Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 364 posts

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

#351

Post by scottlocklin »

alexnewman wrote: post #205
scottlocklin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to tell Marshall this. ;-) It seems entirely possible to put voice recognition on local machines with downloaded updates, but of course they're never going to do this.

I assure you chime and amazon and google have all been caught sending back the audio

I'd never use it myself excepting maybe video only for a burglar alarm, but because Marshall worked on home automation protocols, he loves this stuff. I always had nightmares the damn "smart light bulbs" in the 2nd street office were listening in on our conversations.

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

#352

Post by speedkills »

Avamander wrote: post #271
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to have a pairing mode that allows the device to be paired with a control device (e.g. your phone) via wireless while you're in the same room as it. That would only have to be done once when it's installed and require pressing a physical button on the device while being in wireless range so that nobody can hack it remotely.

Out-of-band pairing is a better idea, e.g. some key on the bulb has to be entered or scanned or read on the device.

I'm not a fan. If I get a new hub, the last thing I want to do is unscrew every light switch to find the picture on it to scan and if I buy a house with pre-existing hardware I don't want to rely on the last owner having taken pictures associated with every switch and left it for me.

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

#353

Post by TheKarateKid »

mistersquid wrote: post #254
TheKarateKid wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FireWire also had a few port types which required different cables and connectors, while USB at the time only had one (this was before Mini and Micro USB). Apple even included dongle converters with their iPods. USB also had the advantage of Intel pushing it, resulting in almost every PC with an Intel CPU (large majority) having USB ports.

> USB also had the advantage of Intel pushing it, resulting in almost every PC with an Intel CPU (large majority) having USB ports. In the mid to late 1990s, USB was scarce. It didn't take off until after Apple replaced its ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) port with USB in the first iMacs. Once that happened, manufacturers flooded the market with consumer products (e.g. CDRW drives) and PC makers followed suit. Up to that poi…

I doubt Apple had anything to do with pushing USB's widespread adoption. Apple was at one of its lowest points during this time period, and it was pre OSX.

The poor support in Windows, as well as peripheral OEMs still using other ports slowed its adoption.

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

#354

Post by ksec »

baybal2 wrote: post #274
xoa wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firewire was an originally open standard, but there came Apple and demanded to exact a symbolic 1$ per device payment. What? Firewire was a project initiated by Apple in mid-1980s, which then was further developed by the IEEE P1394 Working Group. Patents and pooling was part of it from the very beginning, with the primary drivers being Apple, Panasonic, Philips, and Sony (there were also a half-dozen odd smaller co…

1394TA was open as far as I remember

HEVC, VVC, H.264 are also Open Standards, does not mean it is patents free or Royalty free.

While VP8, VP9 arguably isn't as much of of Open Standards, it is not patents free ( Neither is AV1 ) but Royalty Free.

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

#355

Post by Avamander »

speedkills wrote: post #352
Avamander wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out-of-band pairing is a better idea, e.g. some key on the bulb has to be entered or scanned or read on the device.

I'm not a fan. If I get a new hub, the last thing I want to do is unscrew every light switch to find the picture on it to scan and if I buy a house with pre-existing hardware I don't want to rely on the last owner having taken pictures associated with every switch and left it for me.

OOB pairing could have rolling keys, but that's more expensive. In general the problem is difficult, every solution has a nasty caveat, be it taking over during installation or what your described.

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

#356

Post by giancarlostoro »

akvadrako wrote: post #349
giancarlostoro wrote: post #141

I bought a home and the previous owner used Z-Wave for everything. The whole thing worked irregardless of internet working or not. Whatever they invent if it is useless without internet access its a step back from something that has already worked. All my home automation / smart home integrations will have to be Z Wave compatible or I will not use it. If my internet goes out will all my things be useless without it?

Zigbee works fine without internet. And Z-wave is proprietary - only one company makes the controllers.

I didn't realize Z-Wave was proprietary. It is useful though, I can control things around my house with a USB adapter and a Rasbperry Pi.

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

#357

Post by greyhair »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #256
PaulHoule wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Key exchange for IoT devices is a tricky problem. IoT devices don't support public key infrastructure, e.g. something like GnuPG or the SSL certificates used by web browsers. It's a very practical solution to have a shared secret between the device and a central server, and, at registration time, have the central server make a key for both the hub and the device. Without some kind of key exchange, people could set of…

The solution is to have a pairing mode that allows the device to be paired with a control device (e.g. your phone) via wireless while you're in the same room as it. That would only have to be done once when it's installed and require pressing a physical button on the device while being in wireless range so that nobody can hack it remotely.

Like ZWave has done for the last several years.

I know it has other issues, but particularly since ZWave2, the security model on ZWave far surpasses bluetooth or zigbee

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

#358

Post by greyhair »

JackRabbitSlim wrote: post #298
mistersquid wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USB also had the advantage of Intel pushing it, resulting in almost every PC with an Intel CPU (large majority) having USB ports. In the mid to late 1990s, USB was scarce. It didn't take off until after Apple replaced its ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) port with USB in the first iMacs. Once that happened, manufacturers flooded the market with consumer products (e.g. CDRW drives) and PC makers followed suit. Up to that poi…

That neglects to mention that Microsoft Windows 95 OSR2 launched a few months before (97) and that entire release was centered around better USB support for a broader range of components. (e.g. CDRW Drives) I don't think its fair to say PC "Followed suit" in using USB.

Once Windows 98 hit though, USB was well supported on the platform. During a brief stint in late 98 through 99 I worked at a consumer electronics chip manufacturer (56K modems and DSL) and we had good support for USB on Windows 98 and Windows NT at that time.

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

#359

Post by greyhair »

oflannabhra wrote: post #250
AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The hardware is far from open, but the issue of the interface being 'licensed' was cleared by SiLabs, which was very nice.

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

#360

Post by teekert »

hanklazard wrote: post #297
teekert wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope they recognize the need that people want to keep their data on their lan. Actually that would be required by the GDPR if they won't let me sign anything. My derived data is my own people, it does not belong to who ever collects it. I.e. I just want a thermostat the is a big rotating button and speaks mqtt. It does not exist. If you want it to look good you end up with a Nest thermostat. Home Assistant n…

I use Venstar thermostats with Home Assistant. They're totally fine, but wifi only I believe. Local API, so no cloud nonsense. I've been running them for about a year with no major problems.

They don't seem to be available in Europe, the thermostat market is surprisingly local, i.e. we also don't have Ecobee here. The Venstars do looks nice indeed.
Post reply on HN