The first thing that happened was me waking up around 3 am, drenched in sweat. I immediately noticed the heat. It was so damn hot. I immediately got up and took a look at the thermostat. 32°C! (~90°F) I took out my phone and changed the temperature back to my normal setting immediately, but the radiators had to cool down before I could sleep, so I was going to be awake for a little while.
I decided, I wouldn't spend my time just lying around in bed until I could finally sleep again. Instead, I wanted to use the time to catch up on some of the series I wanted to watch. I mean, I'm an adult and it's the weekend, so who cares if I watch TV at 3 am, right?
I turned on the TV and the the answer to my problems showed itself. Instead of the normal home screen, there was a message that read something along the lines of: "Login from a new device detected! Was this you?" and then there was some information about a phone that wasn't mine. So, I chose "No".
Then it showed me a different screen that read: "The device has been blocked. Please watch this video for further security steps." Normally, I wouldn't have watched that, but my home is pretty much the epitome of the smart home. My thermostate, my lights, my TV, my doorbell and all the other things are controlled, usually, by my phone. So, if someone else has control over the house, they have control over me, personally.
Needless to say, I turned on the video and almost immediately regretted it. I mean, it had the quality of a 14 year-old's Minecraft tutorial on Youtube in 2012. The camera wasn't focussed properly, the audio had some weird reverb and occasionally glitched out. But the worst thing was that cooling fan. Or, at least it sounded like one. I already had an headache from the heat, but this sound made it so much worse. Nevertheless, I continued watching the video. It's just too important, even if this company apparently doesn't think this important enough to pay for a proper video production.
The video started with this guy explaining what the dangers of a hacked smart home were. Nothing new there. It was exhausting to listen to him list all these things I had already well considered, all the while having this annoying sound ringing in my ears. The video player didn't allow my to forward, so I just sat back and listened to his lecture.
