The Three Worst AI Home Assistant Devices to Buy on Black Friday

The Echo series of devices, which come with Amazon’s Alexa assistant built-in, have been known to scare its owners, randomly laughing at people, and telling one crying woman, “It’s going to be OK,” after she lost her job, prompting her to lock the device away in a drawer for days out of fear.

In another incident, a device even recorded a family’s conversation and then sent it to a random contact, who told the family to immediately unplug the device.

And these problems are the least of concerns surrounding the Amazon Echo, with an August report indicating that the devices can be hijacked.

Despite this, Amazon has been working on expanding Echo’s reach, partnering with Marriott to put devices in hotel rooms, and working on a number of home appliances which could also contain the assistant– ranging from microwaves to clocks.

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