Smart plugs & Google Home


Nov 17, 2015
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almere netherlands
Good day all,

if you want to view a camera outside your home via an app on your phone, you must enter the IP address of your modem and your password and a port number in this app
You must also ensure that your modem also accepts this data.

All this ensures that you enter the network that belongs to this specific IP address
Now I have a Smart plug with which I can switch my lights via the App "Smart live".
I also linked this App to Google Home.

To my surprise, I can now switch my lights outside of the house anywhere in the world.
The smart plug is registered in my modem with an internal IP address the computers in my house are off only the modem is switched on, also is the Wi-Fi.
How does this work? is this not dangerous? can anyone just come to you?

The plug itself connects to an external IP address that is different with each plug and depending on the brand
I have plugs from different suppliers and the strange thing is that one plug makes contact with my own IP address
If you use different plugs from different brands, the software you see in the app is also different

Of course I understand that it is all about Google home, but still, how does my phone make contact with my modem and how does it come in to tell the lights that they should be on?
Like an explanation


Adrie Neyenhuys

the Netherlands
Last edited:


IPCT Contributor
Dec 5, 2016
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Your smart plug is most likely initiating a connection to servers on the internet that the manufacturer configured.

When you’re off your home network, the app is likely connecting to those same servers and talking back to the plug over the connection that the plug made to the servers.

STUN, TURN and ICE are some terms you can google for more technical info.