Amazon disabled the Echo setting that kept voice processing on your own device. With its Alexa+ upgrade, every recording now goes to the cloud — there is no local option left, and by default recordings are kept indefinitely.
local option removed
default recording retention
FTC settlement over kids' recordings (2023)
As reported by heyData and others: Amazon disabled the "Don't send voice recordings" setting on Echo devices, and its Alexa+ generative upgrade requires all voice data to go to the cloud — removing the last on-device processing option. Recordings are stored indefinitely by default, and third-party "skills" have been found transmitting data to outside servers. In 2023, Amazon paid $25M to settle FTC charges over retaining children's voice recordings and locations.
The most popular voice assistant in the world just made "keep it on my device" impossible. When the microphone in your kitchen is a cloud device by mandate, privacy stops being a setting you control — it becomes a choice the vendor made for you, and can revoke whenever it likes.
The one setting that kept your voice home was quietly removed.
Recordings kept indefinitely unless you go digging in settings.
The vendor decides where your voice goes — unless the device can't send it at all.
The rule people who run infrastructure live by: never connect the things you care about to the internet. Privacy you can't lose is privacy that was never a toggle in the first place.
A voice assistant that physically can't send your voice.
Aura runs entirely on-device. There's no "send to cloud" switch to remove, because there is no cloud path at all. It hears only you, and nothing it hears can leave the room. The privacy isn't a setting — it's the architecture. Nothing leaves the room.