Amazon to kill Echo’s local voice processing feature in favor of Voice ID

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If you own an Echo smart speaker, it will soon lose a key privacy feature — and be replaced with cloud processing of all voice commands.

Three smart speakers with fabric exteriors are aligned diagonally. Each has a glowing blue ring on top, with buttons visible for control.

Amazon will soon disable users’ ability to process voice requests on-device.

Users of Amazon’s Echo smart speaker will soon receive an email from the company detailing changes to the device’s voice request processing. Beginning March 28, everything users say to Echo’s Alexa engine will be sent to Amazon.

The move will disable local processing of voice requests in favor of a new Alexa+ feature called Amazon Voice ID, notes Ars Technica.

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