Abstract

Tens of millions of people use smart devices in their homes providing convenience by using virtual assistants like the Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri. These assistants are always on and listening for commands to provide the power to turn on your TV, open a recipe, play your favorite music, or start a video chat. However, that functionality to always be on has a security downside in that these devices are listening to everything that happens in the home. Bloomberg reports that Amazon has this private voice data and with the lack of security in most home networks, hackers could too. The Home Office System provides an easy way to turn off all of your smart device microphones at the hardware level in an easy to configure and foolproof way. By giving people the power to easily control their virtual assistants, we can have truly secure, smart homes.