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

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321–330 of 364 posts

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

#321
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think any home automation system should not have to rely on the home owner having a CCNA cert in order to be secure.

Buying a Wifi router and not plugging it to the Internet doesn't require a CCNA cert. Yes, it's an extra device, but so is the Zigbee hub.

Most people are not going to buy a dedicated WiFi AP just for their home automation.

The benefit of Zigbee, even when using a hub, is that you don’t have all the actual devices on your network, calling home, and possibly opening up NAT traversal streams. You just need to worry about the hub. With WiFi devices, you need to worry about all of that for all of them.

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

#322

> 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…

Something tells me it won't work with privacy oriented systems like hass.io (https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio), but I'd be happy to be wrong.

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

#323

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.

The trouble with that is that you can't change it in case e.g. some temporary visitor to your house snaps a picture of the key.

If you as an individual has visitors who come to your house and snap pictures of codes in your devices... I wouldn't be more expectant of Zigbee or any other standards, rather I would be more keen on the visitors I allow into my house.

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

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the old "FireWire vs USB." Firewire was an originally open standard, but there came Apple and demanded to exact a symbolic 1$ per device payment. Despite FireWire being an indisputably better standard from technical standpoint, that 1$ completely ruined the mood with OEMs, and they lost the market. USB on the other hand, was not really open, but Intel's central leadership in it guaranteed that there…

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.

I think the problem was that USB can charge only @ 5 v vs firewire @ 12 v

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

#325
post #91
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…

Insteon is the closest thing to a successor to X10, and it still supports a lot of the old protocol. You can certainly setup an insteon system for basic stuff (Scenes, etc) without an Internet-connected hub at all.

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

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple doesn’t tend to hand out their logo for industry groups and open source projects. That’s fine, it’s their support that matters. And it’s not like their name lacks brand recognition! Here’s another example; same idea, different font: https://aomedia.org/membership/members/

They do occasionally: https://ghc.anitab.org/2019-sponsorships/corporate-sponsors/

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

#327
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.

That's totally Myriad Pro.

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

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mostly to prevent competition from low cost devices manufactured in China. mostly to prevent competition from patent-infringing clones manufactured in China. FIFY

I actually worked at Ember for a bit before leaving when they get bought by Silicon Labs. The reason, internally, really was the fear that there would be a flood of low quality products that would make ZigBee look bad.

For that, you need certification, not gatekeeping.

Publish a set of tests a device must pass, broadly, to be certified compliant.

Allow manufacturers test their devices, for a fee, and win a certificate, or know where they failed. Much like you can take a language exam (say, TOEFL).

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

#329
post #55

> 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…

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 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.

GDPR is a joke and easily bypassed because users are overwhemingly dumb and agree to anything without reading. By making it online service dependent they don't have to care, the experience will be horribly degraded without signing in.

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

#330

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?

Sadly, the lunatics at Amazon, Apple and Google live in their tech company campuses where internet is vast and plentiful. 99% of the country however has shit internet. Among many many other reasons.
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