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What do you guys think of the idea of smart homes? I could make a basic setup using https://home-assistant.io to control my home temperature and lighting; the tools for doing this are everywhere nowadays and implementation doesn't seem too horrific anymore.
But setting aside what I "can" do, is this something that I "should" do? How can a person implement this without connecting any devices to the internet?
I've been using Home Assistant for a while now. I do recommend setting up a VLAN that can't communicate with the internet which is where any wifi devices live. However I really like ZigBee and/or Z-Wave devices as they don't require any internet connection.
Lights alone are a game changer. Timers never really worked well for us because we're pretty far north of the equator and sunrises/sunsets have a pretty big swing. I currently have the lights come on 1 hour before sunset so it adjusts to this swing without me having to do anything. Then I have a button on my nightstand that turns off all the lights that aren't night lights.
The downsides are that it can be expensive. You start with a couple of light bulbs, maybe a couple of outlets, next thing you know you are pricing out how much it will cost to change all your switches and trying to figure out if they all have neutral wires or not. You'll start watching youtube videos of people's setups and looking for ways to do more with your smart home. It's a fun hobby but can be a lot of work.
I like that the ZigBee and z-wave devices don't need internet, but the biggest reason in my opinion is the relay function where they extend the network, and the binding options so they work even if your hub or wireless goes down.
Yeah, the mesh features is really nice.
Just remember, the S in IOT stands for security.
I do have some IOT devices on my network, however they are kept off the internet and on their own vlan. No phoning home (or anywhere else) for these devices.
They can be great if they are set up properly, but too many people just take them out of the box, toss them on their network and think they are just fine.
I’d wager 90% of users do that. I see way too much phoning home former to ever be comfortable with that.
I'm a bit more pessimistic about that percentage.. maybe 90% of people with the technical ability and inclination to micromanage their devices. But I'd wager the majority of users just want a remote control mood light and do not care that it's using the WiFi
Smart homes sound good in concept and I'd love to have one if there weren't so many risks. But an entire home that can be controlled via computers just sounds like an opsec nightmare. Obviously there's the plus that your average technologically illiterate granny isn't going to be using these so it will most likely have strong security systems. But hackers love a challenge.
And a whole neighborhood? A systemwide attack could happen disrupting entire swaths of a city's residential zone. Imagine showers suddenly spraying boiling water, targeted attacks on epileptic individuals with flashing lights, temperatures dropping to below freezing or up to dangerous levels of heat or lightbulbs overloading sending broken glass everywhere, speakers bursting eardrums.
Not to mention more subtle dangers of such voice activation systems being accessed by malicious actors, or more likely, corporate concerns. Someone gangstalked or targeted by powerful people who could just court order one of these smart home companies to hand over the data and they probably will without fuss.
The attack surface of a single electronic device is massive, with dozens of different apps and services, each with different system vulnerabilities to exploit that's already hard enough. But just imagine the attack surface of an entire home! Everything from the LG Flatscreen in your living room, to the temperature control systems, to your Apple Smart Toaster can be hacked to gain access to the rest of the system. If any one of those isn't completely secure (which of course is a pipe dream) then it could be the gateway to a smart home hacking story on a Defcon panel.
And finally, what's stopping the company from just updating the software for your smart home and paylocking features like "Uh yeah, you need to pay 12.99$ a month to have your cctv cameras work." And because all the framework that runs the systems is being hosted in proprietary servers, you can't do shit. And you can't host your own servers either. Does this sound familiar because it should?
Smart homes in centralized hands, such as Google? Nightmare.
Smart homes controled from your home, like home assistant? Awesome. I have home assistant and done some lights, water sensor, even my security cameras. It's a lot of work, but it works so well it's crazy.
I sorta wonder about these when selling the house to the next person. What if a little old lady buys your house?
I thought I'd remove them if the buyer isn't interested. They still work like normal light switches without a smart home hub.
As others have said, you can sequester IoT devices to a VLAN that has no internet access. Most of the common devices (lights, switches, sensors) added to smart homes work perfectly fine without access to the internet. Voice assistants are the biggest security/privacy hole since all commercial options are from big tech companies and phone home constantly. If you set up a local homeassistant instance you can get a ton of functionality out of smart devices with no direct connection to the internet. You need to decide how you handle accessing homeassistant from outside your home if that's something you want but there are plenty of options to choose from for that.
One thing I will say that I refuse to add to my home is any kind of smart locks. No matter how much I trust my security setup, I don't trust it with the ability to unlock my doors. If there was one that could only lock them electronically but required being manually unlocked, them maybe. But I haven't seen a lock like that out there.
Agreed on all points.
I just wanted to add that I'm very glad smart locks exist. My friend with cerebral palsy can now secure his home with a lock and be able to get back in independently.
In general, smart devices are huge for him, and others with physical disabilities.
Also, I should say that I really enjoy the convenience of having Google Assistant in the house. Verbal timers, alarms, reminders, podcasts, and music mostly. Those and the pirate FireTV Stick are our only devices to date. I just don't care enough to put the legwork in to getting IoT set up. Switches are fine.
That's great that they help your friend like that! As someone that doesn't face any kind of accessibility issues myself, it's easy to overlook those kinds of benefits that these devices can provide. In situations like your friend's, I'd agree that any potential security cons are outweighed by the pros (especially if the alternative before was having to leave the doors unlocked anyways).
Agree on the convenience of voice assistants. I've got various models of Google homes in my house that I use for voice controls on anything I don't have a good way to truly automate. Different people will have different tolerances for how okay they are with the data things like that can gather. One day I might try to set up one of the local network voice assistants but those can take a lot of work to get just right. Always a tradeoff of convenience and privacy.
I have a smart home and let me give you some advice. BE MINDFUL OF THE BRANDS YOU CHOOSE. For example, using tuya smart devices with home assistant is a pain, you have to setup a tuya cloud account and get an API key that you'll have to renew every few months. If the device gets reset you have to go back into the cloud environment and re-add them. It's such a pain. Almost anything works with home assistant, but the amount of diy and bullshit you have to deal with to get something working varies greatly between brands. I highly recommend sonoff, also get a zigabee controller for home assistant as its far better than using WiFi. I also recommend you start a notion document or some other form of document that can keep up with everything for you. What brand of switches are in what room, what brand of lights are where, etc. Not just for you but if you ever sell your home you can give it to the next guy. Because you're probably not going to take the light switches or any in line relays with you.
Also to not connect to the internet you need to have a separate network (router or access point) that all your smart devices connect to. You'll then use a VPN to connect to your home network remotely. Basically have your smart devices router hooked into your normal router and on your normal router block external traffic (the Internet) from going to the smart devices router. Sorry if that's hard to follow but just Google "how to segment a home network" and that should get you started. Feel free to hmu if you need some guidance.
This is my current biggest gripe. You have to have a four year degree in random smart home garbage to figure out what works with what. We have a guy like that in our friend group, but I still need four different smart home apps just to control a handful of lights and a couple cameras. The apps have constant problems (Nest app signs me out nearly daily), the aggregator apps like Homekit and Google Home are missing nearly all features for the lights we have aside from on or off and some simple color settings, Nanoleaf app claims to be able to do scheduling and automation but I've never gotten it to work. I bought a google home tied-in tablet at the recommendation of said friend to be able to check cameras and control lights from a device that didn't have to be biometrically locked, and it turned out it couldn't see the cameras OR the lights. Pending some future theoretical update which still hasn't rolled out. Insanity. Makes me want to throw it all out.
Considering how expensive the smart home items are, especially the lights, the user experience is horrendous for pretty much everything but flashy tech demos.
Everything became very easy for me once I decided to go all open source. In my opinion, the problem is all of the different proprietary "hubs". I got a ZigBee controller that can control all ZigBee devices without requiring a hub (there are several options available).
Lights: ZigBee Hue. Plugs: ZigBee Innr. Motion sensors: ZigBee Aqara. Cameras: Ethernet Amcrest. NVR: Frigate.
Everything is local, no data leaves my network, and everything is controlled directly from Home Assistant dashboards via the ZigBee controller, and I never have to open any proprietary apps.
Care does need to be taken to plan the network at least somewhat in advance, but that doesn't take too long, and everything is very stable and super reliable.
I wish segmenting your IOT devices on their own virtual network was easier for most people to do. It can be done but you need a good working knowledge of firewall rules and networking in general.
If you're smart about it, doing home automation can be really rewarding and useful. Automating lights to turn on when it gets dark is probably the most useful thing. I also have a window fan to bring in cool night air, which automatically clicks off at 60°. All of this runs locally on a raspberry pi via home assistant and z-wave, no sus devices on my network!
I've been using homeassistant since the start of the year and I'm never going back! Took a while to get the hang of it but being able to make my own smart electronics on the cheap is bloody awesome. Soldered my plug-in cannabis vape to an ESP32 microcontroller and now I can control its temperature from my phone!
None of my smart-home stuff is closed source which helps a lot with trust, and I've even tested it to ensure that everything works even if my flat's internet goes down! Having all my light bulbs running the FOSS WLED firmware also means that I can hook them up to my HyperHDR setup so all the lighting in my room changes colour to match my TV.
I'm super interested in all these projects! Would you mind sharing guides you found helpful when designing and building then?
For HyperHDR I started with this guide along with a bunch of YouTube tutorials and a lot of trial and error given it was my first time soldering and first time using a microcontroller in a project!
With the cannabis vape I basically used the skills I learned making my HyperHDR setup along with a multimeter and the EspHome documentation (and even more trial and error) to emulate the potentiometer that was originally wired to the temperature controller and to control an LED I wired up to it.
Other than the official documentation the main thing that I found super helpful was the official HomeAssistant forums and (unfortunately) Reddit.
I have a smart home. I run Unraid OS on my server and among a ton of dockers, I run my own VM with home assistant. Been doing my own DNS, network wide ad blocking, media server, home automation stuff for years now. Always will to help answer any questions.
I’m also disabled so the smart home really helps me.
I really like this statement I heard recently, which I think came from the YouTube Adventurous Way - "Dumb Control, Smart Monitoring". Make sure that any devices you install have failure models that make sense - you should still be able to control your appliances when the network is down.
That said, the option to remotely control lights, etc is fantastic. I also recommend setting up some temperature sensors in various places - I have quite a few ESP33 boards scattered around with sensors (and and one with an IR blaster) attached.
Making sure you are still able to control everything when the network is down seems like a good idea.
In our house, the smart plugs have a physical button that can be used to toggle them on or off. The lights are still connected to a physical power switch, so they can be reset by flipping the switch a few times, in which case they will probably just act as a normal light. Air conditioning units have an IR remote.
The rate at which the go obsolete is my issue. If you invest in a system, just be prepared to replace everything every five years, and there is almost nothing yoiu can 'fix'...it is all disposable.
I've never seen the point, personally. Maybe this is just one of the things i'm too poor to ever understand.
Or you may simply not really have a need. That’s totally fine.
I’m disabled, so being able to do lights and thermostats and appliances with my iPad or phone is great for me. Having things turn on or off based on motion detection or sunset/rise really helps. I can unlock my door or open my garage for guests without having to get up.
That's a perspective I haven't heard before that makes the idea click, thank you.
I helped set a friend up with my old smart lights when I upgraded to WLED ones and they have found it absolutely incredible for their lighting sensitivities/sensory issues!
You can (mostly), but it involves more user input than the commonly advertised (google/alexa/etc.) integration.
You can choose sensors/actuators that run on protocols that don't touch the internet. Zigbee, Z-wave, rtl_433. The communication and data are local-only, from the device, to a transceiver on your automation host device. Home Assistant is a good place to start for the host, as others have said.
For some others that require networking of some kind, you can silo them. Put them on a VLAN with limited or no internet access, or just manually set the IP address without a valid gateway (not suitable for kit that is at all suspect).
For ones that must connect to some server owned by the company somewhere, the best bet is to just not buy them! Personally, I do everything I can to avoid kit like that. I absolutely loathe the idea of a device needing to phone home for basic functionality. It's just begging for the company to start charging, or even shut down the servers and leave you with a brick. Unfortunately, it means a lot of onus on researching kit before buying.
Best comment here. Smart home is lot of fun if you plan it out in advance. I jumped in with a few random purchases, but trying to cobble everything together can be difficult.
Oh and avoid Google at all costs. It's flashy and neat, but in 6 months they'll cut support and you'll have a brick. Even my Nest thermostat loses functionality fairly regularly just because reasons.
Thankfully I haven't run into issues with Nest, but if I wasn't a renter I wouldn't want them in my home.
They aren't issues, it's more things like poking holes in their walled garden. Like if you want to automate your thermostat outside of their app, or use home assistant, or anything else it's just 1) difficult and 2) brittle. They'll break apis randomly, make you jump through all kinds of crazy hoops.
I have found luck with Ikea smart bulbs. They don’t need to be connected to the internet to operate.
Tp-link devices are notoriously bad about connecting to the internet. There is no way to operate them without an internet connection. On top of that, each device connects independently so even when you have a vLAN, there’s extra steps required each time a new device is set up.
It has its pros and cons. It's amazing if everything works, but a nightmare if I would have to start fixing and troubleshooting when I get back home from a long day at work.
I do appreciate people who have managed to set this up and working.
I love my smart lights. It's convenient controlling my lights with my voice and setting up automation rules for them.
Yes, there's some privacy concerns. Personally, I just assume it might happen and consider it worth it. Honestly, I just don't really care much if Phillips knows when I turn my lights on. I mean, my neighbours can figure that out just by looking at my place.
Harmful, IMO.
Anywhere "smart" objects are, surveillance can also be. I've read 1984 enough times to know I don't want a telescreen on every available surface.
This depends. You can be smart about it. Running your own servers, including your own NVRs for video storage. Have dedicated VLANs. Firewalls. Etc. it’s not that bad.
Granted I work in automation and robotics and now networking so I’d say I’m for sure a giant add nerd. For a normal user it can be hard to stay safe.
Buddy of mine moved into a new apartment and they have a couple of "smart features": Temp, blinds, lights. No cameras (except the front door) or other fancy stuff.
However the apartment can be reached from any browser with a hash. So if you know the hash, you can easily access his apartment controls. No password, 2FA or anything necessary to identify him.
When he told me I was looking at him with wide eyes and he just laughed and said "Yeah, I know.".
One of the biggest improvements I noticed after switching to smart lights and home assistant was how much better my sleep got when I used a circadian light cycle. I don't think we realize how important the gradual shift is in triggering the release of sleep chemicals.
Just a fun aside take a look at WLED for LED controls. My use case is not particularly practical but they are pretty cheap and lots of fun. That said I bet some smart folk have probably used it for various sorts of indicator lights.
As a hobby, yeah, go for it.
To save time and money, not so much. You will spend much more time in setup and debugging than you will ever recoup due to the automation. Same goes for the money.
What's your network infrastructure like? I have my network segregated across several VLANs, and IoT devices are on VLANs that are blocked from the internet (and the rest of the network) at the firewall level. I can access them, but they can't access anything.
I do similar. And keep some devices (like my kasa plugs) from hitting the internet altogether.
And others that need it go on its own DMZ with the roku TVs and like. They have no inbound access.
Biggest thing is making sure you have wifi coverage cause boy the amount of shit I have on network now has kinda gotten out of control
I know some people with privacy concerns will go out of their way to avoid any "smart" devices that communicate over WiFi. If you stick with Z-Wave/ZigBee/Matter, you don't have to worry about any sort of external communications. I mean, even with WiFi devices you can isolate them by making a separate local-only network, but that's a pain.
I wouldn't trust any closed source WiFi smart devices but IMO ones that run a FOSS firmware and are fully functional with no internet connection are all good
HA is pretty nice, but has a pretty big learning curve.
As for avoiding turning your internet into a IoT botnet, you need network gear that can segregate clients and prevent internet access, and to pick devices that have a local-only API which is not something everything has.
The real question - and this is coming from someone who spent way more time than I'd like to admit with HA automating things - is what you're expecting. I absolutely wouldn't bother doing a setup again because once the shiny wore off, all I use this for is setting a temperature and turning lights on and off: two things the hardware vendor apps does just fine.
It's great, unless for some reason it doesn't work, and that's kinda an unfortunate state of things for what is still pretty early software. Matter should help simplify things since it'll be less 100 vendors, 100 APIs you have to support which is kinda the state of being right now.
Also don't buy anything from Belkin, screw those guys.
I like mine. It has a lot of nice convenience features, and it feels good to have stuff happen automatically based on your presence. Scripting useful automations if a time-consuming hobby though, and if you're mostly just interested in doing voice control for lights it may not be worth it.
I'd recommend staying away from anything that connects directly to the wi-fi if possible. ZigBee lets you isolate the garbage hardware from the Internet so they can't be used as zombie devices in a botnet or worse, and have home assistant be the one point of contact.
If any of it uses cloud services or requires internet access to function, then it's harmful. It will be gathering lots of personal data that will be sold. It will stop working if the company goes out of business or just decides to stop supporting your hardware or if they ban your account for whatever reason they want.
If it's all self hosted on your LAN, then it can be convenient, provided that whatever it controls can be manually operated if there is a problem. It's even better if you are using all open source hardware and software.
It's a great and rewarding hobby! But having cloud connected devices on the same network as your sensitive information is an issue.
Use a vLAN and IoT devices capable of local control. Use a self hosted hub like Home Assistant. Keep devices that collect sensitive information (like a camera) out of sensitive areas (like the bedroom). Then you should be reasonably secure.