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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

#261

Post by spsful »

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 would agree but there is quite a benefit to having these smart devices connect to technology already in the home. With the absence of a proprietary radio, it's easier for me to control them as well. I currently have firewall rules on my network that blocks all communication between my smart devices and the internet. They can only communicate on the LAN and cannot send/receive information outside of the network. I feel like if more proprietary communication protocols were implemented it would be hard to determine which devices were communicating, and which are accessing the internet(for example if a device has an embedded LTE chip to make up for lack of WiFi connectivity).

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

#262

Post by ReverseCold »

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…

> Apple’s smart home protocol famously does not support multiple users.

It does? I'm added to my dad's account and can access everything just fine along with my own stuff.

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

#263

Post by spsful »

xoa wrote: post #249
joshstrange wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

Oh wow I just wrote a very similar comment before reading the previous replies. All good points!

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

#264

Post by JEOII »

saagarjha wrote: post #252
JEOII wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The comment mentioned nothing about stealing.

True. I was looking at TheKarateKid comment about infringing companies. The country where most stuff is manufactured, white labelled and sold at a premium by brand names :)

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

#265

Post by spsful »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #69
utopian3 wrote: post #2

FYI: This is the project's official homepage: https://www.connectedhomeip.com

Trivia: I had never seen this Apple logo used before, looks like the name of the company using a San Francisco font. I wonder if it's official or just a workaround due to the fact that all the other logos have names and not just an icon like the standard Apple logo.

I feel like this violates Apple's brand guidelines..

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

#266

Post by xoa »

joshstrange wrote: post #255
xoa wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

You've made some very good points and better explained what I really want. I also will admit that using existing tools to create VLANs to "quarantine" the devices is an option. That said (and you touched on this) the average consumer is not prepared to deal with any of that, maybe that will change but as of today it's not easy or even possible with most consumer-grade hardware. As for Z-wave/Zigbee, I could be missin…

>That said (and you touched on this) the average consumer is not prepared to deal with any of that, maybe that will change but as of today it's not easy or even possible with most consumer-grade hardware.

Right, at one point it looked like something like UniFi could show the way there, but Ubiquiti unfortunately has turned into a development dumpster fire and really lost its way, and I don't know of anyone else attempting something similar. The principle remains though that it's another path forward, there are already powerful tools for network control and management, and there are accessible open standards there. Putting a better UX on that is worth considering alongside other solutions is all.

>As for Z-wave/Zigbee, I could be missing a potential security hole but personally I am less concerned with my Z-devices being hacked and more concerned with IP-devices being hacked and being able to talk to other IP-based devices on my network. For example, it would suck to have someone be able to hack my door or lights but it wouldn't be the end of the world AND it requires physical access/proximity.

A lot depends on where you live. A few years ago for example there were a bunch of articles and demonstrations coming from research into and discovery of vulnerabilities in the ZigBee protocol itself. Because the whole point of it is meshing, if you're in an urban or even suburban environment with sufficient density, then a neighbor being hacked could then hack their neighbors etc in a chain reaction. And of course people had fun immediately putting SDRs on drones and doing a fresh new take on good 'ol war dialing, flying around owning anything they came across. Random example article:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/3/13507126/iot-drone-hack

Picked verge vs NYT since I don't think they're paywalled? Lots more though a quick DDG away covering the same thing at the time.

With meshing though, you do have to be somewhat careful about the concept of "proximity" and so on if there are protocol layer problems, which is less of a concern on WiFi for better and for worse. Your home might be locked down, but are you sure your neighbor or neighbor's neighbor and so on and so forth down the chain all have no entry point? I 100% grant it's more of a long term scalability consideration right now for many people, but hey, we're talking about a future protocol here!

Gonna be another exciting decade I guess :)

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

#267

Post by tzs »

chriswwweb wrote: post #188

LOL ... there has been a standard for years for smart home devices, it is called KNX ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KNX_(standard) ) ... what is wrong with KNX? Hundreds of companies already support it, so why not join them instead of re-inventing the wheel? I think I know what im talking about, because my (smart) home automation is based on KNX, I use Alexa voice commands or a KNX app on my mobile devices to contro…

Is KNX affordable? I did some searching to see how to control Philips Hue lights via KNX, and found something called an "ise Smart Connect KNX HUE" for this. I found a few sites online selling this, all in Europe.

Most would not show me a price without me first creating an account and logging in, but I did find one German site that would show me a price, which after converting Euros to USD, came out to a little over $300. I also found a UK site that would show a price. That, after Pounds to USD conversion, was over $500.

I did a little searching to try to find out how lights are handled in KNX without bridging out to some completely different system like Hue. All I was able to find was lighting fixtures with KNX control built in. I didn't see bulbs with it built in.

Does this mean that if someone without any home automation decides that they want a couple of smart lights, to do it purely with KNX that have to replace some light fixtures?

That's not how most people in the US add some smart lights. Most here do it by buying bulbs that screw into fixtures meant for regular bulbs, and implement the smart stuff in the bulb itself. There is no need to replace fixtures (which you may not be allowed to do if you are renting).

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

#268

Post by joshstrange »

xoa wrote: post #266
joshstrange wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've made some very good points and better explained what I really want. I also will admit that using existing tools to create VLANs to "quarantine" the devices is an option. That said (and you touched on this) the average consumer is not prepared to deal with any of that, maybe that will change but as of today it's not easy or even possible with most consumer-grade hardware. As for Z-wave/Zigbee, I could be missin…

> That said (and you touched on this) the average consumer is not prepared to deal with any of that, maybe that will change but as of today it's not easy or even possible with most consumer-grade hardware. Right, at one point it looked like something like UniFi could show the way there, but Ubiquiti unfortunately has turned into a development dumpster fire and really lost its way, and I don't know of anyone else atte…

I haven't followed the AmpliFi line closely to know if it has easy VLAN support but yeah... I really like the UniFi offerings but a fulling working UniFi system (excluding the UDM) costs ~$800 from my last estimate. I'm saving for it but that's cause I'm a weirdo who enjoys those kinds of things.

If you don't mind me asking what networking stack are you using?

Also thank you for the very well thought out and reasoned reply! I wasn't fully aware of some of those attack vectors.

Lastly I think I've been so anti-wifi IoT because of the inherent security issues with literally everything currently on the market. I see the wifi IoT as a bubble about to pop unless routers gain security features for IoT or some other major changes are made to how they work today.

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

#269

Post by samatman »

CiPHPerCoder wrote: post #227

> Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla and Google's parent company, Alphabet are named in the lawsuit The comma misuse is legendary. https://www.amazon.com/Eats-Shoots-Leaves-Tolerance-Punctuat... Fixed: Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla, and Google's parent company, Alphabet, are named in the lawsuit

Wrong thread, you're looking for https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824178

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

#270

Post by allover »

rcarmo wrote: post #196

Hmmm. Now what am I going to do with my laboriously (and lovingly) put together zigbee2mqtt/HomeKit setup? :) Seriously now, I see this as a good thing, if only because we're likely to get an interoperability stamp of approval of some kind. Right now, and were it not for my using an Open Source solution for my Zigbee gateway, it would be impossible for me to hook up Hue, Xiaomi, IKEA and other devices to Homekit with…

> were it not for my using an Open Source solution [...], it would be impossible for me to hook up [...] and other devices to Homekit without a bunch of different gateways (because some Zigbee endpoints simply refuse to talk to anything other than their own peers).

And worse, in my "casual" case, because some sort of Philips/Apple agreement outright prevents it :/

E.g. add a "Hue compatible", but non-Philips bulb to your Hue hub. It will work in the Hue app and via Amazon Echo, but Homekit will refuse to see it.

A way to "trick" homekit to be able to use the bulb with it, is to create a Hue scene, and sync it to homekit, but that is terrible for per-bulb control. This stuff is apparently all Zigbee, but the usability situation is an absolute mess.

(Widely reported, for many years, not a bug).

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