August 16, 2024
As we get further and further into “The Age of the Smart Home,” many new homeowners are finding that their new homes are haunted, and not just by any typical ghost. The Verge published a story in March of this year titled “Living with the ghost of a smart home’s past” about the various trials, tribulations, and headaches that can come with moving into a home with previously installed smart home tech.
Running with the momentum of this story, LCWA worked closely with our client CEDIA, The Association for Smart Home Professionals to put together a list of smart home professional-sponsored safety tips for buying and moving into a smart home. A couple of these tips are as follows:
Beware Off-the-Shelf Devices: An off-the-shelf device is a device that was purchased, installed, and left as-is without security patches or software updates. Smart home pros will ensure that devices are up to date, as well as set up auto-security updates.
Change Default Passwords: When a seller is preparing their home for a sale, they will often opt to simply factory reset their smart devices, setting the password to a default one. This ensures that the seller can no longer access the device – but many homeowners don’t realize that default passwords can often be found in product documentation and lists available on the internet, so it’s important to create unique, strong passwords for every smart device in your home.
Thanks to our team’s proactive media outreach, CEDIA quickly achieved a placement in Men’s Journal, featuring quotes from CEDIA CEO Daryl Friedman: Is it Safe to Buy a Smart Home? Home Buyers Should Consider These Tips. To see more smart home safety tips, click through to the article!