Smart-homes: The future, or harmful?

frogman [he/him]@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 120 points –

What do you guys think of the idea of smart homes? I could make a basic setup using https://home-assistant.io to control my home temperature and lighting; the tools for doing this are everywhere nowadays and implementation doesn't seem too horrific anymore.

But setting aside what I "can" do, is this something that I "should" do? How can a person implement this without connecting any devices to the internet?

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Just remember, the S in IOT stands for security.

I do have some IOT devices on my network, however they are kept off the internet and on their own vlan. No phoning home (or anywhere else) for these devices.

They can be great if they are set up properly, but too many people just take them out of the box, toss them on their network and think they are just fine.

I’d wager 90% of users do that. I see way too much phoning home former to ever be comfortable with that.

I'm a bit more pessimistic about that percentage.. maybe 90% of people with the technical ability and inclination to micromanage their devices. But I'd wager the majority of users just want a remote control mood light and do not care that it's using the WiFi

I don’t see anyone in here talking about HomeKit, which is also a good solution for secure IOT. Many HomeKit accessories can be set up to only communicate with your LAN and to not need 3rd party apps or accounts.

I also have my system connect to a router that supports HomeKit secure, which blocks any phoning home to 3rd parties.

Big problem with HomeKit is 1) Siri is meh 2) fewer IOT accessories

The S in IoT stands for security

That's actually what I made the SSID for the wireless access point for the VLAN i have isolated for any wifi specific smart devices.

I didn't buy any, but my wife did without realizing they were incompatible with my existing home assistant setup due to being cheap Chinese crap