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Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

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Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#11
post #7

The reason I can say my smarthome is relatively secure is explicitly because it doesn't use IP. It's good they're trying to standardize, but you're gonna have a problem when you try to use a firewall to inspect what these devices are up to and find that they're all making encrypted tunnels back to their home bases and won't work without them.

The reason I can say my smarthome is relatively secure is because I don't allow any of the devices to access the internet. IP or not seems irrelevant.

The high level of sophistication of IP networking and the fact that one small mistake could mean your devices access the Internet is why a network that doesn't talk IP is almost inherently safer than one that does.

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#12

The reason I can say my smarthome is relatively secure is explicitly because it doesn't use IP. It's good they're trying to standardize, but you're gonna have a problem when you try to use a firewall to inspect what these devices are up to and find that they're all making encrypted tunnels back to their home bases and won't work without them.

I've been gradually retiring my wifi smart devices in favor of Z-wave because I find them far more reliable and much easier to maintain and manage.

It's also a little annoying having a pile of wifi devices whose only purpose is to manage an on-off state consume IP addresses on my network.

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#13
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I can say my smarthome is relatively secure is because I don't allow any of the devices to access the internet. IP or not seems irrelevant.

The high level of sophistication of IP networking and the fact that one small mistake could mean your devices access the Internet is why a network that doesn't talk IP is almost inherently safer than one that does.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#15

The reason I can say my smarthome is relatively secure is explicitly because it doesn't use IP. It's good they're trying to standardize, but you're gonna have a problem when you try to use a firewall to inspect what these devices are up to and find that they're all making encrypted tunnels back to their home bases and won't work without them.

I've been gradually retiring my wifi smart devices in favor of Z-wave because I find them far more reliable and much easier to maintain and manage. It's also a little annoying having a pile of wifi devices whose only purpose is to manage an on-off state consume IP addresses on my network.

Consume IP addresses? There are a bazillion IP addresses. Or are you stuck on IPv4?

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#16

I am curious if they will include cameras (security / door), because the characteristics of the payload are quite orthogonal to the characteristics of the payload of other smart home devices.

Since Apple just added support to HomeKit for cameras I am sure this new standard they are making will support them too.

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#19
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Apple, Amazon, and Google are already members of the Zigbee alliance, it makes you wonder why it had to be a new working group and not a new group within Zigbee. Its like saying Cowboys, 49ers, Patriots, and the NFL join together to create a new football league.

I think the keyword is "over IP". My understanding is that Zigbee works at the lower layers.

> My understanding is that Zigbee works at the lower layers.

Zigbee is not IP. It's a completely different network, which is why many Zigbee based solutions often require a hub/gateway (which speaks both IP and Zigbee) to enable control via smart-phone apps or stuff like that.

To be honest, I'm pretty happy about that. The less my smart-devices has to do with my local wifi/LAN, the happier I am.

Not really sure I like the direction this is heading.

Re: Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance to develop connectivity standard

#20
> The goal of the Connected Home over IP project is to simplify development for manufacturers...

> The industry working group will take an open-source approach for the development and implementation of a new, unified connectivity protocol and increase compatibility for consumers.

Curious if I as a hobbyist will benefit from this? Or if this will become a: it works perfectly, but only if all your devices connect to our certification servers kind of thing, like Chromecast is becoming.

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