A Professional’s Top Ten Tips For Smart Home Security

Touch sensitive digital smart home automation control panel. As we’re coming out of lockdown and looking at getting back to normal, it’s not only Honest-Johns who will be coming out of their lockdown bubbles, blinking and squinting in the sunlight. No, hackers will have been researching, plotting, planning and putting their enforced free time to nefarious use, learning the most effective, efficient and undetectable ways to bypass weak security and gain access to your Smart Home Environment.

Naturally there are ways to keep yourself safe and secure, but you need to go above and beyond the built in and factory default settings on your Smart Home Devices if you’re going to achieve any real security. Changes to the laws manufacturers have to abide by when it comes to default settings, two stage authentication, and passwords are in the pipeline, but there are at least ten ways to secure your devices today which will add heft to your home network security. Read more

Futureproof Your Smart Devices By Out-Smarting Planned Obsolescence

WiFi enabled tablet in persons handsWhen you buy a car you don’t expect the manufacturer to keep making parts for it indefinitely, just as when you buy a washing machine you don’t expect the maker to carry on producing the precise motor, hoses, belts and drum. But what you do expect is that they produce such a number of replacement and interchangeable, universal parts that you can always find a spare for years to come. But what if that broken element isn’t a cog or camshaft, but a piece of software in your Smart device?

European law is being updated to force manufacturers to make their products more repairable. You may void a warranty by taking a sticker off to take the machine apart to replace a broken doo-dad, but who cares if it was your own fault it got broken, or the thing is past its warranty anyway? With this new law they won’t be able to make goods which would be damaged or destroyed in the process of attempting to fix it. Read more