I also can't imagine letting an internet connected anything in my home, and I keep all internet electronics in one room. Sure, other people can live in a surveillance zoo, but I prefer to keep mine limited.
If it has a circuit, stow it.
So far I've been lucky with cheap zigbee devices but these seem to be getting phased out in favor of locked in items...
and before people suggest - no, I don't have the willingness to build/maintain my own devices with raspberry pis or ESP etc
(Although, I did install a dimmer into the dining room wall switch, but it's worth it I think if you'll be there at least a year.)
In the US (or at least the majority of jurisdictions who have adopted it), NEC Section 240.24(B) requires "each occupant shall have ready access to all overcurrent devices protecting the conductors supplying that occupancy unless otherwise permitted in 240.24(B)(1)" (where that is roughly buildings with continuous on-site maintenance supervision can avoid this requirement).
what do you do if you have a flooding? just hope you dont get electrocuted?
You should really insist on access...
Not to mention, I have ~10 of these bulbs. Can't imagine how a remote control would deal with that. They also aren't connected to the internet, they are controlled by a hub that only has local network access.
I find all of this extremely convenient and ZigBee is a great platform to do things like this.
For instance, the last hour or two of the day, I have lights in the bedroom and kitchen either dim red or off.
Being able to do the routine of "try to go to sleep, fail, tell my watch to turn the lights red, get a glass of water or a snack, turn lights off" is really nice. Even dim white light would be like splashing cold water on my face.
There are other ways to solve for this, approximately, I guess. This is simple and works, though.
Circadian lighting is the script and it follows the sun to make its decisions.
They support HomeKit and while their own API technically isn't open, it's documented and has libraries to interact with it programmatically.
The downside of Zigbee is that, as a user, there isn't a strong ecosystem of DIY IoT solutions like there is with, for example, the wifi-connected ESP8266/ESP32 chips. And, of course, it requires a hub and some degree of knowledge to set up.
At the moment I'm evaluating launching a small IoT startup/side-business in an underserved market. As much as I love Zigbee, these devices will probably end up being wifi. I'm not an expert in the hardware side of things, and the ability to pay <$1 for an ESP chip that does everything I need off the shelf is great, and I don't want to create a hub or require users to buy a (often $80+) hub just for my set of (<=$5) devices.
Although it'll be wifi-based, I plan to make these guarantees:
- The cloud service (supported by a small yearly subscription) will stay online for at least 1 year after the last device is sold.
- When the service is shut down, its software and hardware will be released under an open source license.
- The subscription fee will never be increased faster than inflation rate.
- 3rd party analytics software won't be used and data will never be shared with 3rd parties (outside from Stripe during checkout). In all cases a minimum amount of data will be collected.
Maybe this'll make my product slightly less likely to appear on the @internetofshit Twitter account[2].
Luckily, as you probably know, you can connect all those different protocols together with homeassistant. So you can use pre-built solutions for some devices and DIY for others and still easily connect them.
It's a really nice standard, I hope it takes off.
Edit: oh and it has already taken off as much as it will, the ZigBee alliance is working on a an ipv6 based standard.
But if you do go Wi-Fi, why use a cloud service at all? Is there a specific reason not to go with mDNS/DNS-SD and handle everything on the local network?
[0] https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tradfri-gateway-weiss-40337806/
Do you mean they don't as a matter of manufacturing, or that you have blocked them yourself? (I ask because I am also interested in getting some lights, but would also like them to be local-network-only.)
Typically, manufacturers sell you a "bridge" or "gateway", which is a networked device including such a transceiver. You could isolate this single device from accessing the internet or you could just not rely on any closed option. You can buy a USB Zigbee transceiver for 30 EUR and use it with your PC or a Raspberry Pi.
Zigbee2mqtt and a cheap zigbee dongle is all you need really. You could add home assistant for a better interface but there is no need to involve Phillips or the Internet. One of the huge advantages of zigbee imo.
One other really cool thing is they have a wireless switch that is powered by the act of pushing the button.
The BT510 It has crazy range and has only dropped 10mV battery in 14 days.
It CAN be done, because sensor makers have no interest in reporting home: costs are too high!
We need more open source projects to enable people to automate their homes with a list of suppliers who provide "dumb" edge node sensors.
Errors. A screen full of errors barfed everywhere. I look at the repository for some basic debugging, and without some serious dedicated time, I can't fix the issue.
This is why people don't want to fiddle with a Pi for these things. Time is dedicated to get the system up, but you're not given any kind of guarantee that it will work out of the box.
It's like telling someone who complains about video game DLC to go skiing. Yes, you might enjoy skiing, but skiing isn't a drop in replacement for the person complaining.
But yeah, I understand your pain, and recognise that it’s not a hobby everybody wants...
I get the frustration, but this is a narrow perspective. _Consumer_ IoT is still waiting for some good use cases. But IoT touches a lot more industries than that: medical, earth science, manufacturing, heavy industrial, logistics, energy... they are all being improved with useful IoT solutions. And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home.
I'd also note that privacy and security, while related, are separate issues. Most IoT solutions don't factor in either concern well.
Who is we who need solid security?
I haven't met them. They don't sign a check for security. They don't do anything other than put "Security" on a PowerPoint slide and forget about it.
We make our shipping IoT stuff secure because it's a point of pride and point of competence. But we built the whole architecture around that idea, and it definitely slowed us down at the start.
Until people start cutting checks for actually secure IoT, it's going to remain a giant field of cow dung.
Unfortunately, I think this is going to be the perspective for a long time: if the customer sees real liability (read: a lawsuit for physical damage) as a possibility, that's probably going to be the only motivating factor to take security seriously.
Whatever. One step at a time!
Anyone with a modern medical device is the 'we'.
My grandmother got a new pacemaker installed a while back. She now has a device sitting beside her bed with a 4G modem in it, that talks to her pacemaker at night and sends the data back to some service, which in turn her Doctors can access.
This is apparently the normal thing to do.
What level of security is there in either of those devices?
How do you ensure that there isn't open ports? Does it get security updates pushed to it? (I wouldn't be money on that)
How does one ensure that this can't send malicious commands to the pacemaker?
This isn't just an issue with pacemakers, either - plenty of other medical devices are coming with various wireless chips in them.
Ultimately, the we is society.
It’s heating and cooling, transport, and food. Maybe cement as well. If you buy a new conventional car, I have more to question you on climate change over.
It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.
Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”
A Ring doorbell has a 22Wh battery that lasts about a month or two per charge.
Having the door open for 10 seconds on a cold winter day can easily waste that much energy. About 10kW of heat loss for 10 seconds is 100kJ, higher than that 22Wh. Likewise, the embodied energy of that 22Wh battery is about 22MJ, and might dominate the embodied energy of the Ring camera. So if it saves you from opening the door 200-300 times in its lifetime, that might be enough to pay for its own embodied emissions.
Plus not having to drive home to pick up a package, etc, etc.
Plus think of other smart devices like smart thermostats that might be part of the whole Ring system. Or perhaps if the Ring device prevents destruction of part of your home from theft.
I don’t even own a Ring doorbell, but I can see how it could actually help. Also, traditional doorbells aren’t that efficient. Especially if they have a little light.
Ring could also replace a window to see who is there, which is a big source of heat leakage.
According to wikipedia [1], the transformer on a standard doorbell can use 2-3 watts of power at all times. That's 1400-2100 watt hours per month — about one hundred times as much as a ring doorbell uses (Less than 20 Wh per month).
The cost and impact of the Ring includes more manufacturing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Ring ended up having a larger environmental cost, but it's not as clear cut as your incredulity makes it seem.
Interesting thing to know because here in Brazil we don't route PELV (Protected Extra-low Voltage) to the doorbell. The external switch just carries the full voltage from the mains (127 Vac or 220 Vac, according to the state). Maybe it's not the safest design after all.
However this constant power usage can be safely removed by using a non-rechargeable 12V battery that would power a relay that will trigger the mains-powered bell when the (purely mechanical) external switch is pressed. This removes the constant power usage and such battery should last for years with a typical usage scenario (less than one second per push or so).
You are missing the point and mischaracterising the problem. Resources are finite. Human attention spans are limited. Emissions from ships in international waters are an absolutely huge problem and addressing that will make a huge impact on future climate.
Funny how no one mentions that but we are all focused on paper straws and smart doorbells.
While we're at it, we should demand to put an end to the senseless hoarding of patents and IP, in particular those that hamper interoperability between components, and for information on interfaces to be made public, so no more proprietary connectors, protocols, APIs, no more artificial restrictions on consumables such as printer ink, etcetera.
I believe the argument is about the refining process and the chemical waste it creates, which is substantially higher when trying to extract 99.99% pure copper, zinc, gold, silver and other industrial elements which are converted into electronics. I'm a hobbyist fan of silver and know just the basics - refining for 99.99% pure silver looks like making crack to my eyes. :) Breaking Bad level chemicals.
I'm to understand the act of creating and "washing" circuit boards also uses a large amount of caustic chemicals, as does the attempted recycling/recovery (to basically eat away the coatings to expose the reclaimable metals). Refining for purity has a high environmental cost to get it from ore -> 99.99% and to reuse/recycle it, I speculate much higher than iron ore (train tracks, etc.) require/use.
99.99%, even if you’re right, only gets us to 10kg equivalent if you start with 1 gram.
(And keep in mind that these processes to make bulk materials themselves use alloying agents and specialty materials in cutting heads, etc, to fabricate them.)
Edit as I'm curious myself, this study shows it's about 150 tonnes of ore input for one ton of copper output (with other minerals reclaimed during the process): https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF
So you could as well argue that nickel is a byproduct of rhodium (and platinum group metal) production.
Yeay?
Use a reusable water bottle. One can be had for the price of those 2x500ml bottles.
Charge me for the plastic for the 6 straws a year I use, which is far far less than the plastic others “waste”.
Put a price in the pollution and let the market sort it out
Maybe that's still not much compared to other industries, but in the context of the conversation here, its still something that an individual who might complain about climate change does have a little control over. I mean, if I complain, but then don't change MY behaviour, even if that change wouldn't by itself change anything, why should I expect companies to change theirs?
The joke is that there is no S, which means you're saying we shouldn't stop buying.
I am totally worried about the day it will break down.
My friend recently got a new TV and I was appalled at the controls, picture (soap opera effect), "smart features" (how it instantly goes into this app like experience that you can't ever get out of). So many things bother me about modern TVs. If my TV ever dies, I don't know what I'll do.
Also - the soap opera thing can be turned off in decent newer TVs and as discussed in other HN threads you can just deny the TV an internet connection so it behaves dumbly. You might still need to contend with clunky UI but really - just select your video source and start watching, so the pain is minimal.
Also, taking a look at the site, and not a single 4K UHD TV is in stock at the moment. Yikes!
(I was looking for 85", so I just unplugged the WiFi module in the TV I bought before I turned it on the first time.)
Their is nothing smart in "Smart TV" they all should be labeled "Scam TV".
Nobody had a lighting fast or slow RF remote, the volume just went up and down when you clicked the button (after getting it pointed in the right direction)
I’ve dramatically slashed my personal gadget footprint. Phone, watch cause I like the exercise data, a Linux box I barely touch, old iPad for movies and video chat.
I pickup the guitar rather than sit at the TV or computer. Learning an instrument connects both sides of the brain like no other skills based activity.
No ads, acoustic road trips easy enough, no worry about charging, smart speakers would hear some bad covers of Wonder Wall.
It’s a life changing experience.
So when the TV breaks, maybe consider replacing it with $500 digital piano to get weighted keys and decent built in sound instead of paying for an ad distribution device.
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Every month or so, they would make a video about the ongoing projects and show what kind of features are already available. Partner with manufacturer companies that can provide pre-assembled systems. For those that don't care about the DIY part, offer a subscription-based option where they can get early review units, prioritize their change requests, troubleshoot support, personalization options, discounts for bulk buys, etc.
The revenue from these subscriptions should be more than enough to fund the team of open source developers/designers and to make up for the "lost" revenue of a video made that is sponsored by any of the big tech companies. The most interesting though would be to see if this could lead to a change in consumer demand: could an influencer changed the public's perception of what is really "hot"? Would we start seeing things like "/r/mechanicalkeyboards" for all sorts of products like TV panels, wireless speakers, home automation light systems, F/OSS-based smartphones?
I would love to have a connected home that did not require _any_ external connectivity or web accounts. Why did I need to login with my Google account and enable location services to set up a Chromecast Audio?
Listening to a song in the forest is free, listening to it in a bustling street costs 10¢ per play because you're performing it to people walking by
There's a discussion to be had to on placing every basic action on our daily lives on a finicky smartphone.
I love that my light turns on in the hallway when sun sets. Or the lock locks/unlocks as I leave or approach the house. Or that I can see my camera over vpn.
To make a silly comparison, it's like buying digital videogames on a console instead of their physical versions, knowing you're trading immediate convenicence while giving away control, ownership and future availability.
I would have much less problems processing IoT if the "I" was scrapped and optional by default.
I guess I have an hard time understanding people relying on the internet at all.
A camera that works only locally (dafang hacks + wyze), home assistant, zigbee/zwave for example.
Want to control your lights remotely or automate them? Use an in-wall smart switch. They still work as physical switches even if all your automation/smart home stuff is down. Guests don't need to know anything about the smart home, they can just operate them like regular switches. You get smarts "in addition to" the normal light operation that everyone in the world understands.
Smart garage? Hook into a regular, tried and true garage opener using some kind of remotely controllable relay. The button on the wall still works, the opener in your car still works, but you can have smarts in addition to all that.
Replacing regular bulbs with smart bulbs and then requiring a phone or internet connected voice device "instead of" a normal wall switch is insanity.
I personally hate living in a haunted world which is filled with devices watching me, ready to pounce and fill me with delight at their fulfilling my every desire. It's absolute exhausting and downright terrifying when you think through the hell some motivated hacker (or hater) could subject you to.
Is it unthinkable that all this stuff will turn on you one day? What if you become infamous for crossing the wrong person and a viral video sends the firehouse of political hatred from one group or another your way? "Swatting" is a thing. Just wait until people start hacking your house. They could burn it down while you are away by just turning on your oven maybe!
Me? I'd like my bricks, locks, doors, lights, and life to stay dumb.
People just can't get enough of Alexa and her Genuine People Personality!
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
— Ubik, Philip K Dick, 1969
I like being able to schedule my plant's grow lights to get the appropriate amount of light regardless of season and being able to keep that schedule even when i'm not home
I like knowing that I left my garage door wide open as I drove away because I forgot to look back over my shoulder to see that the button in my car didn't get picked up.
I like being able to unlock the door for my neighbor to let my dogs out if I end up stranded at work longer than I had intended to when I left that morning.
I like that my garage camera turns on and takes shots of whoever is entering though the door when its opened.
I like that my system texts me if a door/window is opened after 10pm (if its me? no biggy. If its an intruder? BIG HELP)
I like that these devices are on a segregated VLAN with firewalling protecting my personal computers/NAS
---
There's a lot of negativity to be said about smart devices, but you can't focus solely on the negativity while ignoring the advantages.
There's also a level of risk and comfort each individual should be willing to set for themselves. I don't 100% trust my garage automation, that's why I have monitored security on my house. I'm not willing to automate devices that can harm my house (oven as your example) but I am willing to monitor their power state (is the oven on?)
This isn't all or nothing in the end.
I use smart home stuff, because: 1. I use it as security device (i have tons of zigbee sensors for motion, and contact). 2. I forget about simple things, all the time. I forget to lock my door, i forget to get my keys etc. All of this is taken care for me in case i forget. I haven't hooked up my garage door yet, but my kid (1 yo) likes to find the remote and press it mindlessly, and i really don't want to leave it open. 3. I like the convenience in general.
If you come to my house, it's definitely not something you'd say a "status symbol". It's only expensive because it's in bay area, otherwise it's a mediocre house.
I have been a programmer for as long as i remember, and these things excite me, that's another aspect.
For the tinkerers, https://dontvacuum.me/ and dustcloud/dustbuilder as search terms.
I have a roborock(Xiaomi sub-corporate brand) firmware flashed to no longer need internet, hosts "the database" on itself which is great for latency/responsiveness, provides web page functionality so you can use it from your phone, computer etc.
I quite like it.
Seems like a reasonable price for a true CO2 sensor.
And once that was the case, it just made sense to have others for convenience, too. For instance, we can turn off almost every regularly-used light at the same time now when we go to bed. The remaining ones are lights we only turn on for a short time anyhow, so they don't get left on.
Home automation is a mess, IoT or not. There are standards like KNX, but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. As a result, I can't buy any A/C unit, rolling shutter, light fixture and thermostat and just connect them to my home network, the selection of "smart" appliances is actually very limited.
I mean, home installation is thought out on the scale of decades, because renovation is a pain. People want something simple and reliable, that is the reason why some taps, switches, sockets, etc... are 10 times more expensive than others while looking the same and people still buy them. It is the complete opposite from what Silicon Valley is pushing.
I think the "solution" to this is some sort of open hardware system, where instead of someone manufacturing and selling for a profit, the design includes a standard set of parts you order, and then there's a very simple assembly, Ikea-style.
Home automation was just an example. I take IoT to mean networked not-general-purpose devices. The internet part is meaningless. If you use that IoT device in the same server room as the controller does it become strictly LANoT? What about private overlay networks? It was never about the internet as in public accessibility.
Those who are old enough remember that the Internet is just one example of an internet. Quoting Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The...): "The Internet standards community historically differentiated between an internet, as a short-form of an internetwork, and the Internet: treating the latter as a proper noun with a capital letter, and the former as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any set of interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The distinction is evident in Request for Comments documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, to the Internet, with broad commercial support, was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity."
So an IoT is an internet of things, not necessarily the Internet of all Things.
I think it's only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more of these things with built in cellular modems which can't be disabled. Makes me want to start stockpiling older technology in order to prepare for a time when every single available lightbulb, washing machine, TV, or vacuum cleaner has to be online all the time and controlled by some privacy destroying app.
I'm only half joking when I say that I can imagine a future where something purely mechanical is considered the height of luxury. Look at this! A door lock with a metal key which doesn't log and transmit the comings and goings of your family and friends. Incredible! If only we could afford such a thing, but there are only a few artisans left in the world who can make them...
Instead it's a mish-mash of bespoke proprietary smartphone apps that have terrible security and privacy practices.
Apple makes IoT devices with reasonable default security, but they're also as proprietary as proprietary gets.
...but you can order your IoT to "set a mood" from your phone or speaker and have 5-6 lights in your house change color and some Barry White to start playing like some cheesy 70s playboy's penthhouse.
Who wants to go back to physically walking to close a light? Walking? We've got expensive tredmills we've bought for that purpose!
Your hearing must be better than mine! I didn't hear Todd Weaver, the author of this blogpost, complain about climate change.
IoT thermostats can save an ton of carbon emissions, and spying seems to have nothing to do with climate change. Just put it all on a separate subnet and you can solve a lot of the spying/vulnerability issues though not all.
Out of curiosity, how often is your smartphone resting on a surface within reach @home?
It's just a way of living where you don't give other people a free 24h real time option on your attention.
Having alerts off means you relate to the device differently. Would be curious what you suppose I misunderstand about surveillance and security though.
If only there were a big sign on every such device saying "We are spying on you!".
Otherwise how is the average consumer to know which ones to apply boot to?
(Also, the boot needs mass and velocity, acceleration is orthogonal :-))
It feels like it should be illegal, but I'm not sure if it is or if there are loopholes. Do you, by chance, know of any actual consumer products with covert Sigfox / LoRa transmitters?
They’re not hiding it though. It’s marketed as something you might want to keep enabled and “help your neighbors” by sharing its location.
- “if your Echo device loses its wifi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router”
- “customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection”
- you “support community extended coverage benefits such as locating pets”
Helps me sleep (not really. I can’t sleep. Help.)
>In 1975, the first general purpose home automation network technology, X10, was developed. It is a communication protocol for electronic devices. It primarily uses electric power transmission wiring for signalling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts of digital data, and remains the most widely available.[4] By 1978, X10 products included a 16 channel command console, a lamp module, and an appliance module. Soon after came the wall switch module and the first X10 timer.
Of course electronics have progressed immensely in 45 years, so we can now do a lot more with a lot less.
I still feel like very little has change in practice though. I find myself actively avoiding "smart" equipment, both because it's overpriced and a bit of a pain to use in my experience. They all have their own software stack, their own apps (which are often cloud-based instead of running locally, adding all sorts of privacy issues) etc...
On top of that you never know when the company is going to go under or stop supporting your device, leaving you with a not-so-smart device in the best case, or a useless plastic brick in the worst.