SPLICE

This patent outlines a method of providing user data privacy for smart devices in a user’s home, using a network of smart-home routers to route encrypted data packets from the smart devices instead of sending them directly to a cloud-based service. The approach uses onion routing, that is, sending sensitive data through multiple smart-home routers so neither the destination (a cloud service) nor intermediary actors like Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can discover and profile the origin (an individual home) of the data. The routers depend on a list of ‘allowed’ domains accessed by smart devices to decide which data packets are routed through the network.  For more details about this work, see Adam Vandenbussche’s thesis, TorSH: Obfuscating consumer Internet-of-Things traffic with a collaborative smart-home router network.

To cite the patent: Adam Vandenbussche, David Kotz, and Timothy Pierson. Onion Routing Network for Smart Homes. U.S. Patent 12,665,877, June 23, 2026.