled tweeter, before screenshotting an order confirmation and adding: “Anyway I can’t wait to make mine tell me what else that actor has been in every 10 minutes”. The Spotify/Google deal triggered an avalanche of jokes on Twitter as users quipped about turning their homes into a Black Mirror dystopia and how the “government can hear me more clearly now”.
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