SmartRent Technologies, the smart-home vendor whose locks, thermostats, and sensors sit inside hundreds of thousands of rental apartments, is fighting on two legal fronts. A SmartRent lawsuit filed in December 2025 by San Francisco tenants and the ACLU of Northern California accuses the company and its client Equity Residential of running unlawful in-home surveillance. Separately, SmartRent went through a 2024 federal securities class action after its founder-CEO abruptly resigned and the stock collapsed. Here is what each case involves and where it stands.
The San Francisco Tenant Privacy Case
On December 4, 2025, the San Francisco Tenants Union and three individual tenants sued SmartRent and a group of Equity Residential entities in San Francisco Superior Court. The case is San Francisco Tenants Union, et al. v. Smart Rent, et al., No. CGC-25-631212. The tenant plaintiffs are Adrian Phua, William Solis, and Elana Diestel, all current or former residents of Equity Residential buildings in the city. They are represented by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, and Tobener Ravenscroft.
On the defense side, the complaint names SmartRent along with seven Equity Residential-affiliated entities, including ERP Operating Limited Partnership and several building-specific LLCs.
What the Tenants Allege
According to the complaint, Equity Residential began installing SmartRent’s “SmartHome” systems in its San Francisco apartments in 2023. The equipment includes electronic smart locks, internet-connected thermostats and humidity detectors, leak sensors, and a central hub that relays data to the cloud. The plaintiffs say the devices are not optional. Equity Residential built them into leases through a “SmartHome Addendum” that requires tenants to use the app and keep the devices connected to Wi-Fi, with noncompliance treated as a lease default that could trigger fines or eviction.
The complaint alleges that the system continuously records when doors are locked and unlocked and by whom, how often tenants have guests, and how residents adjust temperature and other environmental settings. The plaintiffs contend that SmartRent harvests this data in real time, matches it with personal information supplied by the landlord (names, addresses, emails, lease terms), and produces reports for Equity Residential.
The suit also points to SMRT IQ, a SmartRent AI tool launched in June 2025 that the complaint describes as letting landlords monitor tenant activity by typing natural-language questions into a conversational interface. SmartRent has publicly called SMRT IQ an “AI-powered intelligence layer” that provides “constant, real-time IoT-device level data and visibility into all aspects of property performance.” The plaintiffs argue that this level of always-on data collection turns a home into a surveillance environment, especially in a market where moving is prohibitively expensive.
The Legal Claims
The complaint brings five causes of action:
- Violation of the California Constitution’s right to privacy (Article I, Section 1), which applies against private companies as well as the government.
- Intrusion upon seclusion, a common-law claim for unauthorized collection of intimate household data.
- Breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment.
- Private nuisance.
- Violation of the San Francisco Tenant Harassment Ordinance, S.F. Rent Ord. ยง 37.10B.
The tenants ask the court for declaratory and injunctive relief affirming their privacy rights and ordering the defendants to stop the alleged surveillance. They are not seeking money damages.
How SmartRent Describes Its Data Practices
SmartRent’s public materials paint a narrower picture. A company help-center page states that “all device activity data (changed the temperature, or locked the door) is deleted after 30 days” and that a “full delete of all your created data” occurs upon move-out. SmartRent says it stores data encrypted on Amazon Web Services and does not sell data to third-party affiliates.
At the same time, SmartRent’s own marketing overlaps with what the plaintiffs describe. A company blog post says the platform collects access-control logs showing “who enters which areas and when,” along with occupancy and motion data, energy usage data, and “resident behavior data” that includes amenity usage and communication patterns with staff. The post notes that property managers use this data for “operational decisions, predictive maintenance, and leasing strategies,” and adds that managers are responsible for complying with laws like the CCPA.
Where the Case Stands
The immediate fight is over whether the case will stay in court. In late February 2026, SmartRent and Equity Residential each filed motions to compel arbitration. The plaintiffs filed their oppositions in April, and the defendants replied later that month. As of the ACLU’s last case-page update on January 21, 2026, the case was listed as active, and no ruling on the arbitration motions has been publicly recorded.
The 2024 Securities Class Action
SmartRent’s other legal exposure grew out of a shake-up at the top of the company. On July 29, 2024, founder and CEO Lucas Haldeman resigned from his role and from the board. The board said the company, as it “scales and matures into a new phase of growth,” would “benefit from a CEO with a different skill set and fresh perspective.”
The same announcement suspended SmartRent’s full-year 2024 financial guidance and disclosed preliminary second-quarter revenue of $48.5 million, a 9% year-over-year decline that fell below the company’s own guidance range. SmartRent’s stock dropped more than 19% the next day.
Haldeman’s separation agreement, filed publicly, provided $1.17 million in cash severance paid over 18 months, accelerated vesting of certain equity awards, and a lump-sum payment for health coverage. It included a mutual release of claims and non-disparagement clauses.
After the stock drop, the law firm Levi & Korsinsky publicly announced an investigation into potential federal securities law violations at SmartRent and began soliciting investors to serve as lead plaintiff in a prospective class action. SmartRent’s Q1 2026 quarterly filing later noted that general and administrative expenses had fallen because of “lower legal and settlement costs tied to the 2024 class action,” which indicates the matter has resolved or is winding down. Specific settlement terms have not been publicly disclosed.
The Short-Seller Report That Preceded the Troubles
More than a year before Haldeman’s departure, a September 2023 report from Bleecker Street Research (which held a short position in the stock) raised pointed questions about SmartRent’s business. The report’s key allegations:
- About 60% of SmartRent’s revenue came from companies in the portfolio of RET Ventures, SmartRent’s earliest and largest investor. A separate research report put the figure at $105 million, or 63% of 2022 revenue. Bleecker Street argued this reflected an artificial demand loop rather than organic traction.
- After RET Ventures fully exited its stake by early 2023, SmartRent’s new unit bookings fell 66% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2023, and the combined revenue share of two major customers dropped from roughly 40% to below 10%.
- SmartRent’s acquisition of Zipato brought in a smart-home hub that had been found in 2019 to contain serious security vulnerabilities, including a hardcoded SSH key and an authentication flaw that could let an attacker on the same network remotely unlock smart locks. SmartRent said fewer than 5% of its apartment-owning customers were affected, and the ZipaMicro hub was later discontinued.
- SmartRent’s co-founder and chief technology officer sold 93% of his holdings during the summer of 2023.
The stock was already under pressure when the report ran, and the sequence that followed (RET’s exit, slowing bookings, the CEO resignation) deepened investor losses and fed into the securities investigation.