Smart home essentials

[mx wcfc]

How big a problem is hacking, for this stuff? Bad now? Likely to become bad? What can be done that's harmful apart from stopping something working that presumably could work again by pulling out a cable (essentially)? Is it a data thing?
iding a
(Please read ignorance and drunkenness, rather than arseiness )

I, too, and fairly ignorant of computer stuff and am also fairly pissed.

My overriding assumption is that anything on the internet can be hacked, and if it can, some bugger will. Because they can, mainly.

 

[xenon]

Smart plugs?

Yeah. I have a floorstanding lamp plugged into one. It’s right in the other corner of the room. Saves me actually have to get up and go over there. I only use it much as like a lighthouse. The other one has my Apple TV and stereo plugged in. So I can switch it all on at the same time. is laziness. But I still childishly like speaking to the air and stuff happens.

 

[Mation]

Only got a smartphone and am still mobile enough to turn lights on and off or adjust the thermostat manually.


Just wait till it starts getting deliveroo to deliver things for you. Not to mention dodgy software, you go to make a coffee and take the milk out the fridge, fridge realises there's no milk in it so 20 mins later deliveroo are at your door with a bottle of milk.

I can see that happening. Been in a bit of phase of stuff of late, so getting more deliveries than usual. Other day, the rider said "Oh! It's you!" (Did he mean again?) Anyhoo. I'm sure they'll start anticipating my needs, soon.

Needs.

Yes.

 

[Mation]

Any thoughts on smart robotic lovers?

Asking for a device

(As in on behalf of. Christ.)

 

[WouldBe]

I'd say the USP of Hive and other systems is that if you're a singleton, you can have it know your commute and be able to pop the heating on when it knows you're on your way home. And automatically know not to keep the place warm if you go on hols and forget to turn it off.

If you work regular hours a normal central heating controller can do that, some even have a holiday mode as well.

 

[NoXion]

I have a dumb home and I like it that way. The alleged utility offered by smart bullshit is marginal when you compare it to the risks it presents of allowing cunts to snoop on you and steal your data. Maaaaaybe if I had the spare cash and was really bored due to having an excess of spare time, I'd look into home-brewing my own home automation setup. But I'd never touch any shit like Nest, Hive, Ring or whatever the fuck system made by some corporate cunts who want your money.

 

[stdP]

That is most reassuring. Thank you.

Don't get me wrong - I'm probably what most people would regard as a paranoid luddite with control freakery issues. But a great deal of this stuff is badly engineered, poorly supported (or entirely disposable) and is intentionally only brokered through a third party so as to be able to gather data about you that can be sold to advertisers.

There's no technical reason that the app on your phone couldn't communicate through blueooth or wireless locally, or VPN back to a home controller, to do its thing. But there's money to be made by someone else to know when you're at home, what temperature you keep your house at, what you watch on TV, what milk's in your fridge.

 

[Cloo]

I don't think all that much about it as gsv is basically a very strong 'no' about smart technology in the home - he absolutely does not want smart speakers or meters in the house and I don't see any reason to disagree.

 

[mx wcfc]

Don't get me wrong - I'm probably what most people would regard as a paranoid luddite with control freakery issues. But a great deal of this stuff is badly engineered, poorly supported (or entirely disposable) and is intentionally only brokered through a third party so as to be able to gather data about you that can be sold to advertisers.

There's no technical reason that the app on your phone couldn't communicate through blueooth or wireless locally, or VPN back to a home controller, to do its thing. But there's money to be made by someone else to know when you're at home, what temperature you keep your house at, what you watch on TV, what milk's in your fridge.

Comrade, I too am a paranoid Luddite.

If the Luddites had succeeded we would have always been free of this.

 

[Crispy]

For the record, the world's privacy paranoid supergeeks would let us know in a second if the smart speakers and phones were actively listening to us all the time. It would be impossible to hide from a simple network sniffer. They're not doing that though, because all the other data they have on us is more than enough to make seemingly spooky inferences without having to spend loads of extra bandwidth and processing on live speech decoding.

We've got two Google Home Mini speakers and I like them. We use them for:

Playing music. Requires a spotify/youtube/etc subscription. Kids use it for this more than the grownups tbh.
Timers. Alarms. Reminders. All the time. For cooking. For games. For determining when it's time to turn turn off the TV set and do something less boring instead.
General knowledge questions. "Who played character in film?" "When did person die?" "What's the fastest animal?" Lots of kid questions.
Calculator. This one surprised me, but it can be quicker to just speak into the air "What's two thirds of 377?" than to think about it or get an actual calculator out. I've actually found it super useful while doing DIY. If I'm up a ladder and need to do some sums to get the screw in the right place, I can just ask out loud.

We also have smart valves on the radiators. These are dead clever. You can give each room its own heating schedule. So the bedrooms only heat up at bedtime and in the morning. And the lounge is only heated weekday evenings and weekends. You can speak into the air to change the temperature in the room with the main control thermostat box, but it's easier to actually use that instead so we barely do. There's no learning or automatic sensing or any of that, just fine-grained scheduling.

No smart lights. Yet.

 

[Chz]

If you work regular hours a normal central heating controller can do that, some even have a holiday mode as well.

I'm being a bit assuming that most singletons go out a lot. If you reliably do your 9 to 5 and go home, then yeah it's pretty pointless. Our boiler came with a remote that has 5 or 6 times a day you can adjust the temperature and we certainly don't need anything fancier than that. I'd get zero use out of Hive's fancier features.

No use for the radiator valves, either. All rooms are in use daily, not heating them just ends up with mould in the corners. The savings are slight, too. Air does move around, and you're half heating those places anyhow. I mean, there is a savings, but those remote controlled valves aren't cheap. I think I worked out it would take 12 years to pay off with our gas usage.

 

[Mation]

I'd say the USP of Hive and other systems is that if you're a singleton, you can have it know your commute and be able to pop the heating on when it knows you're on your way home. And automatically know not to keep the place warm if you go on hols and forget to turn it off.

It's of less use in a 2 adults + kid household, because you can reliably predict when people are and aren't home and just set a normal thermostat timer.

As for hacking, it's been done. Unpatched IoT devices send out millions of spam emails every month. Worst case you end up getting your SMTP cut off by your ISP.

I bought some smart bulbs for the sitting room, but the smart part very rarely gets used. The dimming is occasionally useful, the colour changes never. Put me off getting anything else like that, aside from the robot hoover. Which I don't like due to how it talks to China with a map of our house, but I didn't buy that one.

Thank you, that answers my question on why anyone would want to hack a light or whatnot
Not for the thing itself, but spam.

(Other stuff, too?)

But isn't there some sort of device protocol language that doesn't allow connection to anything that is spam capable?

(Have I just asked whether post-it notes need anti-virus protection, or something equally daft?)

 

[NoXion]

They're not doing that though, because all the other data they have on us is more than enough to make seemingly spooky inferences without having to spend loads of extra bandwidth and processing on live speech decoding.

So they are in fact snooping on you/stealing your data, just not in the most obvious way. I doubt that most people who buy corpo-made "smart" bullshit are truly aware of what's being taken from them, and its value.

 

[Mation]

I have a dumb home and I like it that way. The alleged utility offered by smart bullshit is marginal when you compare it to the risks it presents of allowing cunts to snoop on you and steal your data. Maaaaaybe if I had the spare cash and was really bored due to having an excess of spare time, I'd look into home-brewing my own home automation setup. But I'd never touch any shit like Nest, Hive, Ring or whatever the fuck system made by some corporate cunts who want your money.

How could one go about home brewing it? Shirley you have to be connected to some corporate infrastructure at some point? Or is there dark smart home stuff?

 

[Crispy]

So they are in fact snooping on you/stealing your data, just not in the most obvious way. I doubt that most people who buy corpo-made "smart" bullshit are truly aware of what's being taken from them, and its value.

What I mean is that they already have your phone and computer usage. That's enough. The smart speakers don't need to do anything. In fact, they haven't found a way of making them proftitable.

Amazon Alexa is a “colossal failure,” on pace to lose $10 billion this year

Layoffs reportedly hit the Alexa team hard as the company's biggest money loser.

arstechnica.com

Report: Google “doubles down” on Pixel hardware, cuts Google Assistant support

Is the Google Assistant in trouble? It's true that it doesn't make any money...

arstechnica.com

 

[Ted Striker]

I have wanted (what is now called) a Smart Home ever since watching the Sly Stallone/Sharon Stone 90's flick The Specialist

But I do have:

• Philips Hue for my outdoor lights (so so, do as they are told, but have a very 'consumer' feel to them, would prefer a more reliable setup)
• Arlo Security Cameras (awful, infinitely more headache than it's worth, I would not wish them on my worst enemy, Sly could have given these to James Woods in The Specialist as a present, which would have represented a more thorough (and tbf, niche) revenge then luring him to his gaff to blow him up.
• Google Nest Security Cameras (to Replace the Arlo's...And there are starting to die on me, which is a frustrating (and tbf expensive) annoyance.
• Lightwave sockets and switches (had them about 4 months, so far so very good Expensive tho. If I was rewiring, I would choose a different setup (but Lightwave are purely remote).
• Some Oase app which allows me to change my outdoor pond pump times remotely (not exactly changing any games any time soon). The fish seem happy, and alive, but on reflection it feels a touch unnecessary.
• Honeywell Evohome (hot water/central heating) - very good, can put the heating on remotely when I am heading home
• Eaton Connect - Alarm system, very good/reliable (as you'd expect an alarm to be)
• Smartlife - Wifi plugs, very good for things like Electric blanket (though will be superseded by the Lightwave sockets)

I (quite militantly) draw the line at talking to a machines tho thankyouverymuch, can't think of anything worse (other than watching my Arlo cameras wait until the first day of my holiday to require a reset. Again. )

 

[Mation]

So they are in fact snooping on you/stealing your data, just not in the most obvious way. I doubt that most people who buy corpo-made "smart" bullshit are truly aware of what's being taken from them, and its value.

Which 'they' do you mean?

 

[Mation]

I have wanted (what is now called) a Smart Home ever since watching the Sly Stallone/Sharon Stone 90's flick The Specialist

But I do have:

• Philips Hue for my outdoor lights (so so, do as they are told, but have a very 'consumer' feel to them, would prefer a more reliable setup)
• Arlo Security Cameras (awful, infinitely more headache than it's worth, I would not wish them on my worst enemy, Sly could have given these to James Woods in The Specialist as a present, which would have represented a more thorough (and tbf, niche) revenge then luring him to his gaff to blow him up.
• Google Nest Security Cameras (to Replace the Arlo's...And there are starting to die on me, which is a frustrating (and tbf expensive) annoyance.
• Lightwave sockets and switches (had them about 4 months, so far so very good Expensive tho. If I was rewiring, I would choose a different setup (but Lightwave are purely remote).
• Some Oase app which allows me to change my outdoor pond pump times remotely (not exactly changing any games any time soon). The fish seem happy, and alive, but on reflection it feels a touch unnecessary.
• Honeywell Evohome (hot water/central heating) - very good, can put the heating on remotely when I am heading home
• Eaton Connect - Alarm system, very good/reliable (as you'd expect an alarm to be)
• Smartlife - Wifi plugs, very good for things like Electric blanket (though will be superseded by the Lightwave sockets)

I (quite militantly) draw the line at talking to a machines tho thankyouverymuch, can't think of anything worse (other than watching my Arlo cameras wait until the first day of my holiday to require a reset. Again. )

Ah! Rewiring!

What things would require rewiring?

 

[Chz]

But isn't there some sort of device protocol language that doesn't allow connection to anything that is spam capable?

Not quite sure of the question there, but I will say that what usually happens is that LG or Samsung or whatever has a minor hack and someone takes over what they see as a non essential service (because it won't be financial data) and the bad actor can then update ALL devices that connect to it with their malware. Depending on how that's been written, it can be nigh impossible to fix, even after LG/Samsung/et.alia figure it out. Spam sending doesn't generate much income per message, but we're talking millions of devices taken over, all at once. Most devices would work just fine on a local only network, but no... they have to have them connect over the internet to their own servers, even though they rarely take the opportunity to update the bloody things.

 

[Mation]

Not quite sure of the question there,

What language do smart device use to talk to their related apps?

 

[NoXion]

How could one go about home brewing it? Shirley you have to be connected to some corporate infrastructure at some point? Or is there dark smart home stuff?

From what I understand, it involves things like setting up your own server that connects with devices in your home. Open-source software such as OpenHAB can be helpful in this.

Which 'they' do you mean?

The company that made the device or who wrote the software/firmware that it runs on. Assuming of course there isn't some kind of security breach that would also allow a third party access to said data.

 

[Crispy]

How could one go about home brewing it? Shirley you have to be connected to some corporate infrastructure at some point? Or is there dark smart home stuff?

Yes, there is a whole ecosystem of roll-your-own home automation, and quite a lot of the off-the-shelf stuff can be made to work with it. You can be a house wizard and make the curtains open and close and make the kitchen flash purple and green, and all of it with no internet. Can't remember the details or names of any of it. I remember looking into it a while ago and realised it's a black hole of geekery that I'd never crawl back out of.

But for me, the actually useful bit is the unflappable genius lady who live in the little white blob under the TV.

 

[Mation]

Yes, there is a whole ecosystem of roll-your-own home automation, and quite a lot of the off-the-shelf stuff can be made to work with it. You can be a house wizard and make the curtains open and close and make the kitchen flash purple and green, and all of it with no internet. Can't remember the details or names of any of it. I remember looking into it a while ago and realised it's a black hole of geekery that I'd never crawl back out of.

Hmm. Intriguing

Anyone know what I could look up?

E2a: just saw your post relevant to this, NoXion. Ta

 

[Chz]

What language do smart device use to talk to their related apps?

Ah. Depends. The standalone items like the washers and fridges will be standard TCP/IP for their own app data that can be of any sort. But if you're rolling your own system like Crispy is talking about, then there are protocols like Zigbee and Z-Wave. That's a lot safer, because it's more isolated and not talking to a third party's server and whatnot. But as of right now, it's still a massive PITA to set up.

 

[Mation]

But for me, the actually useful bit is the unflappable genius lady who live in the little white blob under the TV.

That's no place for her! (((Sparra)))

 

[Crispy]

That's no place for her! (((Sparra)))

No diss on her, but if my kids pestered sparra with questions the way they pester Mme. Google, she'd be plenty flapped believe you me.

 

[Mation]

No diss on her, but if my kids pestered sparra with questions the way they pester Mme. Google, she'd be plenty flapped believe you me.

Tis a testament to you both that they are such wonderfully inquisitive bears

 

[baldrick]

I have apps for all sorts of things

House alarm
Heating
Lights
Appliances
Speakers

I like my Alexas, find them very useful. Especially when listening to music while WFH and then a teams call comes through and I can just tell her to shut up instead of trying to press a button to turn it off

I never use the app for the house alarm or heating or any appliances apart from the robot hoover. I have no need to try and set an alarm or turn my heating on while I'm out of the house. I use the hoover app so I can set him off while I'm sat on the sofa and the lights app for the lols really - making them change colour. I still turn them on at the switch

I bought some digital plugs though - the kind that switch your lamps on when you're out to give the illusion that you're at home. That's quite useful to turn on when you're not at home.

 

[danny la rouge]

What are you meant to be able to do, of you connect it?

I suppose you can load it, put the dishwasher tab in the compartment, and close the door, but wander off into the next room and handily turn it on from your phone when you’re good and ready. But I don’t actually know since it seems to be solving problems nobody has.

 

[Mation]

I suppose you can load it, put the dishwasher tab in the compartment, and close the door, but wander off into the next room and handily turn it on from your phone when you’re good and ready. But I don’t actually know since it seems to be solving problems nobody has.

Hmm. Could be quite adhd-friendly.

I haven't yet used the dishwasher here, because it's just me, and I have working hands. But I can well imagine that, if I discovered its joys, I'd load it, decide not to put it on at 2am and then forget about it for several days, only remembering when I have guests coming for dinner in one hour, but am, at that point, out panic buying alcohol. I could put it on then.