Smart home devices have quietly become fixtures in millions of households. Voice assistants on kitchen counters, cameras at front doors, thermostats learning our routines. But how much do these devices actually know about us, and should we be worried? We sat down with Kristian Moller, CEO and Founder of Aether Smart Home, to unpack the privacy realities of the connected home.
Let’s start with the big question. Are smart home devices spying on us?
Kristian Moller: It’s the question I get asked more than any other, and the honest answer is nuanced. Smart home devices collect significant amounts of personal data about their users. They’re not deliberately “spying” in the traditional cloak-and-dagger sense, but they do gather information that raises legitimate privacy concerns. The problem is that most people welcome the convenience these gadgets provide without fully understanding what data gets collected or how companies use it.
So the risk depends on the device and the manufacturer?
Kristian Moller: Exactly. Whether a smart home poses a surveillance risk really comes down to a few factors: how manufacturers handle data privacy, what security measures are in place to protect that information, and crucially, how aware the homeowner is of what their devices can actually do. Awareness is half the battle.
How Devices Collect Your Data
Walk us through the typical smart home. What’s actually listening, watching, or tracking?
Kristian Moller: More than people realise. Smart speakers like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod use always-on microphones to listen for wake words, and they store recordings of your interactions. Smart TVs track your viewing habits, app usage, and content preferences, and some models have cameras and microphones built in for video calls.
Then you have smart thermostats like Google Nest, which learn your household routines by monitoring when you adjust the temperature and when you’re home. Doorbell cameras record everyone who approaches your property. Smart locks log every time a door opens and who opened it. Even smart fridges are getting in on it, tracking food inventory and expiry dates.
And all of this data goes somewhere?
Kristian Moller: Right. Microphones capture audio. Cameras record visual information. Sensors measure temperature, humidity, motion, and usage patterns. All of it gets transmitted to company servers through your Wi-Fi network. That’s the part people often miss. The device isn’t just sitting on your shelf, it’s a node sending information out into the world.
What do manufacturers do with all that data?
Kristian Moller: They build profiles. Detailed ones. Your thermostat learns when you arrive home and when you sleep. Your voice assistant uses your purchase history and search queries to suggest products. Your smart TV recommends content based on what you’ve watched and compares your behaviour against other users with similar profiles. Companies share anonymised data with third parties for advertising, and some use the data to train AI systems. The profiling enables genuinely useful predictions, but it also creates comprehensive records of your daily life.
The Surveillance Risks
Let’s talk about voice assistants specifically. The “always listening” thing makes a lot of people nervous.
Kristian Moller: And they should be informed about it, at minimum. Voice-activated assistants stay in listening mode continuously to detect wake words. The microphones are always active, even when users think they’re off. The device is recording short snippets constantly and analysing them for trigger phrases. When one accidentally activates, and it happens more than you’d think, it can capture private conversations and send them to company servers.
Have those recordings ever been heard by actual people?
Kristian Moller: Yes, and this is well-documented. In 2019, Amazon confirmed that thousands of employees listened to Alexa recordings to improve the service. Some of those recordings included private conversations, business dealings, even potential crimes. Google had a fault in 2020 where Home devices recorded conversations without the wake word being spoken. There was a famous case in Portland where an Alexa recorded a private conversation and sent it to a random contact in the user’s address book. Amazon said it was a chain of misinterpreted commands. Either way, it happened.
What about cameras?
Kristian Moller: Smart cameras and doorbell cameras stream video to cloud servers, which creates access points for hackers. There have been numerous cases of unauthorised access where strangers were watching families inside their homes. Weak passwords are usually the culprit. Ring, which is owned by Amazon, faced criticism when employees were found accessing customer feeds without permission. And remember, many doorbell cameras include microphones too, so it’s audio and video in one package.
Data Sharing and Security
Beyond the manufacturer, who else is getting this data?
Kristian Moller: Data brokers. This is the part of the ecosystem people understand the least. Many manufacturers share user data with third parties for advertising and analytics. Brokers then buy that information and combine it with data from other sources to build incredibly detailed consumer profiles: when you’re home, your daily routines, your preferences, your buying habits.
And users have consented to this?
Kristian Moller: Technically, yes, through privacy policies that often run dozens of pages in dense legal language. Default settings are typically configured for maximum data collection, and most people never change them because they don’t know the settings exist. Even when you opt out of some sharing, manufacturers often keep collecting data for what they call “product improvement.”
What about security flaws?
Kristian Moller: This is where it gets genuinely dangerous. Many connected devices ship with weak default passwords like “admin” or “12345”, and users never change them. Manufacturers often fail to release regular firmware updates to patch vulnerabilities. Older devices may never get updates at all, which means they’re permanently exposed.
And smart devices can become entry points to your entire home network. Once an attacker is in through, say, a poorly secured camera, they can potentially reach your computers, your phones, everything else connected to that network. Some devices don’t even encrypt their data. It’s transmitted in plain text.
Practical Steps for Homeowners
Let’s get practical. What should people actually do?
Kristian Moller: Start with privacy settings. Every smart device has them, and most people never look. Review them immediately after setup and disable anything collecting data you don’t need. A smart speaker needs microphone access, but it probably doesn’t need your location. Most manufacturers now offer privacy dashboards where you can see what’s being collected and delete stored recordings. Check those every few months.
What about security basics?
Kristian Moller: Strong, unique passwords for every device, not the same one reused everywhere. Enable two-factor authentication wherever it’s offered. Turn on automatic firmware updates, or check manually each month. And don’t forget your router itself. Change its default password and, ideally, create a separate network just for your smart home devices. That way, if one gets compromised, the attacker isn’t suddenly inside your work laptop too.
Anything else?
Kristian Moller: A few things. Disconnect devices you don’t use anymore. Every connected device is a potential entry point. Mute microphones when you want a genuinely private conversation. Use the physical privacy switches if your device has them. And when you’re buying new devices, factor in the manufacturer’s privacy reputation. Companies that encrypt data properly, limit third-party sharing, and write transparent privacy policies are genuinely safer choices than those with vague or permissive practices.
What’s Coming Next
Are regulations catching up?
Kristian Moller: Slowly, but yes. GDPR in Europe set the template: clear permission required before collecting data, the right to ask what’s been collected, the right to have it deleted. Similar laws are appearing in other regions. Privacy policies are being required in plainer language. Some jurisdictions are now mandating that manufacturers build privacy features in from the start rather than bolting them on later. And regulators can issue serious fines now, which gets companies’ attention faster than anything else.
What about the devices themselves?
Kristian Moller: The industry is genuinely shifting. At Aether, and across the better manufacturers, we’re seeing a real move toward local data processing, keeping information inside the home rather than sending everything to remote servers. Stronger encryption is becoming standard. Physical switches to disable cameras and microphones are showing up more often. Privacy dashboards are getting clearer. Some companies are even publishing regular transparency reports about government data requests.
Final thoughts for homeowners feeling overwhelmed by all this?
Kristian Moller: Don’t panic, but don’t be passive either. Smart home technology offers real value: convenience, energy savings, security, accessibility. The goal isn’t to reject it. The goal is to be informed about what you’re bringing into your home, configure it thoughtfully, and choose manufacturers who treat your privacy as something other than a marketing line. Your home is the most private space you have. The technology in it should respect that.