How to stop your home gadgets from spying on you

5 days ago
3 min read

This story just broke. Sammy Azdoufal says that he wasn’t trying to hack every robot vacuum in the world. He just wanted to remote control his brand new DJI Romo vacuum with a PS5 game controller.

So what did he do? Same as what most of us nerds would probably do - use AI to write a program that connects the two. But, he got more that he bargained for. Instead of just being able to use his robot to chase the cat around the house, he inadvertently was able to remote control over 7,000 robots in 24 countries around the world. Furthermore, he could watch and listen the live camera and microphones feeds for ALL of these robots, their recorded floor plans, battery and brush levels... everything.

And mind you, most of these robots are in people's private homes, businesses, maybe even in secured state or Federal facility. The good news is that DJI "fixed" Sammy's access soon after he reported it to the manufacturer but what he found was just the canary in the coal mine.

The Takeaway

This incident raises serious questions about DJI’s security and data practices. After all, they are a Chinese company and if Sammy exposed them so quickly, what about someone with malicious intent with the same level of access? If AI can spit out an app that can let you see into someone’s house, what keeps a DJI employee from doing so? And why the **** does a robot vacuum need a microphone?!

Unfortunately, DJI is only the latest home tech company to make the news. Hackers took over Ecovacs robot vacuums to chase pets and yell racist slurs in 2024. In 2025, South Korean government agencies reported that a number of China-made robot vacuums had a flaw that let hackers view their camera feeds in real time.

And these manufacturers aren't being exactly honest when these vulnerabilities are found. Wyze knew hackers could remotely access your camera for three years and said nothing to warn customers. Anker's Eufy was also hiding the fact that they were watching customer's camera footage but at least they came clean about it.

It just goes to show that it's up to you to keep your home gadgets from spying on you since it's getting really hard to trust these overseas manufacturers. Here are my top 3 tips to protect yourself:

Use a Separate Wi-Fi Network
Put smart home gadgets on a guest network instead of the same network as your computers and phones. If a device is compromised, it helps keep attackers from reaching the rest of your home network.
Turn On Two-Factor Authentication
Enable two-factor authentication for the device’s app or account whenever it is available. Also replace default passwords with strong, unique ones to prevent easy logins.
Be Careful Where Cameras Are Pointed
Avoid aiming cameras at faces, computer screens, documents, or private spaces. Limiting what a device can see reduces the risk if a hacker... or foreign government agent gets access.