How to Take Back Control of Smart Home Devices From Someone Else
Imagine this: your house is full of smart gadgets that you didn’t install yourself, but you have a decent understanding of how to use them – or at least how to yell at [the smart speaker you’re using] to play your favorite music. …
I believe this is a fairly common setting in a multi-person family: one person, Übergeek, buys most (or all) of the gadgets, customizes them, and teaches the other person the basics.
But when that partnership wanes – either through a breakup, a roommate’s move, or something else – the person leaving may still have access to home devices. While a friend who turns the lights on and off in your room may seem like a harmless prankster, there are other complications that aren’t as enjoyable .
Regaining control of your smart home
If someone has access to your smart home’s gadgets and shouldn’t, the first and easiest step to take back control is to change your wireless network name and password. If the device does not connect to your home with an Ethernet cable – for example, a security camera – this should effectively block every smart gadget from being able to reconnect to the Internet. No internet connection; there is no way to control them from afar (or look at what they are looking at).
Although you will not be able to independently use their gadgets smart home, and the person who had access to the gadget, will continue to have access to the account, or the application that controls them, they can not do anything. This gives you the ability to go hunting in your home or apartment and take an inventory of all the devices you will need to reboot, both to remove the other person’s access and to connect them to your new Wi-Fi network.
(And since you changed the name and password for your router’s Wi-Fi network, you can also change the username and password you use to log into the router. Also, disable any cloud connections you might otherwise use to access your router settings without being at home. If you are using a mesh router, you will need to reset your device and set it up with a new account, and this should be your very first step first.)
Resetting your smart gadgets
All smart devices are different, and there are a number of different methods you will have to use to reset their associations and link them to a different account or app. For example, if it uses some kind of hub, you will probably need to physically hold the button (or buttons) to restore to factory settings. If it’s a device you’ve already installed, such as a thermostat, you can probably find some sort of “reset account” option in the device’s software settings.
It is best to check with the manufacturer of each device to find out what you need to do to restore it to shipped condition. Here are some instructions for some of the more popular smart home devices you probably own:
Cameras
- Nest Cam or Nest Hello (doorbell)
- Logitech circle 2
- Netgear Arlo Cameras
- Ring Stick Up Camera
- Camera spotlight ring
- Amazon Cloud Camera
- Flashing camera
Speakers
- Amazon Echo speakers ( 1st generation , 2nd generation )
- Google Home Columns
- Sonos speakers
Thermostats
Lights
Light switches
Concentrators
- Samsung SmartThings
- Winking hubs ( call support !)
- Iris Intelligent Hubs
Door bells
It will take a while to reset all of your devices and set them up to back up with an account you control and not someone else, but this is absolutely necessary.
That being said, keep in mind all other accounts that the other person might have access to: shared Netflix, Spotify, or Hulu accounts; any family or home plans you create with Apple or Amazon ; password management apps that you both have access to; email accounts; bank accounts ; etc.
If you both used a shared password to sign in to any system, and you use that password for other accounts, change it now. It might even be worth changing passwords on critical services (at least in the password manager ), because you never know what information the now remote roommate might have been accessing.