With a background in industrial design, multidisciplinary designer Joris Wegner points out that we have no physical indication of whether our devices are listening to us or not. At rest, are our smart devices really "just patiently waiting for their wake word or are our private conversations too tempting for advertisement and surveillance?"
With his Smarter Speakers concepts, Wegner proposes that the act of cutting off the mic be integrated with the physical form of the objects:
I like the concepts. The hard part would be getting consumers to trust that the manufacturers are adhering to the physical rules embodied by the object.
I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Shouldn't Smart Devices Feature Overt Physical Indications That They're Not Listening to Us?
Similar to this: We have an indoor camera in our home from a popular security system provider. A little metal disk visibly and audibly clicks into place in front of the lens when the camera is not being used. It's simple, but it goes a long way in improving trust in the product