In the middle of a Texas summer, the window air conditioner in my front room started acting up. I’d already been considering a portable unit, so I did some research and found a well-reviewed Hisense model (AP1022HW1GD) that fit my budget. When it arrived, I pulled out the old unit, cleaned up the window, and installed the replacement. Within minutes, the room temperature dropped from around 90 degrees to a comfortable 75. I was happy with my purchase.
Then I discovered it had remote control and monitoring capabilities, which seemed like a nice bonus until I tried to set them up. Using those features required creating an account, installing the manufacturer’s proprietary app on my phone, and agreeing to its data collection policies. Suddenly, the convenience of adjusting my air conditioner remotely came with a few strings attached.
I decided the tradeoff wasn’t worth it. I uninstalled the app and, being a nerd, blocked the air conditioner from communicating over the internet. It still cools the room beautifully; I just operate it manually. In fact, I liked it enough to buy a second Hisense unit (API0825SUW1D) later, although this time I didn’t bother setting up the smart features at all.
The experience got me thinking about how much control we actually have over the appliances we purchase, why using their advertised features increasingly requires additional software and services, and what happens to the information those services collect.
When Your Appliance Wants an Account
Smart appliances are increasingly common, and their connected features can be genuinely useful. Being able to adjust your thermostat while you’re away, receive an alert when the washing machine finishes, or check a security camera from your phone offers convenience that would have been difficult to imagine a few decades ago.
The complication is that many manufacturers require customers to use proprietary apps and cloud services to access these features, even when some of the functionality could technically operate over a local network. That typically means creating an account, providing personal information, and allowing at least some operational data to pass through the manufacturer’s servers. And, installing a new app anytime you purchase a device from a different manufacturer.
The inconvenience becomes particularly apparent when you own appliances from several manufacturers. A household with a Hisense air conditioner, an LG appliance, and a security camera from another company may need separate accounts and applications for each one, even though all three devices are capable of communicating over the same home network.
This is precisely the problem that smart home platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home (including Siri) are intended to solve. Rather than juggling individual applications, consumers can manage compatible lights, thermostats, appliances, and other equipment through a common interface, often using voice commands or automated routines. These platforms have become familiar parts of many households, and for good reason: they make connected devices considerably more useful.
Unfortunately, compatibility with a smart home platform doesn’t necessarily mean independence from the manufacturer’s software. You might purchase an air conditioner advertised as compatible with Google Home, only to discover that you must first install the manufacturer’s app, create an account, register the appliance, and link that account to Google. Depending on how the integration works, even a simple command to adjust the temperature may pass through the manufacturer’s servers before reaching the appliance.
There’s also another layer of dependency that consumers may not anticipate: you’re relying on the continued cooperation of both the device manufacturer and the company operating your smart home platform. Apple, Amazon, and Google control their respective ecosystems, including which integrations they support and the technical requirements for maintaining them. Changes in software, business relationships, or product support can disrupt functionality that worked perfectly well when you purchased the equipment.
Cait, here at Daily Data, experienced exactly this with a standalone music player connected to Google Home. After the manufacturer was acquired by a larger company, its app was removed from the Android store, and the player could no longer be used through Google Home. The hardware still worked, and the music files were still accessible. Cait was able to download her files and continue controlling the player from her phone (with the app still installed), but the Google Home integration was gone. A feature she’d been using simply disappeared, not because the equipment failed, but because the software ecosystem around it changed.
Home Assistant offers another approach. Like Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home, it’s a platform for managing connected devices from different manufacturers, but it’s free, open source, and designed to give users considerably more control over their home automation systems. It can run on a small computer or dedicated server inside your home, coordinate compatible devices locally, and support sophisticated automation without requiring every interaction to pass through an external service. It also has a steeper learning curve, and devices that depend on manufacturer cloud services may still require those connections even when managed through Home Assistant.
None of these platforms can completely overcome restrictions built into the appliances themselves. The underlying problem is that manufacturers can advertise compatibility with popular smart home systems while still requiring customers to use proprietary applications and services, while the platforms themselves can change or withdraw support for those integrations. The result is an increasingly connected home whose functionality depends on decisions made by companies over which the homeowner has little control.
There’s also a business incentive behind this arrangement. Connected appliances give manufacturers opportunities to maintain ongoing relationships with customers, provide additional services, and collect information about how their products are used. Some of that information is genuinely useful for diagnosing problems, improving products, or supporting features that require remote connectivity. Other information may be collected for analytics, marketing, or purposes that have little to do with operating the appliance.
The distinction matters because consumers aren’t always given meaningful choices about which information they share. If you want the convenience of remotely controlling your air conditioner, you may have to accept the manufacturer’s entire data collection arrangement rather than selecting only the services you need.
JARGON EXPLAINER: INTERNET OF THINGS (IoT)
The Internet of Things describes everyday physical devices, from thermostats and refrigerators to security cameras and vehicles, that connect to networks to exchange information.
These connections make remote control, automation, and monitoring possible. However, depending on how a device is designed, they may also allow manufacturers to collect information about its operation and the people using it.
An important distinction is whether a device communicates locally, within your home network, or depends on an external cloud service. A connected device doesn’t necessarily need to send its information to a manufacturer’s servers to perform useful functions.
What Can an Air Conditioner Actually Tell Anyone?
At first glance, information about your air conditioner doesn’t seem particularly sensitive. Whether you prefer your living room at 72 degrees or 75 hardly seems like something worth protecting. The concern becomes more apparent, however, when seemingly insignificant information is collected over time or combined with other data.
Consider an air conditioner programmed to raise the temperature every weekday morning and lower it again in the evening. That schedule might suggest when someone is home, while an extended period at a higher temperature could indicate that the household is away on vacation. Similarly, a security camera’s motion-detection records may reveal patterns of activity even when the actual video footage remains private.
These are hypothetical examples, not evidence that appliance manufacturers are deliberately using such information to identify empty homes or monitor their customers’ health. They illustrate how data collected for one purpose can reveal information that the person providing it never intended to disclose.
There are, however, documented examples of connected technologies collecting and sharing information in ways that raise serious privacy concerns. The Federal Trade Commission has examined the collection and use of consumer information by connected vehicles, while Consumer Watchdog and the BBC have reported on the privacy implications of increasingly connected automobiles.
One particularly significant issue involves the use of driving information by insurance companies. Usage-based insurance programs, often called telematics, collect information about driving behavior and may use it to calculate premiums. Although these programs are commonly offered on an opt-in basis, the amount and type of information collected can be extensive, and the financial implications aren’t always straightforward. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the Insurance Information Institute provide useful background on how these programs work, while the Consumer Federation of America has raised questions about their potential effects on consumers.
Concerns about access and misuse extend beyond commercial data collection. In one documented case, a former police officer was sentenced after misusing Flock license plate cameras to stalk his ex-girlfriend. John Oliver also explored broader concerns about police surveillance and accountability on Last Week Tonight, covered in an A.V. Club summary and the original segment.
These examples involve different technologies, different organizations, and different kinds of privacy risks. They shouldn’t be taken as evidence that every smart appliance manufacturer engages in comparable practices. What they demonstrate is that the collection of information creates responsibilities and risks that extend beyond the immediate purpose for which that information was gathered.
I’ve heard plenty of people respond to privacy concerns by saying they have nothing to hide. My objection to that argument isn’t that everyone has secrets worth protecting; it’s that we rarely know how seemingly harmless information might be interpreted, combined with other records, or used in decisions that affect us.
I’m not opposed to connected technology, data collection, or even systems such as license plate readers and insurance telematics. These tools can provide legitimate benefits when their use is transparent, their safeguards are effective, and the people affected understand what they’re agreeing to. The difficulty arises when those conditions aren’t met.
Your Smart Home Should Work for You
There’s a practical problem with making an appliance dependent on software and services outside the owner’s control. Manufacturers can discontinue applications, change subscription terms, withdraw support for older products, or alter which features are available through their platforms. An appliance may remain mechanically sound for years after its connected features stop working, leaving its owner with perfectly functional hardware that can no longer do everything it could when purchased. For products that may remain in a household for a decade or more, that dependency deserves consideration alongside privacy.
Fortunately, protecting your privacy and maintaining control over your appliances doesn’t require abandoning every connected device in your home. The appropriate approach depends on how much convenience you want, how comfortable you are with technology, and whether you’re willing to invest some effort in managing your own devices.
Use the Manufacturer’s Services With an Understanding of the Tradeoffs
For many households, the manufacturer’s application will be the simplest and most practical option. It handles configuration, remote access, notifications, and software updates without requiring much technical knowledge. If the features are useful and you’re comfortable with the company’s data practices, there’s nothing inherently unreasonable about using them.
Before creating an account, however, it’s worth reviewing the privacy policy to understand what information is collected, whether it is shared with third parties, how long it is retained, and whether optional collection can be disabled. Privacy policies can be tedious reading, but they’re often the only readily available explanation of what happens to information generated by your appliances.
AI tools can make that process less burdensome. I’ve used Duck.ai to summarize lengthy legal agreements and identify provisions worth examining more closely. As with any AI-generated summary, it’s important to verify consequential details against the original document, since these tools can overlook or misinterpret contractual language. You should also avoid submitting private information unnecessarily.
Don’t Activate Features You Don’t Need
The simplest alternative is the one I chose for my air conditioners: use the appliance without connecting it to the internet.
Many smart appliances retain their essential functionality without an online account. An air conditioner can still cool a room, a washing machine can still wash clothes, and a refrigerator can still keep food cold. If you don’t need remote access or automated scheduling, there may be little reason to enable those capabilities.
This isn’t universally true, of course. Some products require an application for initial setup, certain features, or even basic operation. Others depend on connectivity for software updates or continued access to services. If avoiding manufacturer accounts is important to you, investigate those requirements before purchasing rather than assuming you can simply leave the device disconnected.
Choose Appliances That Support Local Control
For people who want home automation without depending entirely on manufacturer-operated cloud services, devices that support local communication offer another option.
Technologies such as Matter, Zigbee, and MQTT can make it possible for compatible devices to communicate with home automation systems without routing every interaction through a manufacturer’s servers. They serve somewhat different purposes, and support for one of these technologies doesn’t automatically mean a product can operate independently of its manufacturer’s services.
Matter is designed to improve interoperability between smart home products and platforms, while Zigbee is widely used for communication among connected devices. MQTT is a lightweight messaging protocol frequently used in automation systems, including installations where a local server handles communication between devices.
Home Assistant, the free and open-source platform mentioned earlier, can coordinate many compatible devices locally. Like Alexa or Apple Home, it provides a central place to manage connected equipment, but it also offers extensive customization and automation capabilities. It requires more configuration than most manufacturer apps, although users willing to invest that effort can gain considerably more control over how their devices communicate and what information leaves their home network.
When researching an appliance, the important question is whether its features can actually operate locally without a manufacturer account. Product specifications may advertise compatibility with a particular standard while still requiring registration or cloud connectivity for some functions.
For example, the Hisense AEH-W4A1 has a documented Home Assistant integration, and users have discussed its local-control capabilities in the Home Assistant community forums. That doesn’t necessarily mean newer Hisense communication modules offer the same functionality; the AEH-W4B1 and later models may have different limitations. Hardware revisions and firmware changes can affect compatibility, so it’s worth checking the exact model before making a purchase.
Modify the Hardware, If You Have the Expertise
For technically inclined users, there’s also the possibility of modifying an appliance to replace or reconfigure its communication hardware. Some manufacturers use relatively standard wireless modules that can, in certain circumstances, be replaced with alternatives supporting local control.
This is a considerably more involved approach than configuring a home automation platform. It requires identifying compatible hardware, understanding the appliance’s electrical and communication systems, and accepting the possibility of damaging the equipment or voiding its warranty.
It’s also not a project to undertake casually. Disconnecting an appliance from power is an essential precaution, but some electrical components can retain dangerous charges even after unplugging. Anyone unfamiliar with appliance electronics should leave this kind of modification to someone with the appropriate experience.
For those with the necessary skills, however, hardware modification can sometimes extend the useful life of equipment and restore functionality that would otherwise depend on a manufacturer’s continued support.
Making an Informed Choice
Connected appliances offer genuine conveniences, but those conveniences increasingly come with conditions that have little to do with the appliances themselves. Manufacturers may require proprietary applications, ongoing cloud connections, and access to household data simply to enable features built into products we’ve already purchased. That creates two distinct problems: unnecessary complexity and dependence on services outside our control, along with legitimate questions about how the information those services collect will be used.
Before buying your next smart appliance, it’s worth finding out whether it can operate locally, what features depend on an online account, and what happens if the manufacturer discontinues its services. If you do connect it to your network, consider whether your router supports a properly isolated guest or IoT network, which can help prevent connected devices from accessing your personal computers and other equipment.
You don’t have to build a home automation server or become an expert in networking to make sensible decisions about connected technology. Sometimes the manufacturer’s app is a reasonable tradeoff; sometimes a locally controlled system is preferable; and sometimes the best solution is simply to leave the smart features turned off.
As for my two Hisense air conditioners, they continue to do exactly what I bought them to do: keep the Texas heat at bay. I’m quite happy with them; I just haven’t found a compelling reason to let them phone home.
