There is a small, always-listening machine in most modern kitchens. It costs about the same as a decent bottle of wine, and most people give it about that much thought. That is the strange part.
Almost every other object in a home is chosen. The couch was picked. The knives were picked. The lamp was picked because it looked right against the wall. The device on the counter that hears every dinner conversation, every argument in the hallway, every private phone call while the pasta water boils. That one arrived in a cardboard box and was plugged in.
The microphone is the most intimate thing you will ever put in your house. It deserves the same care as the couch.
This is not a piece against convenience. Voice is genuinely useful. The lights should go down when you ask them to; the timer should start when your hands are wet. The question is not whether a home should be intelligent. The question is where that intelligence should live, who should have access to it, and what should be true when you say things in your own kitchen.
Our answer, which shapes the whole company, is: the intelligence should live in your house, only your household should have access to it, and what you say in your kitchen should stay in your kitchen. That is not a technical constraint. It is a design decision. Every part of Stillgrove (the stones on the shelf, the Waystone in the study, Willow herself) is shaped by that decision more than by any other.
If you accept the microphone as a piece of furniture, you have to hold it to the standard of furniture. It has to earn its place. It has to be worth looking at. It has to be quiet. And, most importantly, it has to be honest about what it does when you're not looking at it.