My Thermostat Knows I'm Single Now

I broke up with someone eight months ago. That's not what this post is about, but it's how the post starts because that's when I changed all the passwords. Email, Netflix, the shared grocery app. I was thorough. I'm the kind of person who goes through the list. I am a tecchie... I feel like I have a handle on this kind of thing. I removed his fingerprint from the door lock. I factory reset the Echo in the bedroom. I changed the wifi password, which yes, meant reconnecting fourteen devices by hand over a weekend while drinking wine that was too expensive for a Tuesday. I felt very in control. Very handled.

Fast forward to this week when I found out my Nest thermostat has been sending usage data to an account I deleted in October. Not his account. An account I made during setup that I forgot existed. It was tied to an old Gmail I haven't logged needed for anything except TikTok spam in over a year. The thermostat was still reporting to it. Learning schedule, home and away patterns, temperature preferences. Eight months of data about when I'm home, when I'm asleep, when I leave for work. Sent to an email address I don't use, linked to a Google account I specifically removed already. So what gives?

I didn't find this because I'm a security expert. I found it because my internet was slow and I was trying to figure out which device was using the most bandwidth. There was a Fox News article from a couple weeks ago about how smart home devices collect data through privacy clauses nobody reads. The stat that got me was this: The average household has 17 devices connected to the internet. Three of them are smart home devices. All of them are sending data whether you're using them or not. Diagnostic pings. Cloud syncing. Background updates. Your smart speaker is always listening for its wake word. Always. That requires bandwidth. Bandwidth is a made up word for: data leaving your house and going somewhere that is NOT your house, and is NOT private.

I started going through my devices. The thermostat was the worst but it wasn't the only one. A smart plug I bought for the Christmas tree in 2023 was still connected to an app I uninstalled. The app was gone from my phone but the plug was still phoning home to the manufacturer. Doing what. I have no idea. The tree has been in a box in the garage since January. The plug has been in the outlet behind the couch with nothing attached to it for two years, sending data about nothing to no one for no reason. My data... Now I am not a conspiracy theorist... but even THAT will get you bringing out the tinfoil. I don't think Santa is the 3rd party in this situation.

The Ring doorbell was laziness.. I knew that one had issues. Amazon admitted back in 2022 that Ring had given video footage to police eleven times without the owner's consent. Eleven times. Under emergency provisions. That ones not a conspiracy theory. That's their public statement. My doorbell records every time someone walks past my front door. It records when I leave. It is recording the sidewalk without the sidewalk patrons consent either. Eeesh. When I come back. When the delivery guy comes. When nobody comes for three days because I went to visit my mom. That pattern is worth something to someone. I just don't know who and I don't know if I agreed to it.

But here's what bothered me most; I deleted the account. I did the thing you're supposed to do in this instance. And the device didn't care. It kept sending data to the ghost of an account I thought was gone. The account was the door I closed. The device was the window I didn't know was open.

I went through the settings on everything I own. Turned off diagnostic reporting where I could find the option. Muted the Echo when I'm not using it. There's a physical button for that which I didn't know existed until this week. Reviewed app permissions on my phone and found that three smart home apps had access to my contacts. My contacts. Why does my lightbulb app need my contacts?

The article I read had this question at the end that I haven't been able to shake. If every smart device in your home combined its data into one timeline of your life, how comfortable would you feel with someone seeing it. I sat with that for a while. The answer is not comfortable at all. Not because I'm doing anything wrong. Because the timeline would be too accurate. It would know when I'm sad based on the thermostat staying at 74 all day because I didn't leave the house. It would know when I'm anxious based on how many times the doorbell camera activated because I kept checking if a package arrived. It would know I'm alone now because the sleep schedule changed from two patterns to one.

The thing I keep thinking is that I did everything right. I changed the passwords. I removed the accounts. I factory reset the devices I could factory reset. And the infrastructure underneath didn't notice. It kept collecting. It kept sending. It kept building a profile of a life that includes information I actively tried to delete. Because the device doesn't know the difference between data you want it to have and data you took back. The taking back part isn't built in.

I unplugged the smart plug behind the couch. I don't know what else to unplug. I don't know where the line is between convenience and surveillance when the surveillance is just your thermostat doing its job. I don't have a solution. I have fourteen devices and a creeping feeling that the only way to fully control my data is to go back to a dumb thermostat and a deadbolt with a key. And even then my phone is in my pocket, tracking everything the house used to. I can't help feeling that if I trusted Amazon... I might trust my thermostat... but I can't even trust a guy I stopped dating 8 months ago and have to change all my passwords.