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A quick look at the Ikea Trådfri lighting platform
- oflannabhra 10y agoThe EFR32 chips they are are using are Thread-capable. It will be interesting to see if IKEA migrates to Thread as the network layer and dotdot as the application layer. Their on boarding method, CoAP + DTLS sure seems to indicate that would be possible.
- robert_foss 10y agoThanks Matthew. It's nice to see that some serious vendors actually do things mostly right.
- flyinghamster 10y agoNo kidding. Just seeing what goes by on https://twitter.com/internetofshit https://twitter.com/internetofshit makes my head spin. It is a shame that the firmware updates go over http, but that's about the only obvious flaw with their implementation.
- TeMPOraL 10y agoIt's like... first vendor I've heard of doing this right? And it turns out to be IKEA, of all the companies.
- bberrry 10y agoNot very surprising to me. IKEA is always very thoughtful and clever in their design of even the most mundane things. I've never seen them botch anything ever.
- asjo 10y agoThey do regularly recall toys that were found to be dangerous.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cdegroot 10y agoAlso, IIRC, they were a very early Linux adopter, I think in the '90s one of the largest users. It seems that Ikea has some smart techs on board and that - here comes the actual surprise - they listen to them.
- huhtenberg 10y agoThe designs of their physical products are generally good, granted, it's the implementation that is lacking, often severely.
- patrickmn 10y ago> The idea of Ikea plus internet security together at last seems like a pretty terrible one, but having taken a look it's surprisingly competent. For what it's worth, hacking is a big part of Swedish culture.
- saganus 10y ago> hacking is a big part of Swedish culture. Really? how so? I've never heard about this before so I'm curious about it. You mean it's a big part as in there are a lot of Swedish hackers or because it's encouraged as part of the culture/education system?
- patrickmn 10y agoI grew up in Denmark and Sweden but I'm not sure I can give you a single reason. It's more that kids are more likely to be exposed to computer internals than in most other countries. PC gaming and LAN parties much more commonplace, an unfriendly climate most of the year encourages indoor activities, there isn't much going on (the downsides of peaceful countries...) and so on. A lot of the early Internet's game cracking scene originated in Sweden, too.
- sebcat 10y agoI think you may be projecting your own experience growing up on a nation as a whole. Yes, Fairlight and some other groups were Swedish. Yes, a strong middle class meant that a lot of kids had access to ABC80s, C64s, Amiga 500s, IBM PCs, Macintoshes growing up. BBSes were popular in certain groups of the population. People grew up with this and started companies. A lot of existing companies were open to new things. That does not mean that "hacking is a part of Swedish culture". > an unfriendly climate most of the year encourages indoor activities Anecdotally, I seem to recall a lot of sledge riding, snowball throwing and various other winter activities from my youth.
- patrickmn 10y agoI only have my own experience on this subject, so I'm definitely projecting. I didn't mean that hacking is as culturally significant as the Dala horse or Semla. Just that, for example, nearly every kid in our town came to the LAN parties, even the "jocks." And everyone needed to troubleshoot networking issues, figure out how to get the games to run (cough without a serial key cough,) and so on. The biggest jock in town was cool because he played a MUD without ASCII colors, making him "hardcore." (Not to mention that the largest LAN party in the world, Dreamhack, which continues to this day, is in Sweden.) Does that mean that all those kids became hackers? Of course not. But clearly being exposed to system internals coupled with a driving curiosity is how a lot of hackers got started, and so it's no surprise to me that IKEA has capable infosec talent.
- okket 10y ago> That file contains a bunch of links to firmware updates, all of which are also downloaded over http (and not https). The firmware images themselves appear to be signed, but downloading untrusted objects and then parsing them isn't ideal. Why? What security benefit do you gain by using HTTPS when you already check the signature/hash of the firmware file?
- floatingatoll 10y agoClosing an easy attack vector by using HTTPS seems a safe bet here, with no particular drawbacks. Are there chip-level power concerns that could make their IoT thing unable to do SSL, but able to validate firmware signatures?
- toast0 10y agoHTTPS for firmware download is a maintenance nightmare. In a couple of months, TLS 1.3 is going to be finalized, and then calls for everyone to drop support for TLS 1.2 will begin. But they can't drop TLS 1.2 support, without breaking firmware updates for all the unopened boxes out there. They probably should have signed the json listing of firmware images though, in addition to just the firmware images.
- yxhuvud 10y agoI guess what they could do to avert that is to have versioned (by subdomain) upgrade sites where each version is as secure as the associated device.
- true_religion 10y agoPeople even support TLS 1.0 for Enterprise clients. I feel like you'll support your legacy protocols for at least 20 years.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- patrickmn 10y ago
- afashglaksnhb 10y agoIs this a closed platform? Or can one integrate with one's own/third party solutions?
- oflannabhra 10y agoI haven't confirmed this, but I've heard they are Zigbee Light Link devices, which should work with any other ZLL devices on the same mesh.
- jacquesgt 10y agoI believe they're Zigbee Home Automation, not ZLL. Either that or they're improperly reporting that they support ZHA instead of ZLL, which causes issues for 3rd party bridges like Philips Hue. https://developers.meethue.com/comment/2686#comment-2686 https://developers.meethue.com/comment/2686#comment-2686
- sslalready 10y agoYou're correct. It says in their FAQ that they're using ZigBee Light Link, AES-128 and have put time and effort into preventing them from being hacked. They also say that they work in a mesh and should be compatible with other products per the ZigBee Alliance.
- anemic 10y agoFAQ here http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/smart-lighting-support/faq-smart-lighting/ http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/customer-service/smart-lighting-su... says no API access in the first version but IKEA is working towards an open system.
- MichaelRenor 10y ago> It's running the Express Logic ThreadX RTOS, has no running services on any TCP ports and appears to listen on two single UDP ports. This is excellent. I can't even say the same thing about my AT&T fiber gateway. It listens on two random ports with no way to turn it off (and also you can't use your gigabit internet without the AT&T gateway in front). I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it's probably insecure.
- toast0 10y agoThis is super off-topic, but it is possible to bypass the 'residential gateway', if you have the fiber to ethernet gateway (possibly on the outside of your house), and then the separate gateway inside that turns ethernet into ethernet. You basically need to bridge the 802.1x authentication packets, and then you can do whatever.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoDo you know where I can read more about this?
- toast0 10y agoThis is the definitive thread I've seen: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r29903721-AT-T-Residential-Gateway-Bypass-True-bridge-mode http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r29903721-AT-T-Residential-G... I implemented it differently, but probably less sensibly. I have a FreeBSD as my NAT box anyway, so I added some network cards, and run a ethernet bridge in front of the gateway (I commented out the lines that dropped traffic to reserved multicast addresses because that include 802.1X), and divert only a small fraction of the incoming packets (ipv6 tunnel from he.net, most udp 123 packets, icmp pings, port 25), that the gateway won't give to the DMZ host (I have the Pace 5268AC gateway which likes to ruin things; the NVG599 one is probably better). You can PM me on DSL Reports with the same username, if you want more details on my crazy setup. :)
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
- bsamuels 10y agoI dont get everyones gripe about the lack of HTTPS as long as there's firmware signing. HTTPS as a protocol ages extremely fast, trust anchors always change, and there's no guarantee that today's state of the art won't be completely incompatible with TLS implementations in 5 years. For HTTPS to work properly on an embedded device, it needs to have an up to date OpenSSL library and updated certificate anchors. These are always packed as part of the firmware image itself, so any update to certificate anchors or OpenSSL would require an entire new image to be deployed. This isn't a problem for websites because updating is usually as simple as apt-get upgrade, but this is a massive problem for embedded devices because publishing a new firmware image usually means pumping a few hundred hours of QA time into the image, then back and forthing with your manufacturer to get them to use the new image on newly minted units. This isn't even considering the changes in OpenSSL over time. Many older routers simply cannot use HTTPS for updates because newer versions of OpenSSL simply won't fit on the flash. Then there's the question of how end-of-life will be handled. People often use products long after they've gone EOL. You have to ask yourself what happens when someone plugs in a lighting unit that has an old firmware version on it, and the unit can't communicate with the update server because the product was EOL'd 5 years ago. There won't be a transition firmware for such an old product, and the people who know how to roll the firmware images probably don't even work there any more. That user is now SOL unless you have a method for manually updating firmware.
- peeters 10y agoI mentioned this elsewhere, but signing can tell you whether it's an authentic object, but usually not whether it's THE authentic object you had requested. So you then need something extra to validate that what you got is what you wanted, for example check the version number in the signed image. But how do you know what version number you should be looking for without HTTPS? In this case the article points out that the metadata itself is downloaded over HTTP.
- hawski 10y agoA silly solution: Recreate a package every day, week or month and update package date to current time. A device will refuse to install an update that is older than factory specified interval. Of course the problem then is that your device now needs to have secure channel to NTP servers. Possibly they could use radio synchronization instead - same as used in radio controlled watches. It could be exploited, but it would be much harder to do remotely by network. It needs a bit of gymnastics, but it may still be easier on the long run than HTTPS. Your mileage can vary. Edit: Dear downvoter: Was I overly dumb or inaccurate with my proposition?
- microcolonel 10y agoMight get me a few of these and write some client libraries. I think it would be swell to hook it up to ambient light sensors to set the lights exactly when it's time to replace sunlight in a given room. And it looks like they've separated the concerns somewhat properly, so the lightbulbs can be somewhat separate from firmware updates and the suchlike. Big improvement over some folks....[0] [0]: https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/849667478385037317 https://twitter.com/internetofshit/status/849667478385037317
- microcolonel 10y agoAnd for the bedroom, having a melody recognizer would be interesting. If I want to go to sleep, I can whistle Brahms' Lullaby melody; and when I want to turn on the lights in the morning it can either be activated by my alarm, or I can whistle the melody of Good Morning (by Nacio Herb Brown).
- tomkinstinch 10y agoAlso cool would be to use this library to turn on lights based on where one's phone is located: https://github.com/kootenpv/whereami/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/kootenpv/whereami/blob/master/README.md
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoI was surprised too, but I guess a furniture company might not have the same pressure to "move fast and break things" (scare quotes intended) as established tech companies. They don't have a culture of rushing products to market as fast as possible.
- kalleboo 10y agoAnd unlike startups and anonymous Chinese OEMs, IKEA has experience and procedures for long-term support (25 year warranties on mattresses, kitchens) and recalls (they've had recalls of furniture, lamps, etc in the past).
- Symbiote 10y agoI'm not surprised at all. Ikea has a trusted brand, with a strong reputation for safety, quality (for the price) and family-friendliness. They make things cheap with clever design, logistics and home assembly. A €5 table isn't comparable to a €500 one (and they sell both), but they don't sell the €2-including-delivery electronics you can find on eBay. They sell wireless chargers for €30, and normal ones for €8.
- PhasmaFelis 10y agoSure, they do quality in general. I'm just saying it's a bit surprising for a non-tech company to outperform long-established tech companies in a tech field, and I think that tech schedules vs. furniture schedules may explain that.
- api 10y agoLocal only with no cloud support. Hallelujah.
- longhust9x 10y agoHelo
- redsummer 10y agoWill the lights work with Home Assistant on pi - home-assistant.io - without the gateway? With perhaps a zigbee hat or USB dongle?
- mjg59 10y agoThe bulbs apparently work fine with the Smartthings hub, so should work with HA without a gateway once direct Zigbee support is merged.
- wingerlang 10y agoTrådfri literally translated is "threadless" but it can probably be interpreted as cordless as well. I've never heard anyone say "trådfri" before. The normal word would be "sladdlös" at least where I'm from.
- mercer 10y agoIt would feel similarly odd in Dutch. Perhaps they tested both names and the former 'sounded' nicer in other languages?
- MandieD 10y agoSimilar in German: "drahtlos" is the real word, but "drahtfrei" is understandable, and conveys being freed from something. "einwandfrei": a thing free of problems or restrictions
- mongol 10y agoIt is certainly a brand name made from a literal translation of wireless. Although "trådlös" (without wires) is the normal Swedish translation.
- wingerlang 10y agoYeah, "trådlös" is more common than "sladdlös", just forgot about that word for some reason.
- slau 10y agoTrådfri is valid Danish for "wire free", as far as I can tell. This being said, I don't know whether it's idiomatic. Men min dansk er ikke så godt, så... I think it might be a clever IKEA marketing trick: a lot of countries know exactly what it means (I would assume that most of Scandinavia, and the Germanic languages would be able to figure it out). For the others, it's just another random Scandinavian word and orthography to remember.
- asjo 10y ago
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y ago> It's also local only, with no cloud support. Is that actually true? Or is this just confusing "non-local" with "cloud"? If it's speaking IP, how would it even distinguish "local" packet from "non-local" packets? What prevents you from talking to your device at home using IP connectivity elsewhere on the planet?
- Nexxxeh 10y agoIt's always going to be behind NAT, so unless it implements UPnP or polls the server or does some other kind of NAT traversal, it's never going to receive any packets. You'd jave to DMZ, manually port forward, or VPN/proxy for packets from outside of the LAN to hit it.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 10y agoSo, it's a new product that only speaks legacy IP? But even then, it's not really sensible to take that for granted: Sure, most consumers will only have NAT at home, but why should only consumers buy this device? Also, NAT does not prevent unsolicited packets from outside the LAN, just from across the global internet.
- fnord123 10y agoAlso of interest is this teardown of the Koppla USB power supply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE It's also a pretty darn good piece of kit.
- tostitos1979 10y agoI watched the videos and this lighting system seems very nice. Why does the gateway need an a internet connection though? For firmware updates and supporting the mobile app? Since it says local only, I assume the mobile device has to be on the same LAN? If so, I guess they are saying that the API between the app and the gateway is currently closed (according o the IKEA website) but they are working to change that. So what is speaking COAP? The gateway?
- mjg59 10y agoIf you've got a remote bound to it, I suspect that the gateway will work fine without a network connection. You can already control the gateway with any app that speaks COAP with DTLS, so there doesn't seem to be much more to do on Ikea's side from that perspective. If you can make that port available outside your local network, you can probably write your own remote control app.
- brutus1213 10y agoI wish there was an official API spec for the gateway. It seems people are attempting to reverse engineer. Your article has made it there: https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/issues/570 https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/issues/570 P.S. Thanks for the nice article and bringing this interesting development to light!
- vanviegen 10y agoOkay, so it's basically Philips Hue, but without the API (for now), and with a lot less to offer in terms of hardware variety. In particular: color bulbs? Prices seem to be only slightly lower than comparable Philips products.
- chvid 10y agoSide question: Is there a way to make trådfri control an arbitrary 220 v device?
- floatboth 10y agoCoAP server on LAN? This is excellent. This is exactly how I set up my DIY ESP8266 "smart" devices. More LAN of Things please, not "Internet".
- Matthias247 10y agoInteresting to see CoAP deployed to an embedded device. I already wondered if it will also be some never-widely-deployed standard. Also intersting that they use it on the gateway and not on the (more constrained) lightbulbs. I guess the always-on gateway would also have been powerful enough to run HTTP[S], which would have made 3rd integration easier.
- jjuhl 10y agoUsing 'pool.ntp.org' is not cool. Ikea should get a Vendor Zone - http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/vendors.html#vendor-zone http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/vendors.html#vendor-zone
- Harley78 10y agoThere is a lot of development inforomation about communicating with Ikea Trådfri Gateway here: https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/issues/570 https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/issues/570 Developers there are trying to reverse engineer it for open source home automation software.