• maxprime@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    It’s perfectly possible to have a smart home that does not call home. Home Assistant is an amazing piece of software that can allow smart devices from different manufacturers talk to each other without connecting to a cloud service — all done locally.

    • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This is the only way I would go about it. Maybe in the future if I really want it but really, the more tech, the more vulnerabilities. I’m fine with manually turning things on and off even if it’s self hosted.

        • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Unfortunately, no. Ultimately it’s a tiny computer that happens to produce light when a certain gpio pin is enabled. The light bulb is the portion you see, but inside, it’s an internet-connected microcontroller. I’ve even seen smart devices that internally run a full Linux distro complete with a shell session you can access if you know what you’re doing.

          The problem is that some of these firmwares and/or exploits for these firmwares actively scan your local network and report things. Further, they can be used as a jumping off point for attacks deeper in your network.

            • LrdThndr@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              And what about the zigbee hub, assuming you didn’t know enough to use homeassistant or some such?

              Or a wifi bulb?

              Point is, consumer smart electronics don’t have the same attention to security paid to them.

              Fwiw, I’m not anti-smart device. I run HA and have all kinds of smart crap, so clearly I accept at least part of the risk.

              But saying “it’s just a light bulb” is disingenuous as best.

        • anlumo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          The LIFX bulbs announced your WiFi password to anyone who asked. This is not a breach of the bulb itself, it’s a gateway to your LAN.

        • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago
          1. I don’t want to be annoyed

          2. It opens up another vector for attacking other sensitive devices on my network. I haven’t segregated my network so I don’t feel safe doing this.

      • maxprime@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Put home assistant on a raspberry pi, plug a Zigbee dongle to it, and start connecting smart gadgets to it. Or better yet buy a home assistant Green. You can check the home assistant docs to see if a smart device requires cloud connectivity to work — in general if it connects through Zigbee (or ZWave or Matter) then you’re good, but if it connects through WiFi then it probably is cloud based.

        https://www.home-assistant.io/

        https://www.seeedstudio.com/Home-Assistant-Green-p-5792.html

        https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/

        • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Can confirm. I run Home Assistant and Rhasspy with Sengled bulbs and none of transmits info. The devices themselves aren’t generally the issue, it’s the hub that operates them that would be collecting and sending the info. Remove that, and you don’t have to worry.

          • Num10ck@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            wow so Rhasspy is local voice assistant! do you have microphones places throughout your pad or do you go to a website first to speak or what?

            • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You can use microphones wherever with HA and Rhasspy. Rhasspy is just the local voice and intent recognition portion, and HA executes the commands. This means you can have one Rpi in your place managing devices, and then have many different microphone-attached Rpi all over your house forwarding voice recognition intents to do whatever you want it to do. Whatever the mic is attached to will send to the HA instance and tell it what to do. No cloud.

        • BaroqueInMind@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Why do I need a RaspberryPi? I can’t use my regular Linux PC? What is a Zigbee dongle and why is it mandatory? What do I do if he device is cloud based?

          • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You can use your regular PC if you want, but having an always-on server (the pi) makes it more convenient to use from, say, your phone.

            Zigbee is a popular wireless communication protocol used by iot devices. Without the dongle you won’t have any way to talk to them.

            If it’s cloud based, buy something else that isn’t.

          • anlumo@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Your Zigbee light switches won’t do anything unless the machine running Home Assistant is on. Being able to control your lights while the computer isn’t running is really convenient.

      • bean@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Perfectly valid to ask how to protect your data using the tools the other user mentioned. Not sure why you were downvoted for asking simply how.

    • Josie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      If i understand correctly this is Home Assistant saying that Hue is taking away that ability on devices people have already bought and installed.

      • maxprime@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        That’s about the hue hub. The bulbs are still Zigbee and can be controlled 100% remotely with HA and a Zigbee dongle.