4 ms·

A couple of notes: 1. If you must have an IoT device, favor zigbee. 2. Put your IoT devices on a segmented network that you've throttled. IoT devices neither

A couple of notes: 1. If you must have an IoT device, favor zigbee. 2. Put your IoT devices on a segmented network that you've throttled. IoT devices neither need nor deserve privileged network access. 3. Probably don't use a consumer grade router if you know how to monitor network traffic. 4. That all being said, it feels unlikely that an IoT device would be exposed on a properly configured router to anything beyond vendor spyware.

globular-toast 3y ago
It shouldn't even need internet access. IoT is a stupid name. It's just networking.
- boringuser2 3y ago
  Uhhh, alright. Anyhow, many devices require network access for useful functionality. That network is ideally zigbee. (It's also possible for Bluetooth to make up for some of the lost featureset for non-realtime applications, so I'd favor Bluetooth smart devices over wifi smart devices.)
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Yes, Zigbee is the way to go. But the point is there shouldn't be any internet involved. Using the internet protocol on wifi is the stupidest way to do this kind of stuff and leads to dumb crap like your washing machine phoning home.
    - boringuser2 3y ago
      I mean, it's obviously a pretty good product in terms of effortlessly providing networking to a device in a way that an average home user can manage. Everyone has wifi. That being said, a better architected device would probably just use Bluetooth and your smartphone as a controller. I don't think many average home users could tell the difference.
      - Brian_K_White 3y ago
        I have a label printer that works like that and I hate it. I'm not sure what the better answer is now that I am trying to think of one. Maybe all I really hate is how shitty and lack of control the app is. It requires me to turn on location, and does who the f knows what on the network between the app and brother. I do not want to have to turn on location to use a label printer. No matter the tech excuse about detecting proximity, something has simply gone off the rails at that point. But using Bluetooth as a local connection, I guess that's OK if the protocol were just open and I could choose the app to use with it. Devices with web servers have that one big plus, which is that you use your browser, not someone else's browser. Make the same sort of genericization on bluetooth and that would probably satisfy a good number of use cases.
jrockway 3y ago
I disagree with some of these points: 1. Z-wave is better, but Wifi can be fine in the right environment. Like, my weather station uses Wifi because it sends a few bytes of data to a server once a minute. No need for an additional protocol going on that interferes with everything else on 2.4GHz anyway. I also use Wifi for a sensor I put in my box that stores 3D printer filament to measure its humidity, so I know when to recharge the desiccant. An ESP32 wakes up every half hour, measures the humidity, and sends it over HTTPS to an InfluxDB instance in "the cloud". Its tiny lithium polymer battery lasts a year. It took me maybe an hour to design the hardware and write the software for it. Why do anything more complicated? Why bother with an esoteric protocol when you just want to use the Internet? 3. Consumer grade routers are great these days. I have a 10G WAN, 10G LAN, and Wifi6e on the router that Verizon provides with my service for free. To buy something like that myself, I'd be spending 700 or 800 dollars so that I can pretend to be a sysadmin on my day off. Why bother?
- boringuser2 3y ago
  3. I don't think you're understanding what the contentions about consumer grade routers are. Make no mistake: consumer grade routers are a massive security risk, and continue to be to this day. They have no incentive to respond to and mitigate CVEs. They frequently have hardwired credentials. They don't have robust networking tools. They are common targets for hacks for these reasons. Regarding throughput, yes, 10gb is quite a bit. It'd probably be somewhat troublesome to get a home router with those kinds of physical ports (though CPU throughput would be trivial, see Intel's latest offerings. The n100 range can saturate any reasonable connection, including IPS, which you don't have). It's just not necessary, though. I am a power user, software engineer, hosting ~50 docker containers, many with custom code on 300mbps. No slowdown. No saturation. Furthermore, a cheap enterprise AP from eBay, even on wifi 5, is vastly superior to your Verizon AP. I'm not a networking professional. I installed OpnSense and connected a ruckus AP. Done. 1. If you had a decent AP, zigbee interference wouldn't be an issue, wink emoji.

globular-toast 3y ago

It shouldn't even need internet access. IoT is a stupid name. It's just networking.

boringuser2 3y ago
Uhhh, alright. Anyhow, many devices require network access for useful functionality. That network is ideally zigbee. (It's also possible for Bluetooth to make up for some of the lost featureset for non-realtime applications, so I'd favor Bluetooth smart devices over wifi smart devices.)
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Yes, Zigbee is the way to go. But the point is there shouldn't be any internet involved. Using the internet protocol on wifi is the stupidest way to do this kind of stuff and leads to dumb crap like your washing machine phoning home.
  - boringuser2 3y ago
    I mean, it's obviously a pretty good product in terms of effortlessly providing networking to a device in a way that an average home user can manage. Everyone has wifi. That being said, a better architected device would probably just use Bluetooth and your smartphone as a controller. I don't think many average home users could tell the difference.
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      I have a label printer that works like that and I hate it. I'm not sure what the better answer is now that I am trying to think of one. Maybe all I really hate is how shitty and lack of control the app is. It requires me to turn on location, and does who the f knows what on the network between the app and brother. I do not want to have to turn on location to use a label printer. No matter the tech excuse about detecting proximity, something has simply gone off the rails at that point. But using Bluetooth as a local connection, I guess that's OK if the protocol were just open and I could choose the app to use with it. Devices with web servers have that one big plus, which is that you use your browser, not someone else's browser. Make the same sort of genericization on bluetooth and that would probably satisfy a good number of use cases.

jrockway 3y ago

I disagree with some of these points: 1. Z-wave is better, but Wifi can be fine in the right environment. Like, my weather station uses Wifi because it sends a few bytes of data to a server once a minute. No need for an additional protocol going on that interferes with everything else on 2.4GHz anyway. I also use Wifi for a sensor I put in my box that stores 3D printer filament to measure its humidity, so I know when to recharge the desiccant. An ESP32 wakes up every half hour, measures the humidity, and sends it over HTTPS to an InfluxDB instance in "the cloud". Its tiny lithium polymer battery lasts a year. It took me maybe an hour to design the hardware and write the software for it. Why do anything more complicated? Why bother with an esoteric protocol when you just want to use the Internet? 3. Consumer grade routers are great these days. I have a 10G WAN, 10G LAN, and Wifi6e on the router that Verizon provides with my service for free. To buy something like that myself, I'd be spending 700 or 800 dollars so that I can pretend to be a sysadmin on my day off. Why bother?

boringuser2 3y ago
3. I don't think you're understanding what the contentions about consumer grade routers are. Make no mistake: consumer grade routers are a massive security risk, and continue to be to this day. They have no incentive to respond to and mitigate CVEs. They frequently have hardwired credentials. They don't have robust networking tools. They are common targets for hacks for these reasons. Regarding throughput, yes, 10gb is quite a bit. It'd probably be somewhat troublesome to get a home router with those kinds of physical ports (though CPU throughput would be trivial, see Intel's latest offerings. The n100 range can saturate any reasonable connection, including IPS, which you don't have). It's just not necessary, though. I am a power user, software engineer, hosting ~50 docker containers, many with custom code on 300mbps. No slowdown. No saturation. Furthermore, a cheap enterprise AP from eBay, even on wifi 5, is vastly superior to your Verizon AP. I'm not a networking professional. I installed OpnSense and connected a ruckus AP. Done. 1. If you had a decent AP, zigbee interference wouldn't be an issue, wink emoji.