PrivacyMic looks to keep your home smart without Google, Alexa, Siri and pals listening in

Researchers at the University of Michigan have proposed a way to have your privacy cake and eat your home automation too. They've found a means of using a voice-activated smart speaker system without it having to listen to everything you say – and no, it's not "pressing a button." "There are a lot of situations where we want our home automation system or our smart speaker to understand what's going on in our home, but we don't necessarily want it listening to our conversations," said the aptly named Alanson Sample, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan. "And what we've found is that you can have a system that understands what's going on and a hard guarantee that it will never record any audible information." A video showcasing the technology explains.