How creepy is your smart home? Really, very creepy

One journalist went all-in on connecting her apartment to the internet, but her experiences might make you think twice about doing the same.

Going fully smart: “I connected as many of my appliances and belongings as I could to the internet,” writes Gizmodo's Kashmir Hill—“an Amazon Echo, my lights, my coffee maker, my baby monitor … a sex toy, and even my bed.”

Data says so much: Then, Gizmodo studied the information pouring out of Hill’s home. Unencrypted data revealed a lot—when lights go on and off, say, or what TV shows were on. But simply seeing which devices were in use was also telling: an Amazon Echo revealed what time the household woke up, for instance.

And ... is it worth it? “The fantasy of the smart home is that it will save us time and effort,” she points out. “But the friction involved in getting various devices from different companies to work together meant that many things took longer to do.”