Spent $400 on a 'privacy-focused' smart lock and it phoned home every day anyway

I bought a fancy smart lock from a company that promised no cloud storage and full local control. Cost me about $400 after shipping. Set it up, thought it was great for a month. Then I checked my router logs and saw it was pinging a server in China every 12 hours. No idea what data went out, but that made me feel sick. Anyone else find hidden network traffic in their smart home gear?

3 comments

3 Comments

alicecraig29d agoOG Member

Did you try blocking those servers to see if the lock still worked?

riverh4929d ago

Did you dig into your firewall logs after blocking them?

king.eric29d ago

Blocking the servers was step one, but yeah, the lock still acted up. It's like the thing has a mind of its own and just hates being told what to do. Probably figured out a new way to nag me through different IPs, because why not make life harder for no reason. Maybe I should try bribing it with a firmware update like it's a picky toddler. At this point, I'm half convinced the lock is just messing with me for sport.