My wife bought some Govee Smart LED string lights. We have VLANs setup in our house to isolate IoT devices and setup the new lights on that WiFi. But when we use the app to control them it requires an account and precise and “while using app” location data. The app does not work at all without enabling permissions for location.

Am I being paranoid? This wasn’t an initial setup thing the app is unusable without location enabled.

She really wants smart LED lights for outside the house. Is there an option anyone knows of that might be a bit more privacy oriented?

Thanks.

Google uses WiFi and Bluetooth info for location tracking. So they can track you when you don’t have GPS switched on. WiFi names, MAC address are correlated to locations by google.

So google infers any app that has WiFi or Bluetooth access can track you like they do.

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