How to Wipe Your Smart Gadgets Before You Get Rid of Them

Most of these devices require a factory reset, which deletes your custom options and some of your data.

Youll have to hold them down for about 20 seconds until the light ring turns orange.

Before you give away an Alexa-enabled equipment, youll also want to deregister it from your Amazon account.

Youll have to confirm your choice in a popup.

you could also find all of your connected gadgets via Amazon.com.

Google Home speakers

Reset instructions vary slightly depending on which Google Home speaker you own.

In all cases, however, you should get verbal confirmation from your gear when it is factory-resetting itself.

If it doesnt say so, it didnt reset.

Google Home:Press and hold the microphone mute button the back of your gadget for about 15 seconds.

Google Home Mini:Press and hold the Factory Data Reset (FDR) button for about 15 seconds.

This small circular button is located on the bottom of the unit below the connection for its power cord.

Google has a similar process for unlinking devices from your account.

tap on Linked account(s) and remove the user you want to unlinklikely yourself.

If you have a regular Nest Cam, theres no reset button.

You simply remove the machine from your account via the parameters section of your Nest app.

Scroll to the bottom of the screen, tap Remove camera, and hit confirm.

Open your Nest app and check to see that the camera is listed as offline.

Then Open its prefs, scroll to the bottom, click Remove camera, and confirm.

This disconnects the camera from your Nest account.

And keep in mind that resetting your physical machine doesnt always delete your data from its manufacturer.

Doing so will permanently erase your video and photo history.