You don’t become the world’s richest man by accident. Bezos is worth $180 billion because he knows what you need before even you do. That’s a pretty great advantage when you also happen to own one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies. The Amazon Echo isn’t a smart speaker, it’s a utility tool that enables you to dip into Amazon’s services, and allows Amazon to dip into your minds by always listening to you. Alexagate stops that.

The Alexagate is a clever hack that sits on top of the 3rd Gen Echo Dot or Echo (sort of like a tin-foil hat) and prevents their microphones from listening to you. The bright yellow device can be activated by clapping thrice whenever you want to have a private conversation, and deactivated with an additional 3 claps when you want to ask Alexa to play some music or give you the recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala.

The ALexagate device uses 7 strategically placed ultrasonic speakers to disable the Echo’s beam-forming microphones from picking anything up. When active, all the Echo hears is static noise (since it’s ultrasonic and localized, you don’t). That way, Bezos won’t be able to eavesdrop in on your conversations and use it to subliminally get you to buy more Pepto Bismol because he knows you cooked Chicken Tikka Masala the other day.

Designer: MSCHF