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

101–110 of 364 posts

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

#101

Post by orev »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #34
orev wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone (especially at home) is using only IPv4. IPv6 is always perpetually on the horizon. The better argument would have been that using a /23 or /22 subnet should probably be enough for most home automation setups.

5 years ago your comment was spot on. Now in the us it is common to see dual stack v4 v6 on residential and mobile connections.

I’m more talking about what people are actually aware of. Yes, most systems have IPv6 enabled and use it when possible, but it’s mostly invisible. When you login to a device to setup the IP address, it’s still almost always IPv4. That’s just for the internal networks, which is what most home users are thinking about on this topic.

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

#102

Post by baybal2 »

mattferderer wrote: post #62

I hope security is at the top of their list. I want a super secure hub that everything connects to. The hub is the only thing that speaks to my router. The hub is super secure & doesn't let devices send data back to their manufacturer. If I buy cheap devices off a flea market like Amazon, I want to sleep safe & know that the hub is preventing that device from messing with any other devices or accessing the internet.…

I'll tell you this. You already have a hub, it's called WiFi router.

I see zero reasons to rationalise the need to buy yet another white box for the buyer.

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

#103

Post by aequitas »

weberc2 wrote: post #84
mr__y wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess: first of all, "for security reasons" your DIY device will need to be certified, any existing SBCs will need to be replaced/extended to support new type of network and due to bloated protocol specs with a myriad of abstraction levels will render it almost impossible to implement it on your own and the open source library that can do that will implement the standard as specified whereas all proprietary soluti…

> any existing SBCs will need to be replaced/extended to support new type of network and due to bloated protocol specs with a myriad of abstraction levels will render it almost impossible to implement it on your own and the open source library that can do that will implement the standard as specified whereas all proprietary solutions will have some quirks and little differences from official standard making it very h…

BT v1 to v3 maybe, but BTLE/v4 solved a lot of the problems afaik.

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

#105

Post by ViViDboarder »

slantyyz wrote: post #54
oflannabhra wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common solution (and one HomeKit enabled routers implement) is to relegate all IoT products to their own network

Sure, but I would still want to check that network's clients as well, so I would still want to identify the devices on that network to ensure that only my devices are on it. Either way, it's still an additional step compared to Z-wave. Other than the hub, I don't need to set up an IP network for my Z-wave devices to connect to at all.

I mean, I’m using Z-wave too, but you’re describing the same level of complexity. Either you set up a dedicated WiFi network and check that to see the status of IoT devices, or set up a dedicated Z-wave network and check that for the status of devices.

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

#106

Post by ViViDboarder »

smrk007 wrote: post #27
1over137 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Some internet providers restrict users to the number of devices they may have connected to their WiFi network. Not sure if this is what they’re referring to, but possible.

How would that even be possible? Plus another router in an NAT everything behind it.

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

#107

Post by Angostura »

chasd00 wrote: post #97
mattferderer wrote: post #62

I hope security is at the top of their list. I want a super secure hub that everything connects to. The hub is the only thing that speaks to my router. The hub is super secure & doesn't let devices send data back to their manufacturer. If I buy cheap devices off a flea market like Amazon, I want to sleep safe & know that the hub is preventing that device from messing with any other devices or accessing the internet.…

what do people mean when they say security for smart home devices? if the "launch ICBM" port is open on a device on your LAN doesn't an attacker still have to traverse your router to get to it? Otherwise, an attacker would have to get access to your LAN. Is something like that what you mean?

People would prefer

1. Their lightbulbs to not be co-opted into DDoS attacks 2. That their cameras are only used by them 3. That others can't control their devices 4. That their devices receive security updates 5. That their devices don't contain back-doors 6. That their devices can be used when isolated from the Internet

... I imagine.

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

#108

Post by chasd00 »

armagon wrote: post #91
czbond wrote: post #71

Can anyone recommend a method* without Wifi? Isn't there a method for "smart outlets", main scheduler, etc over electrical lines rather than bluetooth, wifi, etc? Method* == standard, or product line. [yes i used pointer and equality symbols oddly] Edit: basically looking for a way to avoid more wireless transmitters in the house. Or are all outlets "receive only"?

The previous generation of smart home devices was called X10, and it used signals over power lines. I gather it was: - slow - might have required you to make a connection in your circuit breaker - and was designed in the 1970s, when home electrical systems weren't very noisy (apparently all the switching power adapters we have today make a ton of noise and make it hard for the signal). I don't see why something newer…

I remember X10! The whole "over powerline" thing was a real possibility back in the day but it required all transformers to have a small modification done to them and that killed it IIRC. You could certainly do it in your home though.

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

#109

Post by rblatz »

baybal2 wrote: post #68
mr__y wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess: first of all, "for security reasons" your DIY device will need to be certified, any existing SBCs will need to be replaced/extended to support new type of network and due to bloated protocol specs with a myriad of abstraction levels will render it almost impossible to implement it on your own and the open source library that can do that will implement the standard as specified whereas all proprietary soluti…

Believe me, they will it will never find adoption. How to say, they are free to make whatever standards, but they will not matter much if nobody will use them. Their entire ecosystem together have less devices shipped than even some OEM nonames, not to say of Xiaomi or Huawei or Tuya who tower over them. All kinds of "smart assistants" like Alexa end up in drawers very quickly after initial novelty passes, and it cre…

My experience is the opposite, basically every home I go to has an Alexa or a google home. It’s not doing too much typically managing lights/smart switches, and playing music.

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

#110

Post by eecc »

Jonnax wrote: post #44
aequitas wrote: post #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 ou…

Perhaps. The Phillips Hue lights use an open standard, I bought a usb device that could talk it (ZigBee Light Link) but then it turned out that production devices used a master key. Here's a discussion of the master key being leaked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9249753 But I looked it it before that and never tried to look it up again. So likely so, and with today's encryption it probably won't get hacked fo…

I can recall something along the lines: used to be like that with Light Link but as of Zigbee 3 it’s really interoperable all round (Hue hub registering third party devices and Hue lamps working with generic hubs.)

I’m still looking for other devices to mesh into a ZB3 network: I’d love to see an Opentherm capable controller able to use any connected thermometer and heating element valves to modulate heat flux production and distribution around my flat. Might be overthinking though... it’s so well thermally insulated.

Post reply on HN