A long while ago, my first foray into smart home stuff was a Phillips Hue system. I used to use it exclusively offline, but I got deeper into smart home stuff and wanted to add some integration into my system. I don’t remember what anymore, but it meant setting up a Hue developer account, so I signed up. Gave them my email address. Stopped using the integration, moved, reset the hub, used it offline for years.
This February I logged into the hub for some reason. I think an accessory wasn’t working and Hue user docs said to log in or some such nonsense.
Five days ago, I got an email from Amazon. They told me that one of the batteries in a Hue switch was running low, and they helpfully provided me with a link to buy new ones. Their page for the device indicated that they were being updated with its battery percentage every 4-8 hours - and that I had authorized Alexa access to my Hue system in February.
I checked the Hue app, and it indicated no apps or services connected to my account.
Logged into the Hue website, dug into my settings, and there were a dozen app’s and services that had been “authorized” to access my account - none that showed up in the app.
Every smart device that has been on my network - devices that I never integrated with Hue (on purpose!) were all happily showing very recent access times to my data. Systems I don’t have accounts to anymore. I revoked access, of course.
Three days ago Amazon emailed me to let me know a different device needed a battery, and showed that Hue had shared the battery level of the device with them that day - 2 days after I revoked access.
Yeah… all their products are getting trashed, reflashed, or used with zigbee hubs I’ve built.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
github.com/tuya-cloudcutter/tuya-cloudcutter
Infiltrated_ad8271@kbin.social 11 months ago
Having to hack even bulbs to avoid being spied on is a new level in dystopia.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 months ago
Oh, I could make it worse if you’d like? That tool isn’t made for just the bulbs I got at Costco, it’s made for any device in the Tuya ecosystem. What’s Tuya? They’re a Chinese white-label manufacturer that makes smart devices that other companies can slap their brand on. They’ll throw you together an app too, but all of the API calls go through their infrastructure. Bonus, they also make security cameras that send footage to their servers, and smart locks too. They’re literally everywhere, but I’m in Australia so that’s where I’m basing this list:
And that is, quite literally, only to name a few.
yoz@aussie.zone 11 months ago
Thanks mate.Moving forward I am Not going to buy anything “smart”
mypasswordis1234@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I have flashed all the bulbs and ceiling lights in my house and they work locally on FOSS firmware now 😉 It is not a big deal. I have very poor soldering skills, and I did this anyway.