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Ring showed off one of the wildest smart home devices we’ve seen at Amazon’s fall showcase. We take a closer look at the flying …
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Alexa Routines can bring so much to your echo. Amazon has added many new triggers and actions over the past year.
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Every single parent has been there. Your 6-year-old is refusing to get in the bath and brush his teeth. No amount of bribing, screaming, and threatening will convince him that he suddenly wants to indulge your bedtime routine. You’re ready to throw yourself in the bathtub and cry.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
What if I told you there’s a way to use something as simple as a light bulb to encourage (and virtually guarantee) your child’s great behavior.
This parenting hack is so easy that you’ll make it a permanent part of your repertoire. It’s an especially powerful tool to use leading up to Christmas, but kids care about Santa all year long!
Here’s everything you need to know to use a smart bulb and the looming presence of Santa to finally (FINALLY) get your kids to listen and behave.
We use the KASA Smart WiFi Light Bulb at our house. It’s easily controlled through the Kasa Smart app or voice commands with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Microsoft Cortana.
(Pro Tip: The Phillips Hue Smart Bulb is also a great choice if you regularly use an Amazon Alexa).
Whichever bulb you choose, make sure it is multi-color, connected to your WiFi, and easy to control with a few taps or commands. Most importantly, be sure to purchase a smart bulb that doesn’t require a hub. Hubs act like routers for your smart devices but are pretty costly, so if you don’t already have one, purchase a hub-free smart bulb to make this parenting hack more affordable.
Time to get down to business. Add the smart bulb into the KASA app (or whichever app works with your bulb) and connect to your WiFi. As soon as you open the app, you’ll be able to click on the specific light bulb you need (which we named Santa’s Little Helper) and control the exact color and intensity. We programmed orange, green, and red for easy access.
Now install the smart bulb into a common area of your house and introduce it to your kids as a “Santa Light”. If you’re doing this before Christmas, explain that it’s Santa’s way of using colors to keep track of whether they’re on the Naughty or Nice list. If it’s after Christmas, tell your kids that Santa installed the light bulb while he was delivering presents in order to track their behavior until next Christmas (genius, right?).
When we first introduced Santa’s Light to our five-year-old daughter, you could practically hear her brain spinning to process the concept. Santa can see EVERYTHING? He can control this light? He knows as soon as I’m bad?
Yup, yup, and you bet.
The green light worked on its own for a while. It gave our daughter a constant reminder that she was on the right track with her behavior and Santa knew it. She started purposefully showing better behavior to try to impress Santa.
But hissy fits happen, and the first time she tried to shout “No way, ew!” to the dinner set in front of her, the light immediately turned from green to orange to red.
The neighbors could probably hear her gasp when she noticed the change. She immediately sat up straight in her chair, grabbed her fork, and chowed down.
We didn’t have to say a word! No arguing or raised voices or exasperation. That’s what I call a major parenting win… or a technology-enable Christmas Miracle.
This parenting hack is perfect for Christmas, but it can also be adapted for any other time of year. Is your kid hopelessly obsessed with Paw Patrol or Batman? Make it Batman’s Light or Chase’s Light. As Easter rolls around, it can become the Easter Bunny’s Light.
Whatever you need to do to make parenting just a bit easier.
Do you have other ideas for using a smart bulb to keep your kids on their toes? Share them below!
For more information visit us at Https://www.TotalitySolutions.org
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While it’s true that voice-activated assistants like Amazon Alexa are intriguing uses of artificial intelligence with the potential to provide information and perform tasks efficiently, they also raise vital security and privacy questions. Is your Amazon Alexa spying on you? As Facebook’s recent controversy with its data access proved, our nation is currently facing an unprecedented crossroads as we work to balance the implications of our own inventions with our desire to control our personal information.
Checkmarx, a security firm that provides tools for developers to rest the security of their software before public release, proved that Amazon Alexa isn’t impervious to becoming swept up in the privacy debate. Using nothing more than the features given to developers, researchers at Checkmarx were able to turn Amazon Alexa into a spying device. Yes, you’re reading that right. It has been proven that Alexa can be hacked with relative ease to listen to your every word.
Amazon has since fixed the attack and put safeguards in place, but their updated coding cannot mitigate the larger point that Checkmarx just made: some of our most common household technologies can potentially be used against us to steal our personal information.
If you have an Alexa or other virtual assistant, then you are familiar with how it is supposed to work. Alexa “wakes up” and begins listening when it hears “Alexa” and then follows a limited script for the purpose of its activation. Alexa records the user’s interaction with the script and shuts down after executing the necessary tasks. All Checkmarx needed to do was modify the tightly controlled sequence to make Alexa record more than it should.
Checkmarx simply attached their hacking code to a standard Alexa app, like a calculator. The researchers then ensured that Alexa would continue listening, even when it would normally shut down, by preventing a “flag” to end the session. As long as that flag is open, Alexa will keep listening to the user. The researchers also identified how to have Alexa record every word and maintain a transcript.
The end result? Alexa wakes, launches a malicious app, gives the benign response that was requested by the user, and then remains active, listening and recording silently.
If you are a loyal Alexa user, there are a few components of reassurance, even though this entire episode is most definitely concerning. First, Checkmarx couldn’t disable the blue light that indicates when Alexa is active. Theoretically, if your Alexa was hacked and listening ten minutes after its last request, you could see the blue light and know something was wrong. The downside there is the minimal chance your Alexa is located somewhere that you look frequently. Most users keep Alexa stored out of site for convenience.
Furthermore, Checkmarx and Amazon have been working together since the hack occurred to make it more difficult for people with bad intentions to follow in Checkmarx’ footsteps. The Alexa app-certification process has also become more stringent to detect and reject all eavesdropping apps. Theoretically, anyway.
The technology is complex, but the solutions are still fairly simple. Place your Alexa or other virtual assistant in a place where the blue “active” light is immediately noticeable. If it remains on after your Alexa should have gone back to sleep, you’ll know to be suspicious. It will also help to keep yourself informed of technology blogs like this so that any new hacks are on your radar immediately.
If all else fails… unplug your Alexa and start doing the things the old-fashioned way again. We all survived without it before, right?
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