  The number of IoT devices in smart homes is increasing. This broad adoption
facilitates users' lives, but it also brings problems. One such issue is that
some IoT devices may invade users' privacy. Some reasons for this invasion can
stem from obscure data collection practices or hidden devices. Specific IoT
devices can exist out of sight and still collect user data to send to third
parties via the Internet. Owners can easily forget the location or even the
existence of these devices, especially if the owner is a landlord who manages
several properties. The landlord-owner scenario creates multi-user problems as
designers build machines for single users. We developed tags that use wireless
protocols, buzzers, and LED lighting to lead users to solve the issue of device
discovery in shared spaces and accommodate multi-user scenarios. They are
attached to IoT devices inside a unit during their installation to be later
discovered by a tenant. These tags have similar functionalities as the popular
Tile models or Airtag, but our tags have different features based on our
privacy use case. Our tags do not require pairing; multiple users can interact
with them through our Android application. Although researchers developed
several other tools, such as thermal cameras or virtual reality (VR), for
discovering devices in environments, they have not used wireless protocols as a
solution. We measured specific performance metrics of our tags to analyze their
feasibility for this problem. We also conducted a user study to measure the
participants' comfort levels while finding objects with our tags attached. Our
results indicate that wireless tags can be viable for device tracking in
residential properties.
