Smart Home IoT Security 2026: 12 Best Practices to Lock Down Your Network
The average American home has 21 connected devices in 2026. Each one is a potential foothold. Smart locks, cameras, thermostats, robot vacuums, even the kid’s smart speaker — most ship with weak defaults, lazy update cycles, and cloud connections you didn’t ask for. After auditing 14 friends’ home networks over the past year, I found that 11 had at least one device exposed directly to the internet. This guide is the 12-step lockdown that solved every one of those issues. ...