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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

#241

Post by JEOII »

lgleason wrote: post #70
oflannabhra wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zigbee can use sub-GHz as well.

Oh, I did not realize that. Are there any implementations that actually use that?

The UK, national smart meter effort. Sub gig, supported by three silicon providers did Zigbee sub-gig for the last mile, tough to penetrate homes and buildings. Running 3.0 on which means it will port very easily but sub-gig is much more regulated country by country than 2.4. You can search. This article covers the initiative but doesn't call out the sub-gig detail: https://telecoms.com/opinion/467631zigbee-and-the-smart-mete...

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

#242

Post by joshstrange »

shadowgovt wrote: post #117

If they actually pull it off, it'd be huge. The single greatest thing holding back home automation is a lack of compatible standards (coupled with the fact that when an automation company dies, its proprietary standards die with it). I used Z-wave for my home, but I'm not doing it "on the up and up;" my hub is homebrewed and using an unlicensed radio. It's a pain in the ass to maintain, but since I can't trust any hu…

I've used SmartThings more or less since their original Kickstarter in 2013. I gave my v1 hub to a friend who can still use it (I have a v2 and they have a v3 out now).

I try to only buy Z-wave devices and fallback to zigbee if I have to. It's been a very pleasant experience for me overall. I have 5 z-wave light switches, a handful of zigbee bulbs, zigbee door/temp sensors, and 2 z-wave locks. I plan on replacing all my light switches eventually (I've got like 5 left but all in low-traffic areas of my house).

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

#243

Post by ASalazarMX »

Spivak wrote: post #217
Symmetry wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the bit where Zigbee devices have to share a secret key to talk to each other, mostly to prevent competition from low cost devices manufactured in China.

Yeah! They want you to use the high cost devices manufactured in China.

Or mostly the same cheap devices manufactured in China but sold through your friendly middlemen.

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

#244

Post by JEOII »

Eugr wrote: post #202
lgleason wrote: post #51

Zigbee is already an open standard, but some Zigbee devices don't work with others. Yet, with Z-Wave they all tend to work and there isn't that much of a price difference (between Zigbee and Z-Wave devices). The biggest problem with Zigbee is that is uses 2.4 GHZ which doesn't travel long distances or through walls very well. Z-Wave uses a lower frequency that does. (edited for clarity)

Even bigger problem with 2.4 GHz is that the frequency is oversaturated and most Zigbee channels at least partially overlap with WiFi channels. I had pretty bad interference in my home before I moved my Zigbee and 2.4G wifi channels as far apart as possible.

Zigbee 3.0 will use the guard channels if there are collisions and allowed to auto select channels.

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

#245

Post by fleminra »

cartoonworld wrote: post #185
FussyZeus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. My alexa went in the drawer after she was offering to call the crisis line for me during a spirited session of gaming. I genuinely think the Amazon team (at least in that particular regard) want to do some good. But until they can teach their machines how to understand context, I just don't want my unfiltered conversations going around potentially to medical institutions or law enforcement.

I am surprised this is how we have ended up. We have already had a pretty good looking model for this sort of voice activated computer interaction thanks to Star Trek: TNG. It would be far more palatable for the devices to wait for a command cue ("Computer--") to respond with an activation bleep. After the bleep, the commands begin to be interpereted. Instead we have a listener always awaiting commands. What could be…

> command cue ("Computer--") to respond with an activation bleep

This can be turned on in the Home app → Accessibility → "Play start sound" (as well as "Play end sound").

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

#247

Post by JEOII »

Symmetry wrote: post #170
kbumsik wrote: post #112

For someone who thinks Zigbee already is an open standard, well, it is NOT really open though. A standard being publicity available does not always make it open-source friendly. Linux considers it a proprietary protocol [1] so Zigbee driver cannot be part of Linux kernel. Although Zigbee spec allows non-commercial individuals to freely use it, a commercial organization must be a member of the Zigbee Alliance in order…

There's also the bit where Zigbee devices have to share a secret key to talk to each other, mostly to prevent competition from low cost devices manufactured in China.

If you look at the Zigbee member list, there are many China based companies. They don't need to 'steal' anything as members.

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

#248

Post by anderspitman »

joshstrange wrote: post #240
m-p-3 wrote: post #63

> The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use. By building upon Internet Protocol (IP), the project aims to enable communication across smart home devices, mobile apps, and cloud services and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification. Yet I don't see any mention of making those being able to work comple…

I am personally really against my IoT devices being able to "speak" TCP/IP, I want them to use dumb radios (Z-wave or if I must, Zigbee) that cannot talk to the internet. I get the draw of Wifi/IP devices but I avoid them at all costs. I don't want 10's or 100's of devices on my network that all are talking to servers in China. I bought a few cheap POE Chinese cameras that I use with Zoneminder but they are all block…

Seems like there might be a market for something like pihole that detects connections to shady IoT servers.

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

#249

Post by xoa »

joshstrange wrote: post #240
m-p-3 wrote: post #63

> The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use. By building upon Internet Protocol (IP), the project aims to enable communication across smart home devices, mobile apps, and cloud services and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification. Yet I don't see any mention of making those being able to work comple…

I am personally really against my IoT devices being able to "speak" TCP/IP, I want them to use dumb radios (Z-wave or if I must, Zigbee) that cannot talk to the internet. I get the draw of Wifi/IP devices but I avoid them at all costs. I don't want 10's or 100's of devices on my network that all are talking to servers in China. I bought a few cheap POE Chinese cameras that I use with Zoneminder but they are all block…

>I don't want 10's or 100's of devices on my network that all are talking to servers in China.

I definitely agree, although I'd expand that to "talking to any servers at all anywhere for anything I don't explicitly grant permission for". However for that very reason I prefer WiFi/IP devices, because it makes it very easy and straight forward to apply all the powerful network management tools we have for everything else. All devices can go on their own VLANs for example, with careful management and logging of how they communicate. The real shame is that there aren't better, more consumer friendly tools for managing that more visually/automatically.

Custom radios aren't any inherent defense there, already there have been demonstrations of getting right into Z-wave/Zigbee networks using customized SDRs. They have a purpose from an ultra low energy and meshing point of view, but you should be suspicious of what security practices for such things will actually be. WiFi/IP at least has the benefit of tons of open attention and development for security critical situations already.

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

#250

Post by oflannabhra »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #208
paulgerhardt wrote: post #199

10 years in the trenches here. Apple’s smart home protocol famously does not support multiple users. Amazon is choosy on what features you can implement (turn on alarms but not turning them off, locking doors but not unlocking them). Google loves using radio hardware no one else supports. Zigbee has delightful legacy security vulnerabilities and consortium drama. I look forward to these groups putting aside their dif…

Z-Wave?

Z-wave is about as far as you can get from open. Until 2018 when SiLabs acquired it from Sigma, all silicon had to be purchased directly from Sigma.
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