I've been wondering about smart lighting (maybe smart sockets and other stuff) but wanting to avoid proprietary lock-in. I know Philips Hue and Ikea Tradfri are actually zigbee based and have limited levels of interoperability, also a certain amount of hacking can be done, but not necessarily wanting to go the home-brew route.
This seems to be a significant announcement to open things up ...
Andy Burns snipped-for-privacy@andyburns.uk wrote
Not really limited at all in fact and there are a lot more than just those two going the zigbee route.
But isnt necessary to get a viable result.
Yeah me too.
But it remains to be seen if it produces buyable products.
I think Zigbee is interesting because devices themselves can't phone home - they don't have a route to the internet nor the ability to speak IP (nor the power budget). So it's good for things that just do their one job, without ads/malware/surveillance thrown into the mix.
The hubs can and do phone home, but you can use the devices without the hubs. I recently came across:
That can then hook into a third party stack that you trust.
It's interesting, but note that the proponents are hardly the most privacy focused. So remains to be seen whether it's a spyfest or not.
Theo
You can mix and match, we have a number of BG Smart sockets, some plug in adaptors from various sources that use e-familycloud software and Hive for the heating. Hive has its own hub the others do not, the unifying factor is Alexa everything can be controlled from three echo dots in various rooms. As yet we do not have control of the oven, washer or dishwasher and somehow I cannot see us going for that as it will require quite some investment. To me it seems the choice is more between the top level controls such as Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri etc. at the moment it seems Alexa has more compatible devices. I cannot say that using Alexa is the best but market share often out trumps quality (remember VHS).
Richard
I have a sonoff wifi switch for my garage door.
It was definitely hard work to get it to integrate with OK Google and the integration stopped working after a few months.
Standard protocols would be very welcome.
Certainly zigbee based beasts seem to be reasonably flexible. While I'm a fan of the Hive system as it works with our heating (including working with Alexa), the various 'smart plugs' etc are grossly over priced as are the lights. It doesn't work with other lights- at least not without some work.
I use Alexa as a 'centre of integration' (if I can use that term), the app allows you to interface a wide range of devices from other vendors- including Hive, Ikea (without the Ikea hub- see note below), Hue, and various 'cheap' smart plug in switches. One niggle, it seems you can't easily have multiple locations- ie a second home, a motorhome, etc if you want to control things there.
The Ikea lights have a 'funny'. When you first set them up, if you have problems with Alexa 'finding them' set them up initially close (physically) to an Alexa device (either the 'tall' Echo or the later dot
- something with the built in hub). This seems to be an issue which came about after, I assume, some update. Once set up, all is well and the light can be away from the Alexa 'hub' device. (The early Dots lacked the hub required, the later ones have it.) Reseting the lights can be 'fun', see YouTube. I made a lead to do it- just a lead with a momentary push switch, plug, and holder.
We find having smart lights and switches etc convenient. Being able to, for example, control the heating remotely, turn on the electric blanket, etc when you are out is great.
Or you can use the hubs purely locally and firewall them from the cloud, though if you want voice control via smart speaker/phone then you will require connection to the cloud
see also mosquitto and node-red, both suitable uses of an rPI
Yes, I'm not amazingly bothered about being able to control lights when I'm not there, Google have tempted me into at least having a look at this stuff, by offering me a free Nest Mini Gen2, maybe that'll be a smart (!) move on their part.
I've seen them, but consider they're a bit too low quality for devices to wire everywhere in your house, the Shelly devices seem more like it.
I know you can put 3rd party "tasmota" firmware on the sonoff devices, worth a try?
Indeed, I think all the zigbee/zwave/etc protocols were a bit damaged at birth by having too many standards, and no obvious winner, I'll be happy if zigbee can come out ahead by this new alliance.
Did you read about the recent problems with amazon Ring cameras being not only hackable but also can be coaxed to reveal their address, and I mean street address.Obviously the meaning of security has been changed.... Not to mention Airtel and the patient network in India. Brian
Yes, I read about it, but if you give your ring password to someone else, can you really class it as hacking if they use it to look through your cameras?
What I mean by "limited" is e.g. Ikea lamps and switches can be linked to a Philips hub, so they become part of the zigbee mesh, but they don't show up in the Hue app
It may be fun, but it can soak up a lot of time, and then there's documenting it for the following owner.
Irrational, but in my mind, that equates to "Alexa, burn down my house"
And the day after zigbee's announcement, z-wave are opening up too
It looks like I would need to solder up some kind of USB connector to the Sonoff pcb, so worth a try, probably not.
I might consider looking at a pi zero solution before trying that. My sonoff is only 24v switching so any heath robinson set up would be ok.
I kind of just want a standard, I mean how damaged could a standard be? ... I know stupid attitude, slap my self around the head, ...against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
Also here:
"It will be an IP-based protocol so it can connect directly to the internet rather than require a hub; it will be open-source and royalty-free and allow for end-to-end secure communication; and it will work with core standards like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi."
Hmmm, I think I prefer the current method, with zigbee stuff in its isolated non-IP mesh, and a single gateway ...
I now have an outdoor LED light above the door step which turns on when it is dark and there is some one there. It only cost a few quid on ebay
I also have some BG Home 13 amp double wall sockets which I can program to turn on and off as required and can monitor and control with an Android mobil phone app.
There have always been some of those. The problem is finding ones that are fully integrated so you can add another for something else like say a temperature sensor and have it available in Homekit or controllable with siri alexa or google just by adding it to the existing collection and naming it.
Similar thoughts here as well. Why do people need to control the heating remotely? That's what thermostats, preferably programmable ones, are for. Even if some one is living alone and away for unpredictable periods of time most places warm up pretty quickly. If they don't then the heating is never "off" but always under control of the programmable stat.
Electric blanket, again how long does that take to warm the bed? Do people really come through the front door and dive straight into bed? If they do the bed won't stay cold for long...
I'm also uncomfortable with something "out there" knowing the status of the heating system, various sockets or lights. These things are "free" to the consumer but still cost someone somewhere money to provide. That money has to come from somewhere and that is by selling the data they gather. They say it's "anonymised" which for any given single dataset is probably true but buy a few different datasets and start mining them and any anonymity soon disappears.
I organise things so it wont burn the house down even if I don't happen to be there when it catches fire.
Plenty don't find the time that they will be home completely predictable and its handy to be able to turn the heat or cooling on well before you will be arriving home so its comfortable when you do.
Same with cars, handy to be able to start it remotely so its comfortable when you get into the car.
Not everything knows when they will be home or up and about at home.
But handy to be able to control it remotely when they don't.
But useless when you come home early for whatever reason.
But more convenient to be able to turn it on before going to bed instead of having to go into the bedroom to turn it on and then going back out again while it warms the bed.
Yes, when going out to fix a fault at night.
But still more convenient to get into a warm, bed.
Mindless paranoia, particularly when anyone with even half a clue makes the house look occupied using that stuff when away for a while.
I don't care.
I know that apple doesn't sell any data they collect.
I couldn't care less if google sells a list of which garage sales I have chose to visit or which shops I have asked it the opening hours of. I am also not actually stupid enough to use cash for all purchases so my purchase history is completely secret and I have never cared that the phone company knows who I have called and who calls me. Or that the postal service knows who sent me stuff.
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