Could Amazon Alexa be living it up when you’re away from home? That’s what happened to a German man, who says his home assistant device decided to have a rave during the wee hours while he was out.
According to Mashable, Oliver Haberstroh from Hamburg claimed that while Alexa usually needs a hotword in order to switch on, his voice-activated device was able to blast music – much to the frustration of his sleeping neighbors – when he wasn’t home.
“I was perfectly happy with your service and Alexa,” Haberstroh wrote on Amazon’s German Facebook page. “However, since Friday night, the relationship between Alexa and me has taken a turn around. You could say ‘it is complicated’ [now] and things have gone so far that we now unfortunately have to go our separate ways.”
“While I was very relaxed in the Reeperbahn in Hamburg and enjoying a beer, Alexa managed on its own, without command and without me using my mobile phone (Spotify), to switch on at full volume and enjoy a party in my apartment. She decided to have it at a very unfavourable time, between 1.50am and 3.00am.”
Haberstroh’s neighbors alerted police, who broke into the apartment and silenced Alexa by pulling out the plug. They then changed the door lock.
When Haberstroh arrived at home, he discovered that he had to go to the police station to get the new keys to his place – and was also handed an expensive locksmith bill.
“When I asked Alexa how we could stay together and whether she could pay me back the costs, all I got was a dry ‘I couldn’t find any answer to the question’,” he added.
Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
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