Gear Heads | Lisa Answers Your Questions About Smart Displays

ABOUT US: Located in Boston’s Seaport District in the historic Innovation and Design Building, America's Test Kitchen features 15,000 square feet of kitchen space including multiple photography and video studios. It is the home of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and Cook’s Country magazine and is the workday destination for more than 60 test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes over and over again until we understand how and why they work and until we arrive at the best version.

If you like us, follow us:

[AnimeshPathak]

Great to see you posting in the days of social distancing! Thanks so much for all your videos; my friends and I have bought so many items based on your recommendations and each one of them have been great!

Stay safe!

[bryan-iwe]

Just FYI, smart speakers/displays are not sending everything you say to their servers. Yes they are always “listening” but they are not always “recording”. The devices are able to understand their wake word without the server and once you say the wake word (or it at least thinks you did), then it records until it thinks you have ended your sentence. Only that clip is uploaded to the server. Easy proof is that the wake word still works even if your WiFi is off (you just get a message about not being able to connect to the internet). This isn’t to say that there is no risk from a hacker but they would have to specifically target your device. Amazon/Apple/Google aren’t wasting their computing power or data costs to live stream 24/7 audio from every device they’ve ever sold.

[Xelbiuj]

You gear reviews are the best I've purchased several of your top buys and always been satisfied.

[gerrygarcia]

Smart Displays are timers is worth it. I use it all the time. Connect most of your cameras, ring items will also show view. I have a Wyze CAM in the backyard and a Ring Doorbell and can conjure the images just by asking. Everything I buy know has to be ALEXA ready, if possible. Great job Lisa. Thanks.

[CWPWR]

Hey Lisa, it's grilling season. What is the best grill grates for a gas back yard grill? Stainless, Cast Iron, Grill Grates Aluminum, flat carbon steel? Thanks

[moremustard]

Just found this, and I have a questuion! Can you actually get either device to diasplay recipes from NYT cooking? Currently researching this...

[buhumal]

You can't change the wake word for google

[ottoleisering]

Test Kitchen talking about smartphones? Do I tenderize it first and how much butter should I use, and what's the oven temperature.

[mriverdance]

Thanks, Lisa, I also use it to see someone cooking on Youtube. Step by step, so I don't make a mistake. I visually like to see this. Plus, I'm looking for a smart display, so I can talk to my elderly Mom. She then can ask Google to call me, and not worry about her arm. These types of devices offer a lot of options that the device offers.

[jackielinde]

As far as voice assistants, those services are listening in and recording the conversations. The official reason is that their dev teams need to know if the services are correctly interpreting your commands. They have to record everything, so they can sift through and pick up the voice commands since they won't know what is or isn't a command until they listen to everything. HOWEVER, here are the issues with that:


1. Google, Apple, and Amazon have also used the recorded audio (and not JUST your commands) to sell your info to advertisers. (And sometimes, even phones will do this when the assistants have been hobbled.) If you want to test this out, have a conversation about a product you would never buy (like dog food if you don't own a dog), and see how quickly those services (or ads on web pages if you're using Google) show up. There's videos on this.


2. Google and Apple (not sure about Amazon, but good chances them, too) often use third parties to sift through this data... and there have been issues with what the vendors have been accessing and what they had access too. In Apple's case, the vendors were only supposed to have access to just the voice data with no metadata that could be used to identify and locate where the conversation took place. There's also questions on how they access the data and what safeguards are in place to prevent third parties from copying that data. While it's entirely possible that no personal data (both voice and the associated metadata) has been sold or given to outside interests, we have no way of knowing this. These are the kinds of safety issues that large companies tend to ignore until after they're caught doing it and someone's gotten hurt.


3. Wiretapping laws have not caught up to the technology. Laws always trail innovations (and how they can be abused). While Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc. have all fought against wiretapping search orders, it doesn't mean they won't be successful all of the time. (And, it doesn't mean they aren't handing this data over under the table, either.) It can be argued that with these devices inside one's home that the owner has no expected right to privacy. It can also be argued that by recording any and all conversations in the home, those services are duty bound to report any crimes recorded by the service. Until the laws have been updated with these devices/services in mind, expect this to be a contentious issue. And that's only if you live in a country with a good track record where human rights are concerned.



To be honest, outside of my cell phone (which has the software installed by default as part of the OS), I don't own any devices like these. I don't use them, and I disable the software on my phone as much as possible. Yeah, I know this makes me a Luddite, but I'm a luddite who works in IT. I've seen people put way to much trust in these companies to do the right thing, only to see them do anything but... So, yeah.

[BrazenSpirituality]

The backlighting is fine, but so much of the screen being that very bright screen is unpleasant and additionally causes an auto adjust of contrasts to occur which is detracting and annoying. I wish my comments were more about the content, but it was difficult to pay attention to the Q&A with the video. As for the Q&A will you be doing anything to clarify further on protecting our privacy and how exactly to hobble our information sniffing overlords?