You know when people say "I've only talked about this once, never searched for it, and then I got ads a few days later"?
What if it hasn't been phones that were listening (despite Siri/Google Assistant/Alexa mis-identifying something as a wake-word being the most sensible explanation), but TVs?
Google part numbers (if they aren't scratched off/lasered off/ epoxied). Once you've found the ethernet controller, you can short out the pins, or yeet it off the board.
finding hospitality/digital signage displays, which have even better specs than consumer ones, because they aren't subject to the same energy saving regulations
To be fair, the article linked this idiotic one
about OpenAI's "thirsty" data centers, where they talk about water "consumption" of cooling cycles.. which are typically closed-loop systems.
SDRs like the Hackrf Portapack are, as well.