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How much proof is there that smart tvs and phones listen to you?
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Privacy
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Umm, because my Hisense remote has the mic button and a little hole for the mic to collect sound. Which makes sense when a person wants to speak and be heard and have the mic a foot from their mouth vs 6 feet across the room. But I guess your TV is different and listens with infrared.
Now that it's daylight and I'm fully awake, I just verified, that neither our Hisense/Roku TV nor our separate Roku dongle have any microphone in their respective remotes, verified by disassembly, and I disassembled the dongle and verified the dongle doesn't have any microphone either.
Whether the TV itself has any microphone or not, I'm not quite sure, and I'm not about to disassemble that to find out, nor do I care as that TV will never be connected online.
But I can 100% confirm that neither of our Roku remotes have a microphone or microphone button.
Guess what? It might be the year 2026, but our TV was manufactured in 2022, and the Roku dongle was manufactured in 2019, so the microphone thing must be a newer feature in recent years.
Thanks for the heads up, I'll never purchase any new Roku device again.
Umm, then we must have a pre-spyware HiSense/Roku, no microphones to be found here, none that I know of anyways.
Also, no WiFi connection either, so..
Sir, it’s the year 2026.
Ignoring our Hisense TV (we're never gonna connect that online anyways), we do have a separate Roku dongle adapter that is connected online.
I just disassembled it to verify, it does not have any microphone, nor camera.