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I did a 3 part series on IoT and security on my blog back in 2016, titled "IoT Danger Zone" (https://2byt.es/post/dz-1/ https://2byt.es/post/dz-1/). For home a

I did a 3 part series on IoT and security on my blog back in 2016, titled "IoT Danger Zone" (https://2byt.es/post/dz-1/ https://2byt.es/post/dz-1/). For home automation I use Home Assistant, for several years now (~6-7). I had two goals when I began; no cloud and not critical path. Being a software engineer with a degree in electronic engineering it was no issue for me to build my own hardware with ESP32 or ESP8266 and create my own IoT devices. The no-cloud thing has worked out pretty well, I still don't connect to anything in the cloud, and I block call-home functionality in my firewall such as that of the Philips Hue. The non-critical path thing has been great too. I can control all of the lights with Hue switches or the physical switches, the sensors for motion can be disabled if we have certain guests that aren't tech-savvy enough (or frankly just used to) deal with motion sensing lights. The automations are all enhancements to rather than driving the core functionality of anything in the home, and so if/when it falls over, things go back to the "normal" level of convenient; you have to turn on lights yourself, or use various remotes for things, the heating becomes manual, etc. Security is still hard in IoT, good security needs good hardware, and IoT is rarely that, and by good I mean decent memory, hardware accelerated encryption algorithms, hardware secure key storage etc. Coupled with the extremely poor programming practices of a lot of IoT devices, security is all but a joke.

dirkc 6y ago
What do you mean with non-critical path? It sounds like you're suggesting something like wiring a light controller as a 3 way switch so you can always still use the physical switch? Is that the type of thing you're referring to with non-critical path? Any reading on that you can suggest?
- alias_neo 6y ago
  So in my case, we leave the physical light switches on all the time, we use motion sensors or ZigBee wireless switches to control the lights. If the automation falls over we just switch them on and off using the switches. If family are visiting I switch the house to "guest mode" which deactivates the motion sensors and various other automations and we use the light switches like normal. The term "critical path" is when a whole system depends on that thing to function; it is in the critical path. For example, if I couldn't use the lights at all when the home automation server is down, or your Mac won't run any programs when the phone-home server is down, those things are on the critical path, without them the system fails.
- mason55 6y ago
  The easiest thing is to use smart switches in the wall to replace your light switches instead of smart bulbs. Most smart switches will work as regular light switches even if the whole rest of your smart home is down. Then you use the smart home stuff to make everything more convenient but if the smart home is down it falls back to dumb home functionality. An easy example is my pantry. It’s got a smart switch (Inovelli Zwave) hooked up for the light plus a door sensor on the door. Normally when you open the door the door sensor turns on the light by communicating with the smart switch and when you close the door the light goes off. But if everything is down the switch still acts like a regular light switch and you can turn the pantry lights off and on. Other examples might be garage doors that open when they detect you pull in to the driveway. You want to make sure that you can still just press the garage door opener button so that you can get in like a normal person when presence detection fails. Smart home functionality should enhance, not replace, at least until everything is 100% bullet proof and never fails or goes down (i.e. not in my lifetime)
jordanab 6y ago
> I still don't connect to anything in the cloud, and I block call-home functionality in my firewall such as that of the Philips Hue If you're blocking your Philips Hue Bridge from connecting to the cloud, and you're a Home Assistant user, why not install the ZHA module and connect your lamps directly to HA instead of the Hue Bridge? I've been wanting to do this myself, but the prospect of losing access to both the native Hue app and the Hue Disco app is making it a hard sell in my household :)
- alias_neo 6y ago
  Good question. When I started there was no alternative to the bridge, I haven't done much updating lately (I'm a new father) and it all works. I use WireGuard to connect for remote access. I will certainly look into it as the Hue bridge accounts for a significant number of requests being blocked compared to my network's baseline.

dirkc 6y ago

What do you mean with non-critical path? It sounds like you're suggesting something like wiring a light controller as a 3 way switch so you can always still use the physical switch? Is that the type of thing you're referring to with non-critical path? Any reading on that you can suggest?

alias_neo 6y ago
So in my case, we leave the physical light switches on all the time, we use motion sensors or ZigBee wireless switches to control the lights. If the automation falls over we just switch them on and off using the switches. If family are visiting I switch the house to "guest mode" which deactivates the motion sensors and various other automations and we use the light switches like normal. The term "critical path" is when a whole system depends on that thing to function; it is in the critical path. For example, if I couldn't use the lights at all when the home automation server is down, or your Mac won't run any programs when the phone-home server is down, those things are on the critical path, without them the system fails.
mason55 6y ago
The easiest thing is to use smart switches in the wall to replace your light switches instead of smart bulbs. Most smart switches will work as regular light switches even if the whole rest of your smart home is down. Then you use the smart home stuff to make everything more convenient but if the smart home is down it falls back to dumb home functionality. An easy example is my pantry. It’s got a smart switch (Inovelli Zwave) hooked up for the light plus a door sensor on the door. Normally when you open the door the door sensor turns on the light by communicating with the smart switch and when you close the door the light goes off. But if everything is down the switch still acts like a regular light switch and you can turn the pantry lights off and on. Other examples might be garage doors that open when they detect you pull in to the driveway. You want to make sure that you can still just press the garage door opener button so that you can get in like a normal person when presence detection fails. Smart home functionality should enhance, not replace, at least until everything is 100% bullet proof and never fails or goes down (i.e. not in my lifetime)

jordanab 6y ago

> I still don't connect to anything in the cloud, and I block call-home functionality in my firewall such as that of the Philips Hue If you're blocking your Philips Hue Bridge from connecting to the cloud, and you're a Home Assistant user, why not install the ZHA module and connect your lamps directly to HA instead of the Hue Bridge? I've been wanting to do this myself, but the prospect of losing access to both the native Hue app and the Hue Disco app is making it a hard sell in my household :)

alias_neo 6y ago
Good question. When I started there was no alternative to the bridge, I haven't done much updating lately (I'm a new father) and it all works. I use WireGuard to connect for remote access. I will certainly look into it as the Hue bridge accounts for a significant number of requests being blocked compared to my network's baseline.