Brandon Jackson is a smart guy with a smart home.
The Microsoft engineer’s home in Baltimore is set up to allow him to remotely monitor and control systems throughout the house — such as security cameras, lights and thermostats — even when nobody’s home.
“My primary means of interfacing with all the devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa,” he said in a post on Medium.
But on May 25, Jackson’s smart surroundings abruptly went dark.
“I found that my Echo Show had signed out, and I was unable to interact with my smart home devices,” he said.
At first, he suspected a data breach, but he checked and ruled that out.
“This incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa, and a lot of questions,” Jackson said.