Erasing Our Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant Smart Homes

Speaker 1: It's time for a little spring cleaning. No, no. Put the dust pan away. I'm talking about cleaning the old dusty, smart devices outta the scene at smart home. At long last, we are giving the smart home a full reset, and we'll show you how to do it as we work. Speaker 1: We're not the best at cleaning old gadgets out of the apps for smart assistance as we go. Even if we do get rid of the hardware. And even if you do [00:00:30] clean out the app, sometimes the smart assistant still remembers old devices like the ghosts of smart plugs past. And you might have encountered things similar if you've been active in the smart home for a while, but the smart home is pretty bad. Call it a symptom of using this place as testing grounds for years, the go data stored in our major platforms is enough to successfully start. AceNet smart home haunting service. If only we weren't deleting it, we're gonna reset everything [00:01:00] and start fresh for the first time ever. And we'll take you along for the ride. We'll also show you how to do smaller scale maintenance in case that's all your smart home needs to stay in tip top shape and keep an eye out for the follow up video for tips and tricks. Speaker 1: As we set things back up, let's start with the smaller scale maintenance in part, because once we do the full reset, we won't actually have any of this to show you. We'll go through our device lists in the apps for Amazon [00:01:30] apple home kit and Google assistant and delete some of the stuff we don't use anymore. And most of the time for you, this should be all you need to do. When you make small changes or replacements in your connected setup, Google's platform might be the most confusing when it comes to the leading devices, because the procedure can take on multiple different forms, depending on how the device was set up. Notice a perfect illustration of our problem. We have three different doorbells, [00:02:00] supposedly all on the front door. We obviously don't still have all of those. So time to cut stuff. The old nest Tolo at the bottom was initially set up separately using the nest app instead of the Google home app, that causes an issue. Speaker 1: If I tap the gear icon for settings, you see there's no actual way for me to remove this device, using the Google home app. I need to go back to nest, which is less than ideal. If I've deleted that app. [00:02:30] In the meantime, it's easy to delete something. If you actually set it up using the Google home app, trying the newer nest doorbell, I can hit that same gear icon, but notice that now at the bottom of the options page, I have a button to simply remove the device. So that's ideal, but probably the least common. It only works with Google owned devices like newer nest gadgets and stuff that you've set up using this app in particular, for GAT that [00:03:00] you've linked to Google like Arlo devices, you have to unlink the entire third party service. Notice that it takes you to this menu of services. Speaker 1: And then you have to unlink your entire account. So if you want to just unlink one doorbell or one light bulb, the is a pain you're better off deleting that specific device in say the Arlo app and then reining with Google. Amazon is easier. Most of the time first notice how many unresponsive [00:03:30] devices we have yet. Amazon's been the biggest for a while. And thus has the most pronounced pilot click on one, the gear icon in the upper right now notice there is a little trashcan icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen, tap that and then confirm, and you'll delete the device. Now that approach works with most devices, but if we check out this old echo device, notice there is no option to just delete it, but we can dere it [00:04:00] by scrolling down. Even this approach, doesn't always work. Look at the menu for what we called C net's second portal, nothing I can't deregister or delete anything. Speaker 1: This one just called living room prompts me to factory, reset it with no other options. Home kit does a cool thing where it shows you unresponsive devices in a single list. You can either take action to fix stuff or ditch everything most efficiently, cuz you see the problems. It's [00:04:30] also pretty easy to remove devices though. It took me a sec to find it the first time long press device to bring up a settings menu. And then you need to scroll down with a little persistence. The settings wanna stick on the stuff you'd use most commonly, but if you keep scrolling down or press this different little gear icon in the lower, right, you can see a secondary settings menu and most have an option to remove device at the very bottom. This didn't work for everything with [00:05:00] Philips hub, we're back to needing to remove the whole setup by removing the bridge or using the parents app. Speaker 1: You can tap status to remove the device from your home status, which makes it less visible, but we're not accepting bandaids at this time. Nonetheless home kit does make the process pretty easy for most devices. So none of the apps are perfect. All make it easy enough to delete some smart home stuff with Amazon and apple actually [00:05:30] shooting at a bit of a higher percentage than Google, but you're still gonna have some leftovers, especially if you have ancient and or weird gadgets from the last time you went shopping for smart home device devices in an Egyptian too, but the other reasons for a full reset number one, sometimes smart assistants. Remember the names of old devices even after you delete them. And number two, look at this mess. When it gets to this level, deleting, everything is more trouble than it's worth. I've also completely lost track [00:06:00] of what a lot of these devices even are. Note, this comes from a lot of us using the smart home to test different devices over the years and will be much less pronounced in most ordinary homes. It's too much. Let's knock it all down and start over Speaker 1: Time for four phase two, the full reset. We're gonna go in alphabetical order this time and Amazon is the most cluttered. So it'll be nice to get that one cleaned up note that these full resets are a great option. If you want to [00:06:30] quickly untangle everything that you've changed and added over the years, it can get rid of the mess and you be done with it. Also note it's not reversible and it's gonna get rid of some structural pieces like routines and rooms and automations. You've added to these platforms over the years. So be super sure that this is what you want. If you're going to do this process, there's no going back. And now [00:07:00] without further ado, it's time to say goodbye to the CNET. Smart for Amazon. You need to go to alexa.amazon.com on a computer. You can't actually use the app for this one. Speaker 1: You need a web interface. So we'll pull that up. Now you need to go to smart home on the left panel. And then once that loads you'll see groups, devices, scenes, you're gonna want to go into both devices [00:07:30] and scenes scroll all the way down, hit, remove all and then confirm that you want to do the scenes as well. Otherwise it's gonna hang onto those automations. You built using your old gadgets. And again, if you're doing this step, you want a clean slate. So here we go, look at all these devices and we are going to remove them. This is years of work, but also, I mean it's years of mess, but it's years work [00:08:00] and I'm hitting removal. And again, removes all devices from routines, the S at smart home, I bid you farewell And it's gone. It's gone just like that. These seen at smart homes kind of dumb now, but let's make sure, uh, that the routines are deleted as well. So we'll go to smart home. We'll go to scenes. Uh, and actually those got deleted [00:08:30] when I deleted the devices. So everything is gone. Speaker 1: Brew ready for a fresh start. Now, the other thing you want to do with Amazon, give your smart speakers, a factory reset. They're not necessarily gonna cause you trouble unless you stuck them in a drawer for a while. And when you plug them back in, they remember some of the old devices from the last time they connected, still clean slate. You can reset the smart displays from the settings menu on the device itself. For more recent smart speakers, [00:09:00] you need to press and hold the action button for a solid 25 to 30 seconds. For first or second gen models. You wanna hold the microphone off and volume down buttons at the same time, a and our Amazon smart home is gone. It is bracingly empty. After all these years, I feel like I should do a 21 gun salute or pour one out, But we still have to destroy more [00:09:30] stuff first before we can rebuild. Let's get back to apples. Turn same disclaimer. Be super sure this is what you want because there's no going back this time though, we get to use the app. We don't have to break out a web interface. So with the home app open, you want to hit that little home icon in the upper left. Speaker 1: Uh, in theory, there we go. We actually hit it and make sure the proper home is selected. [00:10:00] And then you wanna scroll way down to home settings. And here we're gonna scroll down again. And there's a big red button that says remove home. So here we go. We're gonna do this. This is gonna delete all devices, groups, scenes, automation, everything it's super thorough. And we are going to hit, remove, say goodbye to our apple smart home, building the anticipation here. [00:10:30] And did it work the first time, this time? Where did I miss it? Let's try again, remove, Speaker 1: Ah, and there it went. I must have just missed the button the first time and there it's labeled new and there's nothing in it now. So it worked and that's two smart homes down and only one you can reset your or home pod or home pod mini by unplugging it [00:11:00] waiting 10 seconds, plugging it back in waiting 10 more and then pressing the top until you hear Siri kick. It takes a sec, but then it's done note that deleting the home pod from the app, basically functions as a factory reset, which is why we didn't hear Siri say anything. When we were pressing the button. There also note that if you really want a clean slate with apple, you need to delete these devices from your apple ID as well. [00:11:30] But with that two smart homes are murdered. Only Google remains with Google. Again, you can use the app, but this time it's a two step process. If you've given other members of your family access so that they can control the smart home with their own devices, you need to go through and delete them one by one before you can remove the home. So let's do that. We're gonna hit settings here Speaker 1: And then household towards the top [00:12:00] and then you'll see the different people. And then you literally are just gonna have to delete your family one by one. Nope. I'm not actually talking about erasing them from existence here. I'm gonna delete my personal account. And I promise I not gonna up fade away, hit this little trash icon and then hit remove. And I'm still feeling fine, Although it's still in the process of deleting me. So maybe the, oh, there it goes. And [00:12:30] as far as I know, I still exist. So, so Then we're going to go to settings again, Household, And then we can delete this one And use, see here, the button at the bottom now says the lead home because this is the last manager. [00:13:00] So here we go, three for three, after this, all of the smart home stuff that we've saved and built up beautifully over the years with the massive mess we've created is going to be gone much ado about Deleting Speaker 1: And it's taking a second. I'm pretty sure the smart home is gonna start collapsing around me, like at the end of an Indiana Jones movie and I'm gonna have to run. And there it goes. It's showing [00:13:30] the remaining homes that we have, but the CNET smart home is now fully gone in all three major platforms. Now we're going to factory reset, Google hardware to finish the job. Resetting every Google device is a little bit different. So we'll focus on their latest gadgets and I'll link in the description below if you wanna reset their older stuff. And well, first and second gen nest hubs work the same volume [00:14:00] up and down buttons at the same time for like 10 seconds. But then when you get to the speakers, it's really different on the second gen nest mini flip the mic off, not in an obscene way with the switch press and hold where you see the orange, like for like 15 seconds, nest audio is similar Mike off then press and hold the center of the nest audio near the top. Speaker 1: And Google's gone now too for the next day or so. [00:14:30] The CNET smart home is just an ordinary dumb home. If I wanna turn on the lights, I gotta walk a over to the switch and do it myself. It sounds terrible, but it is kind of surreal and weird for all of the scenes and automations that we've built over the years to just be gone. And we're obviously not leaving it this way for long, we're gonna rebuild and we're gonna film it as we work. So stay tuned for that video. It's gonna include tips and tricks for all of the [00:15:00] major platforms. And thank you for watching this one. Please hit that thumbs up button. 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