Spinoff - smart home - Alexa

[zukeypur]

We have a somewhat "smart home" with the Ring alarm, Ring camera, and Ring doorbell, as well as several other "smart" devices (Bosch fridge, wemo plugs, amazon plugs that work with Alexa, Rachio sprinkler control, Nest thermostats, Kasa outdoor plug, TVs, and Roomba).

We had a troubling incident a few weeks ago that resulted in us pulling all of the Alexa items from our house. DH and I were out to brunch, and a repair man showed up at our door to fix our dryer. The thing is, no one called him to fix the dryer. We asked where he was from (real company), who scheduled it, etc. We DID have a problem with our dryer, but we had not told anyone about it. It was only a discussion in the home. DH contacted the repair company to dig into it a bit deeper. While they didn't have our name, they did have our address. The repair was scheduled online with an obviously fake email address and an obviously fake name.

There has been no recording of anyone coming into the home when we're gone. All entrances and exits have a camera, and we have an alarm that is set every time we leave the house. DH works from home, so there are very few times when no one is home. We did have a dishwasher installed right before Christmas, but I can't imagine them putting some sort of spy device in the house.

We have reset the wifi network and removed anything that tried to connect that is an "unknown" device. We get a notification each time something connects, and we either identify and name it or block it. There is nothing that has tried to connect that we don't know about.

The kids were not involved, and their friends didn't know about the dryer.

The only thing we can think of is that someone was listening through the Echo dots. We had one in the kitchen that we used all.the.time. for various things, as well as one in our bedroom and one in each of the kids' rooms. I don't know that we'll ever figure out how this happened, but it has been unnerving, to say the least.

[jgenie]

That is unnerving!! Yikes! We had dots a few years ago and then pulled them when the listening concerns came to light. We just got an echo show for Xmas. Now I’m rethinking that decision. Please keep us posted on how things develop.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I just saw this yesterday https://apple.news/AavO4XeWrTwqN6PhM8ncU1w
And I followed these steps from it:

Open the Alexa app on your phone, then tap the More menu button.
Select Settings > Alexa Privacy.
Choose Manage Your Alexa Data.
Turn off the toggles next to "Help improve Alexa" and "Use messages to improve transcriptions."

That’s super unnerving! Our Alexa is the only smart thing we have (no Ring…) but that article had steps for some other devices as well.
Dh has long resisted having one in any bedrooms. I love my kitchen one (use it for timers daily) but your story is super creepy.


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[khm]

Very creepy! I assume your dryer isn't "smart"? I know ours has some button on it that looks like a cell phone. I'm not sure what it does! Googling quick looks like I could download the LG ThinQ app and control it from my phone or whatever? Call service? I'm not entirely sure.

[Snow mom]

Very creepy! I assume your dryer isn't "smart"? I know ours has some button on it that looks like a cell phone. I'm not sure what it does! Googling quick looks like I could download the LG ThinQ app and control it from my phone or whatever? Call service? I'm not entirely sure.

Also wondering if it's a smart dryer. I know a friends smart fridge orders its own filters, which I find super creepy, but she finds helpful.

[AnnieW625]

We have three Alexa devices in our house (An Echo, and two Dots (in girls rooms), plus my grandma’s Dot at her house on our account). We use them for alarms, timers, asking silly questions, and music. We have never saved a list of any kind of items. Occasionally dd1 will call dd2’s Alexa from her phone. We haven’t had any issues. We also have Ring cameras at our house which we have had professionally managed by Ring in the past (our subscription lapsed and I need to renew it before our trip at the end of the month). We have not had anyone show up unannounced and neither has my Grandma (who also has a separate hardwired alarm system).

Just double checked my settings and they are set to protect our privacy. I am the owner of the Echo, DD2’s dot, and my grandma’s dot, but was able to check Dd1’s dot as it is still under my Amazon account, but has her name on it.

After reading this it makes me glad that we don’t have smart appliances and no smart home manager.

DH’s cousin for some reason was using my email (we have the same first initial and last name), but I have had my email address since you needed an invite to get an email with gmail so I don’t know why he thought he or his wife thought they could use my email. I think I responded a few times to emails that were sent (one was regarding his military service) and then they finally stopped. Now I get spammed from other people who have same initial same last name who decide to provide my email for a variety of email lists.


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[zukeypur]

Dryer is definitely not smart….it’s 16 years old. Our wifi network name did incorporate some of our Alma Mater, and we have an emblem prominently displayed on our house. We are the only ones who went to that school, and it’s Texas, y’all. Football tensions are real here. I also had some political signs displayed in our yard at one point; ours were knocked down and our neighbors were stolen. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but I changed our wifi network name to a generic name and changed the password. We don’t have a smart home “manager” so I don’t think that was the issue. The only things I can thn’of are Alexa or someone somehow hacking into our network.

[khm]

Dryer is definitely not smart….it’s 16 years old. Our wifi network name did incorporate some of our Alma Mater, and we have an emblem prominently displayed on our house. We are the only ones who went to that school, and it’s Texas, y’all. Football tensions are real here. I also had some political signs displayed in our yard at one point; ours were knocked down and our neighbors were stolen. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but I changed our wifi network name to a generic name and changed the password. We don’t have a smart home “manager” so I don’t think that was the issue. The only things I can thn’of are Alexa or someone somehow hacking into our network.

Definitely weird! Those things (Siri, Alexa, Google devices, Samsung TVs/phones, so.many.things) are always always "listening" waiting for a command to trip them into action. Somehow, something must have tripped an appointment being made? "Maybe we need to make an appointment to get the dryer fixed......" tripped Alexa to "make an appointment to get the dryer fixed....."??

The dummy email/name, is it completely random letters or do they somehow point to a device or service that was on your network? Was the dishwasher guy from the same company? Do you have a service plan with any appliance repair place?

I'm pretty sure you can view / hear everything the Alexa (and the other devices) has paid attention to, that might shed some light.

I don't think it has anything to do with your wifi name being your Alma Mater, FTR. I also don't think any person was actively listening within your house. Something, somehow errantly sent out a "bat signal". I mean, if your name wasn't even attached - it could have been to the wrong address! How long have you been in your house? Where did the last owners move to? Maybe they have the smart dryer that doesn't know it's new address.

[zukeypur]

There was no discussion about getting the dryer repaired. I was going to try to do it myself. Also, it was a repair company in the next town over. We would have used someone more local (which we did the following week). We do not have any service plans on anything. We never get extended warranties, and as mentioned, this dryer is 16 years old. The only thing involving the dryer was my daughter telling me over the phone that it was making noises, and I had searched for "dryer making squealing noises" on youtube.

The email used was not random letters. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like [email protected]. I don't remember the exact words, but they were vulgar and intentional. The name on the order was meant to sound like an Asian name, but it was phonetically curse words. Again, definitely not random.

The address was correct. When DH called the repair company back to get more info, they definitely had our address. It was 100% intentional.

[zukeypur]

I didn't know you could see a text of everything Alexa recorded. I just looked up all recordings for that day and the several before that day, and there is no record of anything besides a bunch or normal stuff and tons of "alexa stop" messages