Looks like a good price for the Lenovo branded smart clock, plug and bulb at JB Hi-Fi.
$129 for the Smart Clock and $29 for the Colour Bulb by themselves, and no price advertised for the plug yet.
Lenovo Smart Clock B22 Starter Pack
Lenovo Smart Clock E27 Starter Pack
Not sure but haven't seen plug in stock before
How are the Google devices too much of a privacy breach? The only thing recorded and sent to Google are the questions you directly ask to it. They don't send audio 24/7 to Google like some people seem to think.
"On the hardware level, the speaker locally stores a stream of audio so it can appropriately respond to the wake word when it needs to.
These ambient recordings only upload to Google’s cloud servers when the wake word is said. The audio is then processed in the cloud and then returned to the device to deliver a result or response to whatever is asked." - https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/digital-home/is-google…
Have you ever used Google Home? We used to use it at my old office (3 months ago) and it often interrupts conversations because it thinks you have asked it something. Happened pretty frequently.
In latest Google Assistant tech demos there are no activation words anymore. They want you to have a natural conversation instead of a one way radio communication.
Also if you take a look at these company's terms of service and privacy policy, you are effectively surrendering all information they can get their hands on about you. There is a loophole where they're not allowed to capture your name at the time of capturing the data, but it is pretty easy to map the data back to your name by combining multiple datasets after the capture, which is perfectly legal and every company that does analytics does this.
There is also actual evidence of breaches of privacy: 1 "Some employees admitted to sharing amusing recordings with other employees via an internal chat room. Others said they had heard potentially disturbing conversations between people in their homes."
I have had a handful of false activations, but to be fair I don't say 'OK' or 'Hey' very often, I can imagine in an office there might be a few more false positives.
I'm quite happy for Google to store info about what I've asked my Home, that's probably a personal preference but I don't mind if Google knows how often I ask it to turn off lights/set alarms/convert teaspoons to tablespoons.
That's an interesting article, although it refers to Amazon, who look like they don't take privacy as seriously as Apple or Google - I wouldn't want to use an Alexa device in my home - but Google appear to keep the manually processed recordings more anonymous 1.
I think if I'd registered more false positives I'd be more concerned, like you said Google is likely to keep all the recordings/queries tied to your account, but I suppose it works accurately for me so I'm not so stressed - but I can understand your concern with the experience you had.
Lenovo - Smart Clock B22 Starter Pack ($149.00) SMARTCLOCKB22PACK Stock Shortage - Supplier Shipping Delays Supplier Shipping delays. Stock will start to arrive in stores 16 July 2019. Rainchecks may be taken.
Also looks like it only comes with the globe.
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/lenovo/lenovo-smart-clock-b22-star…
Has that catalogue already started?
The deal is on their website:
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/lenovo/lenovo-smart-clock-e27-star…
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/lenovo/lenovo-smart-clock-b22-star…
But does not seem to include the plug on the website.
Also no click and collect. Delivery only (from $9.95).
Going to pop into store tomorrow if the catalogue is already started.
The alarm clock is the only one of those without a camera and has a physical button to permanently mute the microphone. The Amazon and the Google ones are just too much of a privacy breach to even consider using them. You can mute the Google mic but it will then periodically remind you that it's muted.