I work in the IoT industry, helping companies throughout the Americas solve their toughest problems with tiny but brilliant devices. I also run hands-on smart home workshops at my office in Boca Raton and moderate the r/ShellyUSA subreddit.
I'm a consumer too, and I deeply believe in our innate right to privacy. Local control is critical when I choose any piece of personal electronics - it's how my own home automation choices became my day job. If a device can't do its job without sending my family's data to someone else's server, I don't want it.
I think our data privacy is at greater risk today than at any time before. We're surrounded by tools that make it easy to trade convenience for the safety of our families, and most of us don't see what we gave up. Not until the company behind the product sells our data, suffers a breach, or switches the service off.
That's what I write about here: privacy, local control, and how the hardware actually works. I hope you find something here that is worth your time.
Skyticket may have leaked 14.6 million records, then switched off saved credit cards, which is a lot like locking the barn once the horse is in another country. Three habits limit the damage the next time a company you trust gets hacked.
When you buy hardware with a Cloud dependency, you never own. You're just leasing it for an unknown period of time.
Weber takes your June oven one step away from a $1500 brick