I do, because I <i>paid</i> for it, and I have no reason to believe my data is used for any purpose other than Amazon selling me more stuff, and that they&#x27;re not interested in poisoning the well by surreptitiously recording audio when I&#x27;m not actively engaging in a dialog with my Echo.<p>That said, regarding the RasPi project, I did something similar for home automation before Echo&#x2F;Hue&#x2F;SmartThings&#x2F;etc were around, and I used the Acoustic Magic Voicetracker I array microphone, which still works well for an updated use of that (now it sits on my desk for dictation and VoIP calls). Perhaps that microphone would be useful to cover an entire large room for you? The manufacturer claims 30 feet of usable distance between the array and the speaker, and in practice, I found that to be pretty accurate.<p>EDIT: it should be pointed out that the microphone (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.acousticmagic.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;voice-tracker-i-details&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.acousticmagic.com&#x2F;products&#x2F;voice-tracker-i-detai...</a>) is more expensive than an actual Amazon Echo. The price hasn&#x27;t changed in the 12 years that I&#x27;ve owned it, either. But I did test the audio samples my Echo sends with audio recorded via the array microphone, and the standalone microphone was far superior at all distances in terms of quality, would would be important if you&#x27;re doing speech-to-text processing with PocketSphinx.