I have mostly Apple HomePods and HomePod Minis at home and work but I have a few Amazon echo products around the house. For privacy reasons I want to sell them and use only HomePods.
Below are the suggested steps to follow that I found online. Do you recommend anything beyond these steps?
Also, I have one related question.
One of the echos is used to turn on/off the living room lights and the lights in my study. I’ll need to replace the smart plugs in order to replicate this with the HomePods. What smart plugs work more reliably with Apple Home and HomePods?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
How to protect your information
While factory resetting your Echo is important, there are a few more steps you’ll need to take before you sell your Echo for good. First, you’ll want to deregister your Echo. Here’s how:
Log in to your Amazon account.
Open your Accounts & Lists menu under your profile.
Select Manage Your Content & Devices.
Choose the device you want to deregister, in this case your it’s the Echo device you’re selling.
Click the three dots next to the device.
Choose Deregister.
Confirm your choice.
Once you’ve done this, your Echo will be deregistered to your personal Amazon account, which will protect most of your data. However, this isn’t enough. For a final layer of protection, you’ll need to reset your Echo back to manufacturer settings. Here’s how:
Open your Alexa app on your phone.
Head to Devices.
Choose Echo & Alexa and select the Echo you want to factory reset.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and choose Factory Reset.
This was my project last summer. I got rid out of all the Amazon Echos switched to HomePod Mini wherever I needed. I do have an Ecobee Thermostat, but I disabled Amazon on that device.
As far as smart plugs go, I have Lutron Switches for everything in the house. I only have about 2-3 smart plugs, but I don’t have heavy use for them, but I use a brand called iHome.
I use iHome and Wemo smart plugs. The iHome plugs are bothersome to setup (replacing 3 modems in a week will do that to anyone) but I have had them for 6+ years. Wemo is now my go-to smart plug between ease of use and cost. Hope this helps!
I have both Eve and Meross smart plugs and have had no issues with either. The Meross one allows each socket to be switched individually, although the USB sockets are a single group — one on all on. Neither require a hub/bridge.
I’m surprised that HomePods are the trendy route to go right now vs. Sonos. We’ve had Sonos for years, building the collection out over time, and now have them in every room. The sound quality of the “One” is significantly (massively) better than a HomePod Mini and we can use both the Google and Amazon voice assistants without having a device from either company. I have never found Siri to be helpful beyond speech to text messages in CarPlay.
We have “Fives” in the room where audio is really important, but just “Ones” in the rooms where anything will do. They were regularly on sale for about $300/pair, so it doesn’t seem like too big a delta over the Minis.
@Jezmund_Berserker I’m not buying the minis for sound–they serve primarily as voice assistants and ways to activate smart switches throughout the three levels of our house and also in my office. I have several HomePods for music. Because they are no longer being sold I’ll replace the HomePods with good speakers once they stop working.
I’m just surprised, given how bad Siri is (to me) that many choose this route rather than Sonos which is compatible with several better voice assistants. And, with the Sonos, you also happen to get good sound.
After reading responses here (thanks!) and reading many reviews, I’m going to go with Meross and avoid Wemo. The video below was not determinative in my decision but it reinforced what I was reading and watching elsewhere. I found this guy credible and fair. You’ll have to judge if you agree.
Thanks everyone for the advice–now off to the Apple store for three more minis.
I made the same move and switched from Amazon echo to HomePod minis. It not only hopefully improved my privacy situation but switching from Amazon cloud steered processing to HomeKit also improved speed and reliability of Workflows. I would support what was said about Meross and eve.
While I am also not 100% happy with Siri, and the german version is even worse than the english one, at least If I want to speak to the lady, I would never use a voice assistant coming from a company, that is making its money with my private information.
So neither Google, nor Amazon, will ever enter my home, and the same rule applies to all other assistant systems, with a comparable business model.
Here is a down vote for the Meross mini smart plugs. I have two, one for a fan and one for an AC unit, but the AC unit plug often resets itself. See screenshot. This is a bummer because the Meross set-up is a pain in the neck: the preferable way is to scan in a QR code on the side of the plug but it is blocked by another plug so I have to unplug that one to get it to connect. I don’t find Meross to be reliable (50% failure rate) and so I will be looking for other suggestions to use in this thread.
