26 ms·

Smart homes will turn dumb overnight as Charter kills security service

414 points by BerislavLopac 7y ago

nyrosis 7y ago
It's things like this that companies do that should really make one consider setting up their own simple NVR system. It's really nice being able to manage and upgrade your own system this way. Even when you feel like upgrading you still have all your cat6 infrastructure in place.
- pcdoodle 7y ago
  I fully agree, blue iris is a great example of a product updated for over 10 years.
tempodox 7y ago
Without customer protection laws you're left to the whims of your vendor. Trusting the promises in the sales brochure (or even taking the sales pitch as a promise) is either courageous or naive.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  Isn't this symptomatic of a much deeper problem with the tech industry today, though? Consumer protection laws are useful up to a point, but even in places with relatively strong consumer protections, the problems of closed systems, ephemeral external dependencies and built-in obsolescence are widespread. Almost nothing is made to be long-lasting any more. Compatibility and interoperability are often seen as dirty words that imply loosening the stranglehold you have on your customers. Standards are great, so we should have our own because they will be better than everyone else's. There's an old saying that you can't implement a technological solution to a social problem. I'm increasingly of the view that this holds the other way around as well. Unfortunately, there is a vicious circle here. To support makers of products that can be repaired and upgraded, and that don't depend on remote facilities that can disappear but can't be replaced, and that respect user privacy and control, and that play nicely with other products, we need to buy their stuff. That stuff is likely to be more expensive up-front, even if it might work out better and cheaper in the long term, so buyers need to perceive some advantage to justify the extra cost. But until those buyers have been stung by the deliberate limitations and user-hostile behaviours of the competing products, which typically only happens later, they often won't be very aware of the choices they're really making. They might experience buyer's remorse further down the line, but by then it's too late. This effect makes it difficult to compete if you want to offer good quality, future-proof products, which in turn limits how many people have those products and how many people see that those products can be advantageous.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    I'd pay for open stuff... unfortunately there is usually nothing available on the market but locked-down crap, so I end up going the DIY route. At least I have fun learning, but it's depressing how ambivalent consumers are in general.
wffurr 7y ago
Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous to pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards (due to heat, tin whiskers, etc.) which are no longer made by their manufacturers. Or a small plastic part breaking which is similarly no longer available. It's just another step in the long sordid history of intentional or not planned obsolescence. Maybe it seems more egregious because of the rate it happens at and that the company has to turn off a service by unplugging the servers. Ultimately, regardless of cloud features or not, you want to buy things that are durable and repairable, whether that's self hosting a new cloud service or fabricating a new metal part.
- avian 7y ago
  > Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous to pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards There used to be an electronic repair shop in every neighborhood. These were small businesses that would be able to diagnose and repair faults in random electronic devices. I wonder if at one point this problem of cloud services disappearing will become widespread enough that we'll start to see businesses that will take your bricked device, flash their own firmware to it and provide their own, generalized cloud service as a replacement. Obviously reverse engineering each device and making a custom firmware would be a large initial investment, but maybe at a point where just about every trivial thing will depend on a network service it would be economically feasible.
  - wojciii 7y ago
    This will not work if the bootloader on your device does not allow upgrading unsigned firmware and would take some laws prohibiting this behaviour to be in place.
    - IntelMiner 7y ago
      One of the greatest faults of Linux was sticking to the GPLv2, GPLv3 actively sought to deny "tivoization" as they called it, as Tivo used Linux and provided the code, but required signed software to boot, rendering the access to the code effectively pointless
trekrich 7y ago
maybe there is a case to not have all this smart cack in your homes. The amount of e-waste that is going to be made, because its not the latest and greatest product/service is enoourmous. Not everything needs to be smart and connected to the internet.
- deleted 7y ago
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jaclaz 7y ago
First thought being that the "Zigbee Alliance, an industry group that develops standards and certifies products to ensure multi-vendor interoperability" essentially certified something that after all does not allow "multi-vendor interoperability". I can well understand how each vendor would try to create its own "walled garden", but the whole idea of such "standard" (actually most of the time "pseudo-standard") associations should be exactly that of contrasting the single firm attempt to cut out the other vendors in the same area.
- fest 7y ago
  I think of it as WiFi Alliance. You would expect several WiFi devices connect to the same AP, but you probably wouldn't expect a random widget from company A to interoperate with random widget from company B.
- maxerickson 7y ago
  There's a lot of details to chase around though. Like were the actual devices in question labeled as certified, or was the Zigbee compliance just an implementation detail of the hardware they shipped. I don't think the Zigbee Alliance requires their members to only market compliant products as certified, so they could be marketing them to consumers as compliant and to companies like Charter as easy to integrate. A requirement that products carry a clear statement about relying on a service to function, and then some rules about how the end of life for such products and services should be sequenced would not be onerous and would make the situation much better for consumers (even the ones that didn't read the statement would get the minimum period of service specified in the EOL rules).
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    Yep, though, if you go there (as a final user/customer, not as an expert in details): https://zigbeealliance.org/ https://zigbeealliance.org/ The message you get (or at least the one I get) is: > WHY Leading companies choose Zigbee > Interoperable > Our world-renowned certification program and our large focus on interoperability assure consumers and developers that devices will interoperate. I don't think that if I have something certified/stamped by them and it comes out that it won't interoperate with something else they also certified/stamped it is excessive to say that their assurance is m00t.
loopz 7y ago
I've yet to encounter any "smart" device or software I can tolerate, except possibly for SMART HDDs. Just provide sane defaults, manual workarounds and opt-in for any more dependencies and complexity.
- jacobush 7y ago
  What's smart hdd?
  - xiljin 7y ago
    Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology for HDDs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
  - deleted 7y ago
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- thrwaway69 7y ago
  Liar. You have a 'smart' phone, don't you? Personally, I think we are reaching levels where marketing has taught people to take additional steps to do the same thing while talking about efficiency and first hand user-experience so of course you know how to be intuitive after watching it work million times on different screens before actually getting it. Humans are pretty good at rationalising their behaviours and purchases therefore the effect is strong once you have captivated the person. It will spread in the herd because you don't want to be the only idiot in it.
  - deleted 7y ago
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Havoc 7y ago
That’s why I focused on home assistant and open tech. Walled garden IoT is madness
- e12e 7y ago
  Curious: what tech stack did you land on? I haven't implemented much "smart" tech yet, but would be nice to know if there are some good open options out there.
  - Havoc 7y ago
    Home Assistant. If you're comfortable with a bit of tinkering that's overall a good choice. Currently using a tinkerboard, but would probably be looking to virtualise this >"smart" tech yet Smartplugs and smart lightbulbs are pretty easy. Things start getting a bit ugly on presence detection though - i.e. who is home and where. Haven't seen anything reliable on that front. The other headache to think about is standby mode. Many things these days can't be controlled via smartplugs because they go into standby mode...not on mode
  - Havoc 7y ago
    2nd comment because I remembered some additional tips: 1) If you're considering a device...google the device name & github. Generally if I can find some github code of someone managed to get this to talk to python then we're probably OK to buy 2) The Xiaomi equivalent (Yeelight) of Philips Hue Lights are really good quality/value for money. If you can swallow the associated question marks on brand I'd go that route. 3) Basically everything is gonna require an app on phone initially and it will phone home...so you'll need a FW to block this after you got it to talk to local home assistant server 4) Some of these things like zigbee...frequency depends on country so look carefully what you're buying. 5) Most of this tech doesn't like 5ghz
- kalleboo 7y ago
  All our ceiling lights, aircon, outlets are IR-controlled. Then I got generic Chinese IR blasters, and use homebridge to connect it all over the LAN to Apple HomeKit. If there is a shift in tech, someone will always be selling new IR blasters due to the installed base. Worse case, I'll always have the IR remote controls (or can build something out of an raspberry pi/arduino)
deleted 7y ago
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firefoxd 7y ago
Ah, that reminds me of my Westinghouse Radio Hub, an Internet connected radio, cd, weather, etc. I was excited to buy it on sale, then packed it in a closet and forgot all about it. A long time later, I accidentally stumbled upon this puppy right there in the closet. Took it out of the box, and to my first disappointment, it wasn't wireless. You had to plug an Ethernet cable. Hit the power button and the screen lights up with the word, initializing. When you have waited long enough, the screen changes to Network error. I tried plugging it in directly on the modem to no avail. I tried to debug it by analyzing the network, the domain it pointed to was no longer resolving. No internet feature for me I guess. At least I still had a Radio and CD player.... Let's tune in to the radio. Automatic station search. Apparently, that requires the internet. So after you wait long enough, Network Error. Well let's go with CDs then. When you insert a CD, it looks for the album info online. Oh you have no connection? Network error it is. Left it on my desk as decoration for a couple years before I threw it in the garbage.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  That's the "smart" appliance past, present and future. Big NO from me. Less is more
  - manaskarekar 7y ago
    Not sure why the future should be this way. The issues mentioned are all bad design decisions. For it to work in the future, they just need to be executed well.
    - danaris 7y ago
      Unfortunately, at least for a lot of manufacturers, the decision process is going to go something like, "Should we make sure this can operate even if that domain goes offline?" "Nah, if that happens, the company will be belly-up, so why should we care?" (And yes, that is assuming that they'll never accidentally—or intentionally—fail to renew their domain name...)
      - 7y ago
_Microft 7y ago
The manufacturer should never be able to either deactivate or otherwise disable the functionality of a device they sold in a form that requires a service to function. If the customer is paying a subscription fee and no longer has to pay the fee when the service goes away, that is maaaybe fine (albeit opening a loophole that would most likely be abused (from a customer's perspective). If the service was priced into the selling price of the device, game or other software though: nope, never. You did the math, you sold the device for that price, now keep on delivering. That would not necessarily mean that they would have to run servers indefinitely, it could as well be in the form of releasing or open sourcing the related server software or the specifications (and required certificates for signing updates if applicable? That might be thorny though.) in a form that someone else could successfully take their place when they end-of-life a device. Ideally in a form that would also work when the company closes shop, that is when no longer any form of workforce or capital for anything might be available. It might be time to actually require that from (also software) manufacturers since there seems almost no change in that regard.
- tcd 7y ago
  That's a very idealistic but unrealistic perspective. Often times the source code can't or won't be released - it could put further customers at risk if a vulnerability is found and the update servers have gone away. Some devices might not be possible to update due to hardware/software configuration (perhaps certain variables are hard coded?). Whilst what you're saying is right it just doesn't work that way. I'd love for all the Android devices to get years of OS and security patches, but it simply doesn't happen. Any IoT device is pretty much the same. It's not going to change any time soon. Only invest in products you can be sure of (which is hard these days). Expect them to break, expect nobody to care, and be prepared to lose money or get a terrible ROI - it's why phones don't get updates, the OEM doesn't make money from providing updates which are a direct cost VS selling a new phone. This is capitalism, produce crap, sell many units, offer no support, rinse and repeat.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    Market forces have clearly failed to address this issue for an extended period, so this seems to be a situation where statutory regulation is indicated.
syshum 7y ago
It is amusing and sad to me that person is going to "spend thousands more to get a Ring system" So you have already been burned by 1 cloud service, so you want to get burned again? As there is nothing to day Amazon will not shutdown the Ring service at some point Self Host or nothing for me
- jacobush 7y ago
  It's a bit like voting so the wrong lizards don't get to the White House.
m3kw9 7y ago
Is good they have stuff like HomeKit or works with google, probably your best bet
- layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
  Ah yes, Google. Indeed the finest example of long term support for legacy products!
yardie 7y ago
I’ve been a user of HA ever since I got a X10 firecracker plugged into my Slackware server under my dorm room bed. I’ve hated that they’ve turned HA into a service. A lot of these cloud HA companies are going with the cheap razors, expensive razor blades business model. And when things don’t work out leave you will with a pile of expensive broke equipment.
- andybak 7y ago
  I'm sure it will be blindingly obvious in hindsight but I don't know what "HA" stands for. "Home Appliance"?
  - detaro 7y ago
    home automation I'd guess.
  - jmiserez 7y ago
    Home automation most likely.
  - bookofjoe 7y ago
    Home Assistant?
  - jlgaddis 7y ago
    Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io > Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.
- joshlittle 7y ago
  I have been using X10 and Insteon devices for years. I have no plans to upgrade the system to newer zigbee/zwave hardware; though I have added some IP Based devices too for things like smart bulbs such as Lifx. I control everything with a Universal Devices ISY-994i controller and have set up a Polyglot node server to tie it all together. This gives me flexibility because I can always expand the isy-994i to support Zigbee or Zwave; and polyglot node server is open source. It’s very nice to be protected against forced IoT obsolescence due to cloud API Reversioning, Company failures and mergers, etc. some of my smart home IoT devices are over 20 years old; no plans to upgrade them. Best of all, nothing requires the Internet to work.
jsilence 7y ago
Delock recently released a smart plug pre installed with Tasmota. Way to go!
throwaway100773 7y ago
It’s this type of garbage that has turned me into a luddite when it comes to smart home type technology. Lack of interoperability, inability to understand easily whats actually going on and massive privacy invasion causes me to look for dumb devices whenever possible - I know how to deal with them, I can have other people fix them when something goes wrong, and there’s just less ongoing maintenance. I’m sure this isn’t a novel idea though.
- emerongi 7y ago
  There are standards that are being worked on. My criteria is: all the logic must be contained within my home, the devices must adhere to some open standard, they must be repairable and modifiable to some degree.
  - chiph 7y ago
    The Zigbee protocol the devices use is a standard, but from what I picked up from between the lines of the article is that the firm locked the devices because of liability fears. If someone DIY's their alarm system and then it fails to work during an actual home-invasion, they don't want to be sued.
    - Silhouette 7y ago
      Surely a reasonable solution to this kind of problem is to change the law if necessary so that businesses aren't on the hook for damages that weren't their fault? I suspect this may be a particularly US-based problem anyway given the excessively litigious environment that seems to persist there. The idea that we're deliberately bricking useful technology devices because of lawyers is abhorrent. Realistically, their owners are probably then dumping them in many cases rather than sending them for any useful form of recycling, which is hugely wasteful. You'd think with the increasing awareness of issues like environmental protection and right to repair, we'd have been more enlightened by now.
      - hanklazard 7y ago
ada1981 7y ago
I was hoping to see someone post a DIY hack to get these working...
- _eLRIC 7y ago
  You can always try with a zigate (https://zigate.fr https://zigate.fr), still, it won't change the fact that some manufacturers do interpret the protocol in their own ways ...
Semaphor 7y ago
I only hope their customers have learned to never trust another company again whose devices only work via a connection to their servers and not otherwise. My Zigbee (Hue) lights are controlled with ZWave switches and nothing changes when I have no internet or Phillips or whoever ends up dead. The only thing that needs an internet connection currently is the voice control, but I have plans to change that as well. Everything is connected with an rPi 3 running home assistant.
- cschneid 7y ago
  I have a similar setup. I really appreciate that Hue bulbs are standard Zigbee bubls, then with a layer of fancy Phillips UI on top. If Phillips ever go away, easy to replace with a different UI, and direct control. User friendly, and not tied to specific vendor.
daniel-thompson 7y ago
> A big question is why there's no way for Charter customers to keep using these devices, given that they rely on the Zigbee specification that allows multi-vendor interoperability for smart-home products. Why can't Charter customers connect their security devices to a Zigbee-enabled smart-home hub or use them with another alarm-monitoring service that supports Zigbee? One user on DSLReports pointed out that years ago, Spectrum devices "were firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and usable within the normal universe of Zigbee devices." I imagine this was a pretty short conversation between the engineers and PM: - Engineers "Why do we have to lock them down? There's no technical reason to do this to our customers." - PM "Because fuck em, that's why."
- VLM 7y ago
  More realistically how it works in giant mega-corporations is a contractual arrangement with another company works until it doesn't, and after the contract is no longer in force... well... its all over. There's a subgenre of the above where mega-corporations set up and later dissolve an entire department. So any employee who could unlock those devices was probably downsized months or even years ago when the project was internally cancelled and the shutdown was planned. First, fire the engineers because we're cancelling so no possibility of R+D, whoopsie that means no possibility of unlocking, oh well.
klausjensen 7y ago
This is why my smarthome strategy is, that everything must work locally (as in without internet access) - but can be enhanced by connectivity to the internet and cloud-services. I use https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ on a Raspberry Pi 4 and I only buy devices that work locally, are either super dumb (think zibgee lightbulb) - or are either already open or can be flashed/hacked to be open. There is a huge community around this approach on https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/
- darkwater 7y ago
  Yeah, this is the only sensible approach to the smart home. Especially since an Internet connection is much more unreliable then electricity.
  - kchamplewski 7y ago
    That depends heavily on where you live. If the most common type of power outage is one that affects a small region, it's quite likely internet connectivity could remain unaffected. I had this experience in northern Sweden, where I had a couple of power interruptions but zero network interruption.
    - halbritt 7y ago
      I live in Oakland, CA. Internet is definitely more reliable than electricity. My smart home devices send me an email when there's a power outage.
      - kevinschumacher 7y ago
        Could that be coming from the smart home device manufacturer noticing the device was abruptly disconnected?
        cbsmith 7y ago
        It could be, but it is probably just they have enough backup power to send the signal.
dboreham 7y ago
I've had a startup business in the back of my brain for a few years that's driven by this syndrome: 1. It vendors would contract with IoTZombieCo to have their product covered. Like a form of insurance mixed with code escrow. They pay a premium for this and can put a brand label on the product that tells consumers it can't be EOL'ed. Vendor sells more product or can charge a premium price due to customer assurance of continued service. 2. My IoTZombieCo staff are given access to their code and ops resources (in the ideal scenario the vendor outsources running the backend services to us too). 3. When the vendor goes broke or decides to EOL, IoTZombieCo takes over the customer relationship, charges the customer a reasonable fee to continue providing service. Fee to be limited by some covenant that allows reasonable but not excessive profits.
- 14 7y ago
  But unless IotZombieCo can ensure it too doesn’t go out of business isn’t it just the same risk to the customer however with 2 companies instead of one? I think that 2 companies with the ability to keep a device running is better but the real solution is fully open sourcing the code of these devices since the company is no longer going using them or supporting them. Instead the company is offering a disingenuous offer where you can get some Ring equipment for a discount but really that discount is a minuscule fraction of what one would pay just going to the store and if I were to guess they probably made some back room deal with Ring as well that they could convert ‘x’ amount of customers to their service and got some sort of back pay. This was just a shit deal but it is good it happens from time to time because we need people to start to become aware of this and demand open source.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    Turtles all the way down. But the difference is that IoTZombieCo has an obviously viable business model as long as consumers want their devices to work and are willing to pay the cost. Many of the original vendors don't have viable business models which is why they go out of business. There are many devices used in business scenarios for example where the consumer is likely to take a keener interest in long term viability and also has a higher tolerance for paying for that.
DoubleGlazing 7y ago
I've had the same happen to Wifi plugs bought as recently as three years ago. They all seem to use different (buggy) apps and route the signal to the plug through some obscure website (usually in China). Of course these sites and domains will go down from time to time. Plus, they all use different, undocumented protocols so homebrewing a new controller app is a no-no. Lesson learned, I now carefully research any smart home stuff I buy now to make sure it has an accessible API I can use if the cloud stuff goes down.
aSplash0fDerp 7y ago
Cloud is dead. Games stop working, lifelong memories are erased (yahoo groups,photo sites), watches stop being smart (pebble) and even smarthomes become a complete waste of an investment. Bare-metal will always be sexy (and higher maintenance), but prosumer tech is not there yet to fill-in all the gaps in smarthomes. IMO, once we start seeing inexpensive 10TB-100TB home storage appliances, we'll start to see more tech engineered for decade+ operations. Over 99% of tech is disposible. Just the data is carried over, so you're lucky if you get 5 years use out of any device nowadays. 10 years is pushing it, even for smarthomes.
- swiley 7y ago
  The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s always left on. As much as I dislike apple, their Apple TV might be one of the things that pushes everyone in the direction of owning their IOT network. There’s also (IMO) a serious lack of open source tools for managing IOT devices. Right now a lot of the cheaper ones speak PnPP but there’s only one functional client I was able to find for this (a buggy and obscure GTK app.) There are a lot of good libraries though so maybe that will change.
  - the8472 7y ago
    > The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s always left on. They do, their router. The better models are half a home server anyway. They have wifi, USB for storage, do voip, have direct internet access (no NAT issues!). They would be an ideal platform for home automation.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Except that they usually don't own it, they rent it from the ISP. I think the concept of home server - some box you buy separately from Internet connection - is a concept that needs more marketing, until it becomes normalized.
      - Nextgrid 7y ago
nicolas_t 7y ago
Slightly out of topic. I'm actually looking into smart home devices for an apartment I have that will be rented half of the year on airbnb when I'm not there. Specifically, I want to be able to control lights, the air conditioner, the heating and rolling shutters remotely. I mostly want to do thzt because I want to be able to turn off heating and air conditioner remotely, but I would also like to have a master button to turn off all the lights when people live the apartment, a button to turn of lights on a path to the toilets in the bedroom and an alarm that automatically opens the shutters in the morning at the scheduled time (always found that waking up by sunlight is better) Does anyone here have any recommendation of which devices I can control directly with something like a raspberry pi that's always on? I've read that Z-Wave's specifications avoid the Zigbee specifications pitfall that make them to vendor dependent..
- bonzini 7y ago
  Zigbee lights are generally not vendor dependent. You can buy Ikea lights and they will interoperate with a Philips hub just fine. To use a Raspberry Pi as the hub, you can use Home Assistant and a USB or GPIO Zigbee adapter such as the Conbee or Raspbee. Home Assistant generally requires a Pi 3. Automations are all defined within Home Assistant so they do not depend on having homogeneous vendors.
  - nicolas_t 7y ago
    Thanks, so I would also need to use zigbee switches everywhere and use zigbee to turn the lights on and off? Are there any good websites that review zigbee switches to find which ones are decent... I usually go to Wire Cutter for this but their specific article is not really useful since they don't recommend any pure zigbee switch but only proprietary solutions.
    - bonzini 7y ago
      Yes, you would. I am actually working right now on a way to use an ESP8266 or ESP32 as an interface between dumb switches and Home Assistant (via MQTT), but it requires substantial rewiring and, being all DIY, is probably not suited for something that you rent. For Zigbee switches, depending on your lights it could also be power plugs. Ikea and Philips are again the easy choices if they sell what you want. Depending on where you are based you could also find something that fits in your existing switchboxes.
tomaszs 7y ago
The thing is, in such circumstances, a law should allow a judge to order to open source all software and protocols to the public. You want to sink a ship? Cool. But we are taking what we paid for with us.
stevespang 7y ago
Charter (Spectrum) is a rather evil company. Their douchebags have trolled me on fast cable internet more than once, now I get mailers every week in my mailbox, excellent for starting fires in my fireplace !
variable11 7y ago
Why are not these criminal execs charged with crimes?
peterwwillis 7y ago
As painful as it is, I think these cultural lessons are necessary, for a few reasons. The first is that people should not buy something just because someone made promises about it; that's how snake oil sales work. They promise the moon, take your money, and run. Instead people should think critically, ask questions, do research. That may mean becoming more technically literate, or not buying it if they can't understand it. (Is a "smart home" really smart just because "smart" is in the name? Or is "smart" just another "miracle cure-all" ?) And that follows to the second reason: we shouldn't depend too much on technology that we don't understand or control. If your car breaks and you can fix it, you don't have a $20,000 paperweight. If your car breaks and only the manufacturer can fix it, and they go out of business/stop supporting it, yikes. Not to mention if you're in a bad situation where you need to get yourself back on the road in a hurry. But really, all that applies to all parts of your life: being able to read a map, mail a letter, plant a garden, repair things in your home, cook a meal, etc. Basic knowledge that I'll bet is becoming rarer with each generation. We need to encourage people to deeply understand the world around them so they don't end up as helpless consumers expecting someone else to take care of them.
keiferski 7y ago
The old joke seems relevant here: "I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg As much as possible, smart tech should be operable mechanically. This seems fairly easy to do with electrical things like light switches.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  A minor example in my house that makes a massive difference during winter storms where we lose power: my gas fireplace is electronically, remotely controlled. Except you can manually start it up if needed. Makes the basement super cozy even if the furnace can't run.
- Nullabillity 7y ago
  Stockholm recently had to shut down a huge new train station for months, because it turned out that the escalators would break down and start going in reverse.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    "in reverse" is a bit of an understatement for freefall. Freefall is just as bad for the escalator that's supposed to be going down.
    - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
      Oh wow. I had no idea that was even a thing. That's terrifying. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY
  - Cpoll 7y ago
    Sure, but that failure is on the end of the spectrum. For electronics it'd be: Online and working / Offline and core functionality is working / Battery fire
- 7y ago
bengale 7y ago
Pretty sure in the UK you're covered for 6 years if this happens. The retailer will have to refund the purchase if this happens.
notashoxk9393 7y ago
My goal in life is to invest the reward for work on disposable shit! Stop hitting yourself, people.
dwighttk 7y ago
The real dumb homes were the ones we made along the way
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
I bought an 'Audrey' years ago - early touchpanel tablet meant for the kitchen counter. Had three buttons for 'channels' which meant url-for-specially-formatted-web-page, for news and weather and music. Almost immediately 3Com discontinued support for those channels. So I thought "No problem; I'll just go into settings and change the URLs". Nope. No way to do that. Early internet stupidity, where some marketing type figured "Capture the customer to our data stream so we can spam them". So screw the customer.
- lwkl 7y ago
  Couldn‘t you make a business out of supporting abandoned IoT devices. Make a small server that rewrites DNS requests and URLs so you can serve your own content to these devices. Or in the case of Zigbee emulate different Zigbee routers?
  - shiftpgdn 7y ago
    I know the chumby devices, and to a lesser extent the Dreamcast have been given a second life due to people reverse engineering and rewriting DNS requests. Those were consumer products with a passionate community around them though.
- intopieces 7y ago
  Do you still have the Audrey? looks like it was hacked to have a different firmware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNt_yFUVTr4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNt_yFUVTr4
alkonaut 7y ago
Any home relies on some external service to function at all was dumb to begin with. People need to stop buying these gadget/service combination things.
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sbdsbdsbd 7y ago
Nura, a young Australian company that sells smart headphones, blocked my pair in a vain way to circumvent banking agreements in case of fraud. They are mixing their terms of use with their terms of sell and reserve the right to brick your device anytime they want: in other words they reserve the right to ban you from their service (which in fact is a calibration service) but do it in in such a way they basically trash your property rights away. My comment was too long, so I just dumped it on pastebin: https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS
guptaneil 7y ago
The upcoming wave of IoT products will all be local-first because too many users (and thus founders) have been burned by the old cloud-addicted products that literally die when their supply is cut off. In the meantime, just say no to cloud-only products!
unstatusthequo 7y ago
This is why you might consider getting services from companies where the service is their core, rather than home security from a media company. Lower risk of them deciding “oh, that junk we tried isn’t making enough money, let’s kill it off.”
joering2 7y ago
I'm not surprised by this ridiculous and bold move by Spectrum. Where I live they have monopoly and my bill is going up 100% every year. I'm not kidding. Upon inquiry, they lie that you had limited contract with Brighthouse signed and now the promotion is over so they can be rising it up. The only way to stop that is to kill your cable for at least 90 days, then apply for the new one with their current discounts that supposedly doesn't expire. If you think I'm singled out, there has been lots of upset about how Spectrum conducts itself but without class-action lawsuit, nothing will happen. https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-increase-duplicate https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-incre... https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spectrum_jacked_up_my_internet_bill_from_45_to_65/ https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spe... https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-cable-billing-practices-unpredictable-2017-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-cab...
bsenftner 7y ago
They are really going out of their way to not say that any IP camera is any IP camera - it does not matter that their "security hub" is zigbee, the cameras are IP protocol and any Internet video streaming software will connect and stream these camera's video quite well. Just get the FOSS iSpy app on your home network and you're operational, locally.
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crazygringo 7y ago
I'd love it if there were legislation requiring products that include an "online" component to be required to explicitly advertise the minimum number of years of guaranteed service, and be forced to prominently advertise "0 years" (prominent like cigarette cancer warnings) if it isn't guaranteed. And be forced to post a financial bond at a level set by law that will be forfeited and used to keep the service running (e.g. auctioning to software companies who will bid to run the service) in case the company decides to cancel, goes bankrupt, etc. (As long as the company runs it, they get the bond back at the end of the guarantee.) Consumers should know they're getting an actual guarantee, or be 100% aware that there isn't any guarantee at all, so they actually know what they're buying in advance.
cmurf 7y ago
Has anyone looked at Fedora IoT? They're trying to make updates for this class of device easier. https://iot.fedoraproject.org/ https://iot.fedoraproject.org/ That doesn't itself solve, or prevent, the problem of abandoned products. But I wonder to what degree making updates easier and more reliably deployed would help.
nitrogen 7y ago
As someone who tried to create a company that produced smart home tech that didn't even have the ability to phone home, this is why we can't have nice things. About ten years ago the market was perfect for a smart home renaissance. Hardware was becoming cheap enough and powerful enough that your average bootstrapping solo founder could start a business with off the shelf components. Everything was in place for the old guard of laggy and clunky consumer tech to become fast, efficient, and offline. But giant corporations and VCs smell an opportunity like a shark smells blood in the water. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon with a creeping sludge of inferior offerings, smothering the ecosystem. Only the billion dollar surveillance capitalists can penetrate the toxic market pollution and reach consumers. And so, while you may have a handful of niche/maker products that hang on, the consumer is led to believe that everything is an Internet of Shit. And this is why we can't have nice things.
intopieces 7y ago
Spectrum partnered with Ring and Abode to transition the customers - they were offered free equipment with the purchase of 1 year monitoring. Glad that customers got to choose between systems and weren't just left to one.
anotherevan 7y ago
Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future! Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise. https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthusiasts-everything-in-my-house-is-wired https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus... (via foxrob92)
- lioeters 7y ago
  It's ironic (contrary to expectation) that those who work in tech/web/software, myself included, are often wary of adopting new technology like the Smart Home. I've used a "dumb phone" for a long time, and only bought a "smart" one due to work necessity. Even now, I barely use the latter personally, or carry it around with me, since I know it's basically a spying device for third-party apps. I love the concept of the Internet of Things, and have started studying it deeper as a hobby. If my home is going to be "smart", I want to minimize its dependencies, to understand how it works, what services it's connecting to, what data it's sending, and make sure everything is under my control, repairable and extensible. Like the HP printers that stop working if they can't phone home (without informed consent, I'm sure) - or these Charter security devices that will simply become useless after the company shut down.. I believe the reluctance on some part of the tech-savvy population is justified, because we/they understand the risks better than naive tech enthusiasts. Either that, or, we're getting older and suspicious of new things - but for good reasons, as our trust has been betrayed countless times by tech companies.

414 points by BerislavLopac 7y ago

It's things like this that companies do that should really make one consider setting up their own simple NVR system. It's really nice being able to manage and upgrade your own system this way. Even when you feel like upgrading you still have all your cat6 infrastructure in place.

pcdoodle 7y ago
I fully agree, blue iris is a great example of a product updated for over 10 years.

tempodox 7y ago

Without customer protection laws you're left to the whims of your vendor. Trusting the promises in the sales brochure (or even taking the sales pitch as a promise) is either courageous or naive.

Silhouette 7y ago
Isn't this symptomatic of a much deeper problem with the tech industry today, though? Consumer protection laws are useful up to a point, but even in places with relatively strong consumer protections, the problems of closed systems, ephemeral external dependencies and built-in obsolescence are widespread. Almost nothing is made to be long-lasting any more. Compatibility and interoperability are often seen as dirty words that imply loosening the stranglehold you have on your customers. Standards are great, so we should have our own because they will be better than everyone else's. There's an old saying that you can't implement a technological solution to a social problem. I'm increasingly of the view that this holds the other way around as well. Unfortunately, there is a vicious circle here. To support makers of products that can be repaired and upgraded, and that don't depend on remote facilities that can disappear but can't be replaced, and that respect user privacy and control, and that play nicely with other products, we need to buy their stuff. That stuff is likely to be more expensive up-front, even if it might work out better and cheaper in the long term, so buyers need to perceive some advantage to justify the extra cost. But until those buyers have been stung by the deliberate limitations and user-hostile behaviours of the competing products, which typically only happens later, they often won't be very aware of the choices they're really making. They might experience buyer's remorse further down the line, but by then it's too late. This effect makes it difficult to compete if you want to offer good quality, future-proof products, which in turn limits how many people have those products and how many people see that those products can be advantageous.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  I'd pay for open stuff... unfortunately there is usually nothing available on the market but locked-down crap, so I end up going the DIY route. At least I have fun learning, but it's depressing how ambivalent consumers are in general.

wffurr 7y ago

Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous to pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards (due to heat, tin whiskers, etc.) which are no longer made by their manufacturers. Or a small plastic part breaking which is similarly no longer available. It's just another step in the long sordid history of intentional or not planned obsolescence. Maybe it seems more egregious because of the rate it happens at and that the company has to turn off a service by unplugging the servers. Ultimately, regardless of cloud features or not, you want to buy things that are durable and repairable, whether that's self hosting a new cloud service or fabricating a new metal part.

avian 7y ago
> Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous to pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards There used to be an electronic repair shop in every neighborhood. These were small businesses that would be able to diagnose and repair faults in random electronic devices. I wonder if at one point this problem of cloud services disappearing will become widespread enough that we'll start to see businesses that will take your bricked device, flash their own firmware to it and provide their own, generalized cloud service as a replacement. Obviously reverse engineering each device and making a custom firmware would be a large initial investment, but maybe at a point where just about every trivial thing will depend on a network service it would be economically feasible.
- wojciii 7y ago
  This will not work if the bootloader on your device does not allow upgrading unsigned firmware and would take some laws prohibiting this behaviour to be in place.
  - IntelMiner 7y ago
    One of the greatest faults of Linux was sticking to the GPLv2, GPLv3 actively sought to deny "tivoization" as they called it, as Tivo used Linux and provided the code, but required signed software to boot, rendering the access to the code effectively pointless

trekrich 7y ago

maybe there is a case to not have all this smart cack in your homes. The amount of e-waste that is going to be made, because its not the latest and greatest product/service is enoourmous. Not everything needs to be smart and connected to the internet.

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jaclaz 7y ago

First thought being that the "Zigbee Alliance, an industry group that develops standards and certifies products to ensure multi-vendor interoperability" essentially certified something that after all does not allow "multi-vendor interoperability". I can well understand how each vendor would try to create its own "walled garden", but the whole idea of such "standard" (actually most of the time "pseudo-standard") associations should be exactly that of contrasting the single firm attempt to cut out the other vendors in the same area.

fest 7y ago
I think of it as WiFi Alliance. You would expect several WiFi devices connect to the same AP, but you probably wouldn't expect a random widget from company A to interoperate with random widget from company B.
maxerickson 7y ago
There's a lot of details to chase around though. Like were the actual devices in question labeled as certified, or was the Zigbee compliance just an implementation detail of the hardware they shipped. I don't think the Zigbee Alliance requires their members to only market compliant products as certified, so they could be marketing them to consumers as compliant and to companies like Charter as easy to integrate. A requirement that products carry a clear statement about relying on a service to function, and then some rules about how the end of life for such products and services should be sequenced would not be onerous and would make the situation much better for consumers (even the ones that didn't read the statement would get the minimum period of service specified in the EOL rules).
- jaclaz 7y ago
  Yep, though, if you go there (as a final user/customer, not as an expert in details): https://zigbeealliance.org/ https://zigbeealliance.org/ The message you get (or at least the one I get) is: > WHY Leading companies choose Zigbee > Interoperable > Our world-renowned certification program and our large focus on interoperability assure consumers and developers that devices will interoperate. I don't think that if I have something certified/stamped by them and it comes out that it won't interoperate with something else they also certified/stamped it is excessive to say that their assurance is m00t.

loopz 7y ago

I've yet to encounter any "smart" device or software I can tolerate, except possibly for SMART HDDs. Just provide sane defaults, manual workarounds and opt-in for any more dependencies and complexity.

jacobush 7y ago
What's smart hdd?
- xiljin 7y ago
  Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology for HDDs - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.
- deleted 7y ago
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thrwaway69 7y ago
Liar. You have a 'smart' phone, don't you? Personally, I think we are reaching levels where marketing has taught people to take additional steps to do the same thing while talking about efficiency and first hand user-experience so of course you know how to be intuitive after watching it work million times on different screens before actually getting it. Humans are pretty good at rationalising their behaviours and purchases therefore the effect is strong once you have captivated the person. It will spread in the herd because you don't want to be the only idiot in it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

Havoc 7y ago

That’s why I focused on home assistant and open tech. Walled garden IoT is madness

e12e 7y ago
Curious: what tech stack did you land on? I haven't implemented much "smart" tech yet, but would be nice to know if there are some good open options out there.
- Havoc 7y ago
  Home Assistant. If you're comfortable with a bit of tinkering that's overall a good choice. Currently using a tinkerboard, but would probably be looking to virtualise this >"smart" tech yet Smartplugs and smart lightbulbs are pretty easy. Things start getting a bit ugly on presence detection though - i.e. who is home and where. Haven't seen anything reliable on that front. The other headache to think about is standby mode. Many things these days can't be controlled via smartplugs because they go into standby mode...not on mode
- Havoc 7y ago
  2nd comment because I remembered some additional tips: 1) If you're considering a device...google the device name & github. Generally if I can find some github code of someone managed to get this to talk to python then we're probably OK to buy 2) The Xiaomi equivalent (Yeelight) of Philips Hue Lights are really good quality/value for money. If you can swallow the associated question marks on brand I'd go that route. 3) Basically everything is gonna require an app on phone initially and it will phone home...so you'll need a FW to block this after you got it to talk to local home assistant server 4) Some of these things like zigbee...frequency depends on country so look carefully what you're buying. 5) Most of this tech doesn't like 5ghz
kalleboo 7y ago
All our ceiling lights, aircon, outlets are IR-controlled. Then I got generic Chinese IR blasters, and use homebridge to connect it all over the LAN to Apple HomeKit. If there is a shift in tech, someone will always be selling new IR blasters due to the installed base. Worse case, I'll always have the IR remote controls (or can build something out of an raspberry pi/arduino)

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firefoxd 7y ago

Ah, that reminds me of my Westinghouse Radio Hub, an Internet connected radio, cd, weather, etc. I was excited to buy it on sale, then packed it in a closet and forgot all about it. A long time later, I accidentally stumbled upon this puppy right there in the closet. Took it out of the box, and to my first disappointment, it wasn't wireless. You had to plug an Ethernet cable. Hit the power button and the screen lights up with the word, initializing. When you have waited long enough, the screen changes to Network error. I tried plugging it in directly on the modem to no avail. I tried to debug it by analyzing the network, the domain it pointed to was no longer resolving. No internet feature for me I guess. At least I still had a Radio and CD player.... Let's tune in to the radio. Automatic station search. Apparently, that requires the internet. So after you wait long enough, Network Error. Well let's go with CDs then. When you insert a CD, it looks for the album info online. Oh you have no connection? Network error it is. Left it on my desk as decoration for a couple years before I threw it in the garbage.

lucasverra 7y ago
That's the "smart" appliance past, present and future. Big NO from me. Less is more
- manaskarekar 7y ago
  Not sure why the future should be this way. The issues mentioned are all bad design decisions. For it to work in the future, they just need to be executed well.
  - danaris 7y ago
    Unfortunately, at least for a lot of manufacturers, the decision process is going to go something like, "Should we make sure this can operate even if that domain goes offline?" "Nah, if that happens, the company will be belly-up, so why should we care?" (And yes, that is assuming that they'll never accidentally—or intentionally—fail to renew their domain name...)
    - 7y ago

_Microft 7y ago

The manufacturer should never be able to either deactivate or otherwise disable the functionality of a device they sold in a form that requires a service to function. If the customer is paying a subscription fee and no longer has to pay the fee when the service goes away, that is maaaybe fine (albeit opening a loophole that would most likely be abused (from a customer's perspective). If the service was priced into the selling price of the device, game or other software though: nope, never. You did the math, you sold the device for that price, now keep on delivering. That would not necessarily mean that they would have to run servers indefinitely, it could as well be in the form of releasing or open sourcing the related server software or the specifications (and required certificates for signing updates if applicable? That might be thorny though.) in a form that someone else could successfully take their place when they end-of-life a device. Ideally in a form that would also work when the company closes shop, that is when no longer any form of workforce or capital for anything might be available. It might be time to actually require that from (also software) manufacturers since there seems almost no change in that regard.

tcd 7y ago
That's a very idealistic but unrealistic perspective. Often times the source code can't or won't be released - it could put further customers at risk if a vulnerability is found and the update servers have gone away. Some devices might not be possible to update due to hardware/software configuration (perhaps certain variables are hard coded?). Whilst what you're saying is right it just doesn't work that way. I'd love for all the Android devices to get years of OS and security patches, but it simply doesn't happen. Any IoT device is pretty much the same. It's not going to change any time soon. Only invest in products you can be sure of (which is hard these days). Expect them to break, expect nobody to care, and be prepared to lose money or get a terrible ROI - it's why phones don't get updates, the OEM doesn't make money from providing updates which are a direct cost VS selling a new phone. This is capitalism, produce crap, sell many units, offer no support, rinse and repeat.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  Market forces have clearly failed to address this issue for an extended period, so this seems to be a situation where statutory regulation is indicated.

syshum 7y ago

It is amusing and sad to me that person is going to "spend thousands more to get a Ring system" So you have already been burned by 1 cloud service, so you want to get burned again? As there is nothing to day Amazon will not shutdown the Ring service at some point Self Host or nothing for me

jacobush 7y ago
It's a bit like voting so the wrong lizards don't get to the White House.

m3kw9 7y ago

Is good they have stuff like HomeKit or works with google, probably your best bet

layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
Ah yes, Google. Indeed the finest example of long term support for legacy products!

yardie 7y ago

I’ve been a user of HA ever since I got a X10 firecracker plugged into my Slackware server under my dorm room bed. I’ve hated that they’ve turned HA into a service. A lot of these cloud HA companies are going with the cheap razors, expensive razor blades business model. And when things don’t work out leave you will with a pile of expensive broke equipment.

andybak 7y ago
I'm sure it will be blindingly obvious in hindsight but I don't know what "HA" stands for. "Home Appliance"?
- detaro 7y ago
  home automation I'd guess.
- jmiserez 7y ago
  Home automation most likely.
- bookofjoe 7y ago
  Home Assistant?
- jlgaddis 7y ago
  Home Assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io > Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.
joshlittle 7y ago
I have been using X10 and Insteon devices for years. I have no plans to upgrade the system to newer zigbee/zwave hardware; though I have added some IP Based devices too for things like smart bulbs such as Lifx. I control everything with a Universal Devices ISY-994i controller and have set up a Polyglot node server to tie it all together. This gives me flexibility because I can always expand the isy-994i to support Zigbee or Zwave; and polyglot node server is open source. It’s very nice to be protected against forced IoT obsolescence due to cloud API Reversioning, Company failures and mergers, etc. some of my smart home IoT devices are over 20 years old; no plans to upgrade them. Best of all, nothing requires the Internet to work.

jsilence 7y ago

Delock recently released a smart plug pre installed with Tasmota. Way to go!

throwaway100773 7y ago

It’s this type of garbage that has turned me into a luddite when it comes to smart home type technology. Lack of interoperability, inability to understand easily whats actually going on and massive privacy invasion causes me to look for dumb devices whenever possible - I know how to deal with them, I can have other people fix them when something goes wrong, and there’s just less ongoing maintenance. I’m sure this isn’t a novel idea though.

emerongi 7y ago
There are standards that are being worked on. My criteria is: all the logic must be contained within my home, the devices must adhere to some open standard, they must be repairable and modifiable to some degree.
- chiph 7y ago
  The Zigbee protocol the devices use is a standard, but from what I picked up from between the lines of the article is that the firm locked the devices because of liability fears. If someone DIY's their alarm system and then it fails to work during an actual home-invasion, they don't want to be sued.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    Surely a reasonable solution to this kind of problem is to change the law if necessary so that businesses aren't on the hook for damages that weren't their fault? I suspect this may be a particularly US-based problem anyway given the excessively litigious environment that seems to persist there. The idea that we're deliberately bricking useful technology devices because of lawyers is abhorrent. Realistically, their owners are probably then dumping them in many cases rather than sending them for any useful form of recycling, which is hugely wasteful. You'd think with the increasing awareness of issues like environmental protection and right to repair, we'd have been more enlightened by now.
    - hanklazard 7y ago

ada1981 7y ago

I was hoping to see someone post a DIY hack to get these working...

_eLRIC 7y ago
You can always try with a zigate (https://zigate.fr https://zigate.fr), still, it won't change the fact that some manufacturers do interpret the protocol in their own ways ...

Semaphor 7y ago

I only hope their customers have learned to never trust another company again whose devices only work via a connection to their servers and not otherwise. My Zigbee (Hue) lights are controlled with ZWave switches and nothing changes when I have no internet or Phillips or whoever ends up dead. The only thing that needs an internet connection currently is the voice control, but I have plans to change that as well. Everything is connected with an rPi 3 running home assistant.

cschneid 7y ago
I have a similar setup. I really appreciate that Hue bulbs are standard Zigbee bubls, then with a layer of fancy Phillips UI on top. If Phillips ever go away, easy to replace with a different UI, and direct control. User friendly, and not tied to specific vendor.

daniel-thompson 7y ago

> A big question is why there's no way for Charter customers to keep using these devices, given that they rely on the Zigbee specification that allows multi-vendor interoperability for smart-home products. Why can't Charter customers connect their security devices to a Zigbee-enabled smart-home hub or use them with another alarm-monitoring service that supports Zigbee? One user on DSLReports pointed out that years ago, Spectrum devices "were firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and usable within the normal universe of Zigbee devices." I imagine this was a pretty short conversation between the engineers and PM: - Engineers "Why do we have to lock them down? There's no technical reason to do this to our customers." - PM "Because fuck em, that's why."

VLM 7y ago
More realistically how it works in giant mega-corporations is a contractual arrangement with another company works until it doesn't, and after the contract is no longer in force... well... its all over. There's a subgenre of the above where mega-corporations set up and later dissolve an entire department. So any employee who could unlock those devices was probably downsized months or even years ago when the project was internally cancelled and the shutdown was planned. First, fire the engineers because we're cancelling so no possibility of R+D, whoopsie that means no possibility of unlocking, oh well.

klausjensen 7y ago

This is why my smarthome strategy is, that everything must work locally (as in without internet access) - but can be enhanced by connectivity to the internet and cloud-services. I use https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ on a Raspberry Pi 4 and I only buy devices that work locally, are either super dumb (think zibgee lightbulb) - or are either already open or can be flashed/hacked to be open. There is a huge community around this approach on https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/

darkwater 7y ago
Yeah, this is the only sensible approach to the smart home. Especially since an Internet connection is much more unreliable then electricity.
- kchamplewski 7y ago
  That depends heavily on where you live. If the most common type of power outage is one that affects a small region, it's quite likely internet connectivity could remain unaffected. I had this experience in northern Sweden, where I had a couple of power interruptions but zero network interruption.
  - halbritt 7y ago
    I live in Oakland, CA. Internet is definitely more reliable than electricity. My smart home devices send me an email when there's a power outage.
    - kevinschumacher 7y ago
      Could that be coming from the smart home device manufacturer noticing the device was abruptly disconnected?
      - cbsmith 7y ago
        It could be, but it is probably just they have enough backup power to send the signal.

dboreham 7y ago

I've had a startup business in the back of my brain for a few years that's driven by this syndrome: 1. It vendors would contract with IoTZombieCo to have their product covered. Like a form of insurance mixed with code escrow. They pay a premium for this and can put a brand label on the product that tells consumers it can't be EOL'ed. Vendor sells more product or can charge a premium price due to customer assurance of continued service. 2. My IoTZombieCo staff are given access to their code and ops resources (in the ideal scenario the vendor outsources running the backend services to us too). 3. When the vendor goes broke or decides to EOL, IoTZombieCo takes over the customer relationship, charges the customer a reasonable fee to continue providing service. Fee to be limited by some covenant that allows reasonable but not excessive profits.

14 7y ago
But unless IotZombieCo can ensure it too doesn’t go out of business isn’t it just the same risk to the customer however with 2 companies instead of one? I think that 2 companies with the ability to keep a device running is better but the real solution is fully open sourcing the code of these devices since the company is no longer going using them or supporting them. Instead the company is offering a disingenuous offer where you can get some Ring equipment for a discount but really that discount is a minuscule fraction of what one would pay just going to the store and if I were to guess they probably made some back room deal with Ring as well that they could convert ‘x’ amount of customers to their service and got some sort of back pay. This was just a shit deal but it is good it happens from time to time because we need people to start to become aware of this and demand open source.
- dboreham 7y ago
  Turtles all the way down. But the difference is that IoTZombieCo has an obviously viable business model as long as consumers want their devices to work and are willing to pay the cost. Many of the original vendors don't have viable business models which is why they go out of business. There are many devices used in business scenarios for example where the consumer is likely to take a keener interest in long term viability and also has a higher tolerance for paying for that.

DoubleGlazing 7y ago

I've had the same happen to Wifi plugs bought as recently as three years ago. They all seem to use different (buggy) apps and route the signal to the plug through some obscure website (usually in China). Of course these sites and domains will go down from time to time. Plus, they all use different, undocumented protocols so homebrewing a new controller app is a no-no. Lesson learned, I now carefully research any smart home stuff I buy now to make sure it has an accessible API I can use if the cloud stuff goes down.

aSplash0fDerp 7y ago

Cloud is dead. Games stop working, lifelong memories are erased (yahoo groups,photo sites), watches stop being smart (pebble) and even smarthomes become a complete waste of an investment. Bare-metal will always be sexy (and higher maintenance), but prosumer tech is not there yet to fill-in all the gaps in smarthomes. IMO, once we start seeing inexpensive 10TB-100TB home storage appliances, we'll start to see more tech engineered for decade+ operations. Over 99% of tech is disposible. Just the data is carried over, so you're lucky if you get 5 years use out of any device nowadays. 10 years is pushing it, even for smarthomes.

swiley 7y ago
The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s always left on. As much as I dislike apple, their Apple TV might be one of the things that pushes everyone in the direction of owning their IOT network. There’s also (IMO) a serious lack of open source tools for managing IOT devices. Right now a lot of the cheaper ones speak PnPP but there’s only one functional client I was able to find for this (a buggy and obscure GTK app.) There are a lot of good libraries though so maybe that will change.
- the8472 7y ago
  > The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s always left on. They do, their router. The better models are half a home server anyway. They have wifi, USB for storage, do voip, have direct internet access (no NAT issues!). They would be an ideal platform for home automation.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Except that they usually don't own it, they rent it from the ISP. I think the concept of home server - some box you buy separately from Internet connection - is a concept that needs more marketing, until it becomes normalized.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago

nicolas_t 7y ago

Slightly out of topic. I'm actually looking into smart home devices for an apartment I have that will be rented half of the year on airbnb when I'm not there. Specifically, I want to be able to control lights, the air conditioner, the heating and rolling shutters remotely. I mostly want to do thzt because I want to be able to turn off heating and air conditioner remotely, but I would also like to have a master button to turn off all the lights when people live the apartment, a button to turn of lights on a path to the toilets in the bedroom and an alarm that automatically opens the shutters in the morning at the scheduled time (always found that waking up by sunlight is better) Does anyone here have any recommendation of which devices I can control directly with something like a raspberry pi that's always on? I've read that Z-Wave's specifications avoid the Zigbee specifications pitfall that make them to vendor dependent..

bonzini 7y ago
Zigbee lights are generally not vendor dependent. You can buy Ikea lights and they will interoperate with a Philips hub just fine. To use a Raspberry Pi as the hub, you can use Home Assistant and a USB or GPIO Zigbee adapter such as the Conbee or Raspbee. Home Assistant generally requires a Pi 3. Automations are all defined within Home Assistant so they do not depend on having homogeneous vendors.
- nicolas_t 7y ago
  Thanks, so I would also need to use zigbee switches everywhere and use zigbee to turn the lights on and off? Are there any good websites that review zigbee switches to find which ones are decent... I usually go to Wire Cutter for this but their specific article is not really useful since they don't recommend any pure zigbee switch but only proprietary solutions.
  - bonzini 7y ago
    Yes, you would. I am actually working right now on a way to use an ESP8266 or ESP32 as an interface between dumb switches and Home Assistant (via MQTT), but it requires substantial rewiring and, being all DIY, is probably not suited for something that you rent. For Zigbee switches, depending on your lights it could also be power plugs. Ikea and Philips are again the easy choices if they sell what you want. Depending on where you are based you could also find something that fits in your existing switchboxes.

tomaszs 7y ago

The thing is, in such circumstances, a law should allow a judge to order to open source all software and protocols to the public. You want to sink a ship? Cool. But we are taking what we paid for with us.

stevespang 7y ago

Charter (Spectrum) is a rather evil company. Their douchebags have trolled me on fast cable internet more than once, now I get mailers every week in my mailbox, excellent for starting fires in my fireplace !

variable11 7y ago

Why are not these criminal execs charged with crimes?

peterwwillis 7y ago

As painful as it is, I think these cultural lessons are necessary, for a few reasons. The first is that people should not buy something just because someone made promises about it; that's how snake oil sales work. They promise the moon, take your money, and run. Instead people should think critically, ask questions, do research. That may mean becoming more technically literate, or not buying it if they can't understand it. (Is a "smart home" really smart just because "smart" is in the name? Or is "smart" just another "miracle cure-all" ?) And that follows to the second reason: we shouldn't depend too much on technology that we don't understand or control. If your car breaks and you can fix it, you don't have a $20,000 paperweight. If your car breaks and only the manufacturer can fix it, and they go out of business/stop supporting it, yikes. Not to mention if you're in a bad situation where you need to get yourself back on the road in a hurry. But really, all that applies to all parts of your life: being able to read a map, mail a letter, plant a garden, repair things in your home, cook a meal, etc. Basic knowledge that I'll bet is becoming rarer with each generation. We need to encourage people to deeply understand the world around them so they don't end up as helpless consumers expecting someone else to take care of them.

keiferski 7y ago

The old joke seems relevant here: "I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg As much as possible, smart tech should be operable mechanically. This seems fairly easy to do with electrical things like light switches.

Waterluvian 7y ago
A minor example in my house that makes a massive difference during winter storms where we lose power: my gas fireplace is electronically, remotely controlled. Except you can manually start it up if needed. Makes the basement super cozy even if the furnace can't run.
Nullabillity 7y ago
Stockholm recently had to shut down a huge new train station for months, because it turned out that the escalators would break down and start going in reverse.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  "in reverse" is a bit of an understatement for freefall. Freefall is just as bad for the escalator that's supposed to be going down.
  - jacobwilliamroy 7y ago
    Oh wow. I had no idea that was even a thing. That's terrifying. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY
- Cpoll 7y ago
  Sure, but that failure is on the end of the spectrum. For electronics it'd be: Online and working / Offline and core functionality is working / Battery fire
7y ago

bengale 7y ago

Pretty sure in the UK you're covered for 6 years if this happens. The retailer will have to refund the purchase if this happens.

notashoxk9393 7y ago

My goal in life is to invest the reward for work on disposable shit! Stop hitting yourself, people.

dwighttk 7y ago

The real dumb homes were the ones we made along the way

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

I bought an 'Audrey' years ago - early touchpanel tablet meant for the kitchen counter. Had three buttons for 'channels' which meant url-for-specially-formatted-web-page, for news and weather and music. Almost immediately 3Com discontinued support for those channels. So I thought "No problem; I'll just go into settings and change the URLs". Nope. No way to do that. Early internet stupidity, where some marketing type figured "Capture the customer to our data stream so we can spam them". So screw the customer.

lwkl 7y ago
Couldn‘t you make a business out of supporting abandoned IoT devices. Make a small server that rewrites DNS requests and URLs so you can serve your own content to these devices. Or in the case of Zigbee emulate different Zigbee routers?
- shiftpgdn 7y ago
  I know the chumby devices, and to a lesser extent the Dreamcast have been given a second life due to people reverse engineering and rewriting DNS requests. Those were consumer products with a passionate community around them though.
intopieces 7y ago
Do you still have the Audrey? looks like it was hacked to have a different firmware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNt_yFUVTr4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNt_yFUVTr4

alkonaut 7y ago

Any home relies on some external service to function at all was dumb to begin with. People need to stop buying these gadget/service combination things.

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sbdsbdsbd 7y ago

Nura, a young Australian company that sells smart headphones, blocked my pair in a vain way to circumvent banking agreements in case of fraud. They are mixing their terms of use with their terms of sell and reserve the right to brick your device anytime they want: in other words they reserve the right to ban you from their service (which in fact is a calibration service) but do it in in such a way they basically trash your property rights away. My comment was too long, so I just dumped it on pastebin: https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS

guptaneil 7y ago

The upcoming wave of IoT products will all be local-first because too many users (and thus founders) have been burned by the old cloud-addicted products that literally die when their supply is cut off. In the meantime, just say no to cloud-only products!

unstatusthequo 7y ago

This is why you might consider getting services from companies where the service is their core, rather than home security from a media company. Lower risk of them deciding “oh, that junk we tried isn’t making enough money, let’s kill it off.”

joering2 7y ago

I'm not surprised by this ridiculous and bold move by Spectrum. Where I live they have monopoly and my bill is going up 100% every year. I'm not kidding. Upon inquiry, they lie that you had limited contract with Brighthouse signed and now the promotion is over so they can be rising it up. The only way to stop that is to kill your cable for at least 90 days, then apply for the new one with their current discounts that supposedly doesn't expire. If you think I'm singled out, there has been lots of upset about how Spectrum conducts itself but without class-action lawsuit, nothing will happen. https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-increase-duplicate https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-incre... https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spectrum_jacked_up_my_internet_bill_from_45_to_65/ https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spe... https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-cable-billing-practices-unpredictable-2017-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-cab...

bsenftner 7y ago

They are really going out of their way to not say that any IP camera is any IP camera - it does not matter that their "security hub" is zigbee, the cameras are IP protocol and any Internet video streaming software will connect and stream these camera's video quite well. Just get the FOSS iSpy app on your home network and you're operational, locally.

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crazygringo 7y ago

I'd love it if there were legislation requiring products that include an "online" component to be required to explicitly advertise the minimum number of years of guaranteed service, and be forced to prominently advertise "0 years" (prominent like cigarette cancer warnings) if it isn't guaranteed. And be forced to post a financial bond at a level set by law that will be forfeited and used to keep the service running (e.g. auctioning to software companies who will bid to run the service) in case the company decides to cancel, goes bankrupt, etc. (As long as the company runs it, they get the bond back at the end of the guarantee.) Consumers should know they're getting an actual guarantee, or be 100% aware that there isn't any guarantee at all, so they actually know what they're buying in advance.

cmurf 7y ago

Has anyone looked at Fedora IoT? They're trying to make updates for this class of device easier. https://iot.fedoraproject.org/ https://iot.fedoraproject.org/ That doesn't itself solve, or prevent, the problem of abandoned products. But I wonder to what degree making updates easier and more reliably deployed would help.

nitrogen 7y ago

As someone who tried to create a company that produced smart home tech that didn't even have the ability to phone home, this is why we can't have nice things. About ten years ago the market was perfect for a smart home renaissance. Hardware was becoming cheap enough and powerful enough that your average bootstrapping solo founder could start a business with off the shelf components. Everything was in place for the old guard of laggy and clunky consumer tech to become fast, efficient, and offline. But giant corporations and VCs smell an opportunity like a shark smells blood in the water. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon with a creeping sludge of inferior offerings, smothering the ecosystem. Only the billion dollar surveillance capitalists can penetrate the toxic market pollution and reach consumers. And so, while you may have a handful of niche/maker products that hang on, the consumer is led to believe that everything is an Internet of Shit. And this is why we can't have nice things.

intopieces 7y ago

Spectrum partnered with Ring and Abode to transition the customers - they were offered free equipment with the purchase of 1 year monitoring. Glad that customers got to choose between systems and weren't just left to one.

anotherevan 7y ago

Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future! Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise. https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthusiasts-everything-in-my-house-is-wired https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus... (via foxrob92)

lioeters 7y ago
It's ironic (contrary to expectation) that those who work in tech/web/software, myself included, are often wary of adopting new technology like the Smart Home. I've used a "dumb phone" for a long time, and only bought a "smart" one due to work necessity. Even now, I barely use the latter personally, or carry it around with me, since I know it's basically a spying device for third-party apps. I love the concept of the Internet of Things, and have started studying it deeper as a hobby. If my home is going to be "smart", I want to minimize its dependencies, to understand how it works, what services it's connecting to, what data it's sending, and make sure everything is under my control, repairable and extensible. Like the HP printers that stop working if they can't phone home (without informed consent, I'm sure) - or these Charter security devices that will simply become useless after the company shut down.. I believe the reluctance on some part of the tech-savvy population is justified, because we/they understand the risks better than naive tech enthusiasts. Either that, or, we're getting older and suspicious of new things - but for good reasons, as our trust has been betrayed countless times by tech companies.