Anyone into home automation?

[bingybear]

Of course one of the question is how much are you home. Being home generally 22+ hours a day means a lot of the IOT things are not needed. (I don't have a smart phone either, and my dumb cellphone sits in one place and I don't carry it, since my car has onstar if it breaks down I can call for a tow etc (included with onstar)). I still have CRT based TVs they still work. When I moved got rid of a 35 year old color tv that still worked except for the remote. The crt tvs still work so why replace?

We got rid of our CRT TVs a while back and upgraded to a 32 inch flat screen. It actually uses much less power. In that respect it was worth it.

In moving my DMIL to an aging facility we had to get rid of her CRT TVs. Most place would not take them as donations and the trash collections would not take them. We did find one place that would take them for free. One of the older sets cost $30 to give away to cover the recycling costs. It maybe worth the upgrade based on the hazardous waste costs and power savings.

 

[LastOfTheBoomers]

Started with a Sensi tstat - just added a wink hub 2 and a motion sensor and a door sensor and 1 led bulb

Taking it slow - simple robots like if you open the door the light goes on

Made a shortcut for lockdown mode when on vacation - send out alerts if any motion is noticed

Planning on a water sensor and some more lights - outside and probably a lamp

 

[Chuckanut]

Home Automation = IIT (Internet of Insecure Things)

 

[rodi]

I don't have any interest in hooking up home devices to the wifi or internet. None. But I do have some things that are technically automated - like a programmable thermostat. It turns the heater on/off based on time of day and day of week. No internet necessary.

I kind of wish this thread were more about other forms of automated homes - like these "smart" kitchens.

 

[ls99]

Thirty years ago I was very interested. But was bery difficult to do. Now, I am not at all interested. Only to the extent that the fridge, furnace, sump pump keeps proper setpoints.

Totally uninterested in viewing any thing about the house on a portable gizmo.

 

[NW-Bound]

Besides the programmable thermostat, which I started using 30 years ago, the various timers to turn on lights and the one built-in to my pool pump, I can count another device: PIR (passive infrared) wall switches for the lights in my utility room and my garage.

I installed those switches because we ran in/out of these rooms all the time to get stuff from my garage, and from a 2nd refrigerator in the utility room, and my wife to get to the washer and drier. Turning on/off the manual switches is a chore and slows me down when I am in a hurry.

My wife was not happy at first, but after I tweaked the PIR switches to stay on for longer, she now sees the advantages. The extra time the lights stay on costs very little with LED lights, and the few pennies in extra electricity they cause may be the same or less than when we forgot and left the lights on for hours.

We still turn on/off other lights in the house by hand. PIR switches are pain in the rump for those, because they turn off when we do not move about.

 

[Jack_Pine]

We snowbird so have a great deal of interest in monitoring anything I can from one house to the next. Have remotely opened garage doors for access a few times.

 

[Scuba]

Well done!

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

 

[Scuba]

We also liked the idea of being able to monitor our home temperature remotely via Nest. However once we realized our "bundled" cable/internet package could not be "unbundled" while we're away, but we can reduce the cost to only $10/month if it is not going to be used, we decided to save a few hundred bucks and just ask our neighbor and our housekeeping service to keep an eye on our place while we're gone.

 

[Midpack]

Totally uninterested in viewing any thing about the house on a portable gizmo.

+1. So far most of the mobile apps that monitor home functions seem like a novelty more than anything practical. Thermostat, I've had programmable thermostats for more than 20 years, a Nest is incrementally better at most. Lock my doors remotely, I need to make sure I lock everything before I leave, like I have for decades. See who's at the front door, why? See what's in my fridge, I can manage by looking while I'm home, like I have for decades. On and on...

And if I can connect, so can a hacker. Just not worth it to me.

I am fascinated by technology/innovation, and I'm often an early adopter. But a connected home doesn't clear the cost-benefit threshold for me - not yet at least.

 

[Music Lover]

I'm not worried about someone hacking my thermostat, but that aside, it's more than just a novelty to me. A programmable thermostat is almost useless as my schedule varies too much and there are too many times that I don't know when I'll be home. It's not a big deal to be able to change or to view the temperature when I'm away, but it's certainly a nice feature to have...especially when you live in a climate where -35 is "normal".

 

[HFWR]

...especially when you live in a climate where -35 is "normal".

I think we've found the problem... [emoji12]

 

[CitizenK]

We did a main floor remodel last year (kitchen, living and dining rooms.) New LED lighting was added throughout. I now realize that we had been sitting in the dark for 23 years. The additional lighting is one of the best things about the remodel. Anyway, I sprung for Lutron Caseta wireless dimmers for everything, connected to a wifi hub. We created "scenes" with various light levels for morning, TV watching, etc. that are controllable via phone, iPad or voice with Siri. You can also automate randomized lighting for when you're away, set timers, etc. It's an extravagance, but I've really enjoyed having it.

 

[Starsky]

I understand the paranoia of being overheard by Alexa/Google. I can live with that for now. The fear about hackers though seems to be totally overblown to me. The HomeLink system is protected by the same Apple security system that frustrated the FBI, so I don't see hackers wasting their time on my home system. Also, with all of this, if the power goes out, all the systems revert to their pre-connected state of operation, so the switches and lights still work, the garage door reverts back to its normal wireless control, the Nest is just a home thermostat, etc. - the old ways still work fine.

It seems the most important thing for making this work is having a very good home network and wi-fi coverage. Without a solid foundation, I can imagine these systems could be challenging to put together. I have a great network, but I'll keep my fingers crossed on the integration side.

As far as utility, I guess that's always up for debate. I hear a lot of skepticism about how much these systems really help. I suppose if you stay around the house all the time it's much more on the novelty/convenience side. And the technology is far from simple or mainstream. But being away a lot, the usefulness of this tech seems obvious to me. I am predicting the kitchen is the best place for assist devices like Alexa to reach their maximum potential in-home, but the proof will be in the pudding, as they say. (pun intended)

Having grown up on shows like the Jetsons and Star Trek, all of this is totally sci-fi-fi and intriguing to me. I think it's fun! We'll see if I still feel that way in 6 months...

 

[explanade]

I first got a couple of cheap wifi-connected power outlets. I have my Slingbox connected to one so I can reset the Slingbox if I'm having problems with it.

So I can power cycle it from the other side of the world.

I got a Kickstarter smart lock that I paired to my iPhone via Bluetooth. There is a wifi bridge available so that I can open or lock my front door over the Internet but I didn't get it.

I have considered smart thermostats and light dimmers but really, don't want more reasons not to get off my ass. Plus the privacy implications.

I might be interested in security cams but the companies which sell them require cloud storage subscriptions. Um no thanks. I can use my computers webcams to do some of the similar functions but generally haven't seen enough practical reasons to turn it on.

 

[Chuckanut]

And if I can connect, so can a hacker. Just not worth it to me.

+1 Or at least worth a good warning.

Many of these devices work because something outside your home can control what goes on inside your home.

Many devices were not built with much security in mind from the start. Often they are easy targets for bad guys who want to ex-filtrate your data. Even if they are built with security in mind, the world of IT technology changes and what was secure yesterday can become insecure tomorrow. Is the manufacturer going to update your 5 year old device, that was obsolete 3 years ago and no longer produces a revenue stream? More and more the answer is 'NO'.

This just happened recently and is one example of one weakness in the Internet of Insecure Things.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/21/13362354/dyn-dns-ddos-attack-cause-outage-status-explained

A Mirai botnet essentially takes advantage of the vulnerable security of Internet of Things devices, meaning any smart home gadget or connected device anywhere that has weak login credentials. Mirai, a piece of malware, works by scanning the internet for those devices that still have factory default or static username and password combinations. It then takes control of those devices, turning them into bots that can then be wielded as part of a kind of army to overload networks and servers with nonsense requests that slow speeds or even incite total shutdowns.

Or this:

https://arstechnica.com/security/20...hacks-that-expose-users-most-private-moments/

"It is important to stress that most of the vulnerabilities and exposures discussed in this paper are trivial to exploit by a reasonably competent attacker,
<snip>
like the video baby monitors covered in this paper—can quickly provide a patch to compromise the larger, nominally external, organizational network."

 

[MichaelB]

Is the security problem due to the devices or the home network security settings, particularly the router?

 

[explanade]

Can be either.

On the Mirai botnet, those are cheap devices with minimal security and often left wide open with no changes to the default password.

FWIW, Apple requires secure firmware for HomeKit certified devices, which tends to make them more expensive.

 

[MichaelB]

So any IoT device can be hacked, and used to penetrate a home network?

 

[Jack_Pine]

I understand the paranoia of being overheard by Alexa/Google. I can live with that for now. The fear about hackers though seems to be totally overblown to me. The HomeLink system is protected by the same Apple security system that frustrated the FBI, so I don't see hackers wasting their time on my home system. Also, with all of this, if the power goes out, all the systems revert to their pre-connected state of operation, so the switches and lights still work, the garage door reverts back to its normal wireless control, the Nest is just a home thermostat, etc. - the old ways still work fine.

It seems the most important thing for making this work is having a very good home network and wi-fi coverage. Without a solid foundation, I can imagine these systems could be challenging to put together. I have a great network, but I'll keep my fingers crossed on the integration side.

As far as utility, I guess that's always up for debate. I hear a lot of skepticism about how much these systems really help. I suppose if you stay around the house all the time it's much more on the novelty/convenience side. And the technology is far from simple or mainstream. But being away a lot, the usefulness of this tech seems obvious to me. I am predicting the kitchen is the best place for assist devices like Alexa to reach their maximum potential in-home, but the proof will be in the pudding, as they say. (pun intended)

Having grown up on shows like the Jetsons and Star Trek, all of this is totally sci-fi-fi and intriguing to me. I think it's fun! We'll see if I still feel that way in 6 months...

+110
Could not agree more. If you are interested enough to hack my garage doors (or whatever) go for it.

 

[explanade]

Well they're usually limited function devices.

Though people hack webcams a lot to spy on people.

Conceivably they can mess with your lights and door locks I guess.

In the Mirai case, it was to commandeer thousands of security cams or DVRs in order to build a DDOS attack where all the devices directed traffic towards the targeted site.

But I don't think an IoT device could be used say to transmit some malware to your computers or something like that.

 

[NW-Bound]

It is like these roof rats that invaded my attics. I was OK for decades, until my wife nagged me to build a pergola for some shade for the west side of the house. The pergola served as a bridge for the roof rats to go from the backyard fence to the roof.

My roof tiles are barrel type, and have large space underneath for the rats to explore for weakness. They found the holes in the roof sheeting plywood where the solar water panel pipes went through. They then enlarged the holes, then gained entry to the attic of the garage.

From the attic of the garage, they explored along the electrical wires, and enlarged any hole to gain access to the attic of the upper-level rooms (my home is two-story). They also explored along any duct work to go into many recessed spaces.

They used my attic for living space and as a shelter from predators. They went out at night to eat at other houses, such as dog/cat food people left outside, fruits and vegetable people grow. They will even eat dog feces if they have to.

As they did not invade my living space, I did not know for a year at least, maybe two. I no longer have that pergola.

The filthy hackers are like these rats.

 

[Chuckanut]

So any IoT device can be hacked, and used to penetrate a home network?

Yes, but some are a lot easier to hack than others. If a device is current and the manufacturer is constantly updating the software (preferably automatically) then you are much safer.

However, if the software running the device is an old version that was cheap to license and that nobody keeps updated, then..... it may get more vulnerable year after year after year.

For example, many very cheap routers use software that is public domain or that they purchased a license for years ago. That is why they can sell the router so cheaply. But, there is no economic reason to keep the software updated, so they don't do it. No income stream = No effort to update.

Even profitable companies like MS and Apple stop supporting old hardware and software at some point so it is not surprising that a company that buys the cheapest software, and sells its products for very little is not going to provide much security support.

There are solutions to this problem for the home, but the ones I have seen require you be a geek to implement them.

 

[harley]

This example is only about collecting data, but I think a hacker could have fun with gaining control of the connected device too.

Vibrator Maker To Pay Millions Over Claims It Secretly Tracked Use : The Two-Way : NPR

 

[audreyh1]

Neighbor had some kind of "smartkey" remote controllable electronic doorlock on their house. And today they couldn't get in because the battery had died! Fortunately I still had an old key that I unlocked their back door.

Yup.....