Your smart home devices collect more data than you think

Have you ever wondered just how much data your smart home devices were collecting about you? Worse still, are they sharing that data with third parties?

Well, VPN company Surfshark has done the research, and as it turns out, some brands collect a lot more data than you probably thought. They've built a Smart Home Privacy Checker, where you can search for a smart device and find out how far your chosen brand's privacy policy really extends.

Here's a breakdown of the findings in a few key categories.

We get home security devices to keep our home safe, but depending on the brand, your data might not be quite as safe. Here's a comparison of each of the brands Surfshark looked into and how many points of data they collect.

Smart home hubs usually come in the form of a smart speaker, but they can also be embedded in other devices, including tablets, smart displays, and even cameras. Here's how much data each smart home hub brand collects.

These days, it seems brands start collecting your data from birth. Here's how much they're gathering about your little one.

Yep, brands are even keeping tabs on Fido and Rex. Here's how much data each company is gathering from smart pet cameras and feeders.

Surfshark examined each brand to see how many out of 32 unique data points they collected. These data points include things like email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, health and fitness data, payment information, location data, photos, videos, search history, user and device ID, and more.

No, you don't have to go and throw out every internet-connected device you own. As you can see in the tables above, none of the listed brands share the data they collect with third parties, which is great, because that data can't be used for targeted advertising.

That said, the more data collected about you, the more data can be leaked in the event of a breach, so for that reason, we'd always recommend opting for brands that collect fewer points of data.