Smart Speakers and Televisions
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Devices with microphones, stores and unrestricted video, which are in shared rooms and are almost never part of a family arrangement.
Devices · Analysis
The devices least likely to be configured are the ones sitting in the room where the family spends its time.
Smart speakers
A microphone in a shared room, connected to a store, with voice purchasing frequently on by default.
Children use them heavily and casually.
What to set: voice purchasing off, or a confirmation code. A child profile or child mode where the platform offers one. Explicit content filtering for music, which is on by default in child modes and off elsewhere.
And know that recordings are stored on most platforms, reviewable and deletable, which is worth doing periodically.
What a child says to a speaker
Children ask them things they would not ask a person, including health and body questions, and sometimes distressing ones.
Which is not a problem to solve with a setting. A child mode gives age-appropriate answers, and that is the practical measure.
And the history is worth glancing at occasionally in a young child's household, not to police it but because it occasionally shows something worth talking about.
Smart televisions
A full internet device with video apps, a store and frequently a browser.
Set up once and never revisited.
What to set: a PIN on the store and on purchases, age restrictions on each video app separately, and child profiles where the apps support them.
And check the browser, if it has one, because a television browser is unfiltered unless the network filter covers it.
The profile problem
Video apps on a television are usually signed into a household account.
Which means recommendations are shaped by adult viewing and a child selecting "continue watching" can land anywhere.
Separate profiles per person, with a child profile for the children, which takes ten minutes and is the single most useful change here.
And a PIN on the adult profiles, which stops the youngest switching to them.
Where the network filter earns its place
Televisions and speakers rarely have usable controls of their own.
Which makes network-level filtering the practical layer for them, and is the strongest argument for setting it up.
A console, a television and a speaker are three devices where the router is doing most of the work.
Privacy in the shared room
These devices have microphones and, increasingly, cameras.
Know where the mute is — a physical switch on many speakers — and use it if you want to.
And be aware that voice assistants occasionally trigger on something that was not addressed to them, which is a household fact rather than a scandal but is worth knowing.
Guests and children who visit
A speaker will answer anybody, and a television will play anything.
Which matters when other children are in the house, and is another reason the child profile and the store PIN are worth setting.
What to check
Can anything be bought by voice in your house right now?
Do the video apps on the television have child profiles?
Is there a PIN on the store?
And does your network filter cover the television and the speaker — which for most households is the layer actually protecting them.
What this changes
Child profiles on the television's video apps stop the youngest inheriting adult recommendations, which is a specific and common route to exposure in a shared room..
The check
Try to buy something by voice on your smart speaker.
If it works, that is a setting to change today.
Worth knowing
Children ask speakers things they would not ask a person, including health and body questions. A child mode gives age-appropriate answers, which is the practical measure.
One more thing
Voice purchasing on smart speakers is frequently on by default, and turning it off or requiring a code takes one setting and prevents a specific and common surprise.