this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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It's not when it's your device doing the computing. All electronic devices should have visible hardware indicators for when their camara or microphone is on, but that's a consumer rights issue most people are dismissive of, so it's not happening. Some people even always want it on for the assistant functionality.
The mic is always on for android phones anway, thats how it hears "Hey Google"
Not how it works.
They have an ultra low power processor that listens for the "hey Google" keyword, then that wakes up the main audio processor. But the main microphone is not actually on, and that small processor isn't capable of recording audio it's just looking for a certain matching sound wave and then triggering.
That's why it sometimes triggers if you just go "hurr ner dorrll" because those random sounds are close enough to what it's looking for.
That is why some older devices can't actually install the assistant software. They lack the necessary hardware to do it in a power efficient manner.
my Samsung has a green light in the task bar when my camera is on