Google disabled Xiaomi devices from accessing its Nest Hub and Assistant. This is after, one Xiaomi Mijia camera owner reported getting still images from other random peoples’ homes. This occurred while he was trying to stream content from his camera to a Google Nest Hub. The Android Police first broke this news.

 

 

“We’re aware of the issue and are in contact with Xiaomi to work on a fix,” a Google spokesperson said. “In the meantime, we’re disabling Xiaomi integrations on our devices,” Google added.

 

A certain user /r/Dio-V posted about the issue on Reddit. Mentioning that it affects his Xiaomi Mijia 1080p Smart IP Security Camera, which can be linked to a Google account for use with Google Nest devices through Xiaomi’s Mi Home app.

 

He says that both the Nest Hub and the camera were brand new. He bought the camera from AliExpress and noted that it runs firmware version 3.5.1_00.66.

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Whilst attempting to access a video feed from his connected camera, instead of the expected local video feed, he got a random, partly corrupted black and white still image from another home.

 

Dio-V said that the content of the random still images fed to his Nest Hub containing Xiaomi/Mijia branded date/timestamps. But it depicted a different time zone than his own.

Not only Xiaomi devices are affected

Among the examples initially provided on Reddit, there are a handful of images showing a sleeping baby, a security camera’s view of an enclosed porch, and a man seemingly asleep in a chair.

 

This also isn’t the first time that smart home security cameras have had this sort of problem. Some used Nest cameras stayed linked to the original owner’s account, providing them a glimpse of inside the new purchaser’s home.

 

Most recently, Wyze, who makes smart security cameras, also recently suffered a “mistake,” storing unsecured user data in a publicly accessible manner. Requiring all customers to pair/set up devices again.

 

Google moved to protect its users first by barring access to some of its sensitive apps.

 

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