The only limitation appears to be you have to click a "start listening" button to get it to start recording audio. You can't simply say "Alexa" to get the raspberry pi + alexa web service to listen for your query.
Anyone have any ideas for a work around/ solution to this?
You can perhaps trigger alexa to start listening through it by wiring the voice recognition to click the "start listening" button.
I've heard the anecdotes about Alexa responding erroneously when people weren't home and doing things like turning the furnace on, etc. That combined with the general privacy concerns make me much more comfortable with being able to push a button to get her to listen – but I'd rather it be a button on my person – like on my fitbit, watch, etc. – easy, always available – plus maybe a way to turn it on for listening over a duration – say while cooking.
It could be set up to provide whatever signals a button can provide.