
Smart homes will turn dumb overnight as Charter kills security service - BerislavLopac
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/smart-homes-will-turn-dumb-overnight-as-charter-kills-security-service/
======
firefoxd
Ah, that reminds me of my Westinghouse Radio Hub, an Internet connected radio,
cd, weather, etc. I was excited to buy it on sale, then packed it in a closet
and forgot all about it.

A long time later, I accidentally stumbled upon this puppy right there in the
closet. Took it out of the box, and to my first disappointment, it wasn't
wireless. You had to plug an Ethernet cable.

Hit the power button and the screen lights up with the word, initializing.

When you have waited long enough, the screen changes to Network error. I tried
plugging it in directly on the modem to no avail. I tried to debug it by
analyzing the network, the domain it pointed to was no longer resolving.

No internet feature for me I guess. At least I still had a Radio and CD
player....

Let's tune in to the radio. Automatic station search. Apparently, that
requires the internet. So after you wait long enough, Network Error.

Well let's go with CDs then. When you insert a CD, it looks for the album info
online. Oh you have no connection? Network error it is.

Left it on my desk as decoration for a couple years before I threw it in the
garbage.

~~~
mhb
The future of Sonos?

~~~
Guest0918231
I rented an AirBnB filled with a few thousand dollars worth of Sonos speakers.
Some issues...

1\. I was traveling with an older Android phone (Android 4.4.4). I couldn't
install the latest version of the app. I tried installing an older version,
but it simply said I needed to upgrade. So, I couldn't play any music from the
phone. I checked online and a number of people were complaining they used
their older phones and tablets in the house as simply a Sonos remote, and they
now had to upgrade all of those devices after support was dropped.

2\. I installed the Windows app on my laptop to play music. This worked, but
then I noticed the subwoofer wasn't plugged in (likely so people didn't annoy
the neighbors). I thought I would briefly test it out to get an idea if Sonos
would be a good future purchase for myself. Well, I plugged it in and I needed
to do a setup process from the app. Well, apparently that can't be done from
the Windows app, and I couldn't install the app on my phone, so the subwoofer
just sat there as decoration.

3\. My partner came home and she had a newer phone, so I had her install the
Sonos app so we could setup the subwoofer. She installed it, I went to the app
to configure the subwoofer, and it said it couldn't be done unless I updated
the speakers to a newer software version. Well, this wasn't my apartment and
the owner lived there when it wasn't rented, so I figured it wasn't my place
to update their speakers.

In the end, I never got a chance to test out that subwoofer, and I lost
interest in Sonos because I felt like for the investment, the rug could be
pulled out from under me at any time. I hooked up some of my 15 year "dumb"
Klipsch speakers in my new apartment instead. Didn't need a new mobile phone
to set them up, didn't need software updates, just plugged them into the wall.
It sure felt easy. I can't help but feel like we lost our way a bit in recent
years.

~~~
bcrosby95
Controlling your home solely from your phone is overrated. I installed a smart
home system and one of the first things I did was buy a cheap tablet that
could control everything. I always have my phone on me for work but I don't
want to pull it out everytime I need to do something. And when the in-laws are
over they need to be able to do stuff. So does my 5 year old that obviously
doesn't have a smart phone.

~~~
marcoperaza
I have a Denon receiver. It has some nice connected features, like Spotify
Connect and Airplay, but it’s also a completely functional dumb receiver that
will work with equipment, input and output, from decades past and future.

I buy my own speakers and plug them into it. It also supports some Denon
wireless speaker standard that lets it hook up to other Denon receivers and/or
any speakers with the special adapters attached. But the crucial thing is that
at the end of the day, all that fancy pants crap can stop working and you
still have a bunch of bog standard speakers and receivers that can be hooked
up any other way.

Now I’ll concede that maybe I’m ignorant or misinformed or a grumpy stubborn
old man, but I’m not sure why anyone technically competent would buy a Sonos
or Bose system with their crazy lock-in. It wasn’t so long ago that Sonos made
you use Spotify through their awful reimplemented UI. It seems they have
relented on that front and now allow use of Spotify Connect, but why would you
want to be at someone else’s whim like that? Bose uses non-standard wiring and
electrical specs to make sure that you can’t use their speakers with standard
receivers. You either have to trash the speakers or keep buying Bose receivers
when you want new features (4K, 8k, Atmos, HDR, etc.) Even when money is no
object, I feel like a sucker when I buy artificially locked-in products like
that. Maybe others don’t feel the same way?

For the not-so-tech-savvy, I concede that home audio gear is still a little
difficult to set up. The common practice of making your own banana plugs is
ridiculous and pre-made audio cables should be the norm instead. The receiver
UIs leave a lot to be desired, even when they are ultimately good enough once
configured. Shopping for speakers is like choosing fad diets: you have to sift
through outrageous amounts of bullshit to find any useful advice.

I’d like to understand some more of the sociology and economics of why Denon
and Yamaha and such can’t get their act together to produce something as user
friendly as Sonos but that degrades nicely into standard A/V equipment when
desired. If anyone with industry insight sees this comment, please fill me in.

------
klausjensen
This is why my smarthome strategy is, that everything must work locally (as in
without internet access) - but can be _enhanced_ by connectivity to the
internet and cloud-services.

I use [https://www.home-assistant.io/](https://www.home-assistant.io/) on a
Raspberry Pi 4 and I only buy devices that work locally, are either super dumb
(think zibgee lightbulb) - or are either already open or can be flashed/hacked
to be open.

There is a huge community around this approach on
[https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/](https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/)

~~~
darkwater
Yeah, this is the only sensible approach to the smart home. Especially since
an Internet connection is much more unreliable then electricity.

~~~
kchamplewski
That depends heavily on where you live. If the most common type of power
outage is one that affects a small region, it's quite likely internet
connectivity could remain unaffected. I had this experience in northern
Sweden, where I had a couple of power interruptions but zero network
interruption.

~~~
halbritt
I live in Oakland, CA. Internet is definitely more reliable than electricity.
My smart home devices send me an email when there's a power outage.

~~~
kevinschumacher
Could that be coming from the smart home device manufacturer noticing the
device was abruptly disconnected?

~~~
cbsmith
It could be, but it is probably just they have enough backup power to send the
signal.

~~~
judge2020
It's more likely that the device sends a heartbeat every minute or so, either
for notifications or just for this "device is offline" feature.

~~~
halbritt
In this case, no.

------
throwaway100773
It’s this type of garbage that has turned me into a luddite when it comes to
smart home type technology. Lack of interoperability, inability to understand
easily whats actually going on and massive privacy invasion causes me to look
for dumb devices whenever possible - I know how to deal with them, I can have
other people fix them when something goes wrong, and there’s just less ongoing
maintenance. I’m sure this isn’t a novel idea though.

~~~
stanferder
I can't even imagine a scenario where I'd want a "smart home".

When I leave a room, I turn the light off. When I enter it, I turn it on.

When I leave the house, I turn the heat off. When I enter it, I turn it on. If
I had pets, I'd just dial it down to "pet comfort" level while away.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I do have a Roomba and think it's great. I hit the button when I'm about
to go out for an hour, and there's a clean floor when I get back. I appreciate
that. No internet required as well.

~~~
toast0
Here's my (unsolved) use case for a smart home: I've got three heat pumps and
a whole house generator; if the generator is on, I don't want all three
running at the same time (too much load), and generally, I'd like the set
points adjusted, because I value saving fuel (the tank needs to last until the
next filling, and I don't know how long the outage will be) over comfort. I've
also got a hot water recirculator that I'd like to turn off when the well pump
isn't powered (it's not on the same circuit as the house) or is otherwise not
providing water pressure --- after a water leak, the previous recirculator
burned its bearings moving air instead of water, and it was expensive to
replace.

Also, I'd love to run the HVAC fans to equalize temperatures when some rooms
are much cooler than others.

~~~
chendragon
This type of scenario shouldn't require "smart" home hardware - Traditionally
situations like this were addressed by wired/wireless SCADA networks or BACnet
or similar protocols.

The only issue is that these things are typically designed to be engineered
along with the systems they control, and are difficult for the average user to
implement or use.

~~~
toast0
The thing is, "smart" home hardware is a lot less expensive and more
accessible than SCADA or BACnet. I can go out and buy any number of home
thermostats, and some of them are even capable of properly supporting all the
functions; unfortunately I ended up with the Nest, because it has the best
support for enabling both auxiliary heat and emergency heat; but it doesn't
have support for interfacing via LAN, and Google rescinded the APIs. Also, the
physical interface is infuriating, but it's better than the awful honeywell
touchscreen garbage the previous homeowner had installed.

------
dboreham
I've had a startup business in the back of my brain for a few years that's
driven by this syndrome:

1\. It vendors would contract with IoTZombieCo to have their product covered.
Like a form of insurance mixed with code escrow. They pay a premium for this
and can put a brand label on the product that tells consumers it can't be
EOL'ed. Vendor sells more product or can charge a premium price due to
customer assurance of continued service.

2\. My IoTZombieCo staff are given access to their code and ops resources (in
the ideal scenario the vendor outsources running the backend services to us
too).

3\. When the vendor goes broke or decides to EOL, IoTZombieCo takes over the
customer relationship, charges the customer a reasonable fee to continue
providing service. Fee to be limited by some covenant that allows reasonable
but not excessive profits.

~~~
the8472
You don't need yet another company to solve the problem of failing companies.

You need lan-local protocols so that users can control devices within their
network directly without going through the cloud.

~~~
michaelt
That would solve "It stopped working when the vendor went out of business" but
it wouldn't solve "It stopped getting security updates when the vendor went
out of business"

~~~
the8472
Code escrow doesn't guarantee maintenance either, that would be yet another
committment for the company and might increase their operating costs over time
as the accumulate more and more zombie products to maintain, potentially
leading to failure too.

~~~
michaelt
Isn't maintenance what IoTZombieCo would be contractually obligated to do,
though?

Here in the UK new homes often have a 10 year warranty from a third-party
insurer, who gets to dictate construction methods to the builder. So the idea
of products coming with third-party warranties isn't unprecedented.

------
_Microft
The manufacturer should never be able to either deactivate or otherwise
disable the functionality of a device they _sold_ in a form that requires a
service to function. If the customer is paying a subscription fee and no
longer has to pay the fee when the service goes away, that is maaaybe fine
(albeit opening a loophole that would most likely be abused (from a customer's
perspective).

If the service was priced into the selling price of the device, game or other
software though: nope, never. You did the math, you sold the device for that
price, now keep on delivering.

That would not necessarily mean that they would have to run servers
indefinitely, it could as well be in the form of releasing or open sourcing
the related server software or the specifications (and required certificates
for signing updates if applicable? That might be thorny though.) in a form
that someone else could successfully take their place when they end-of-life a
device.

Ideally in a form that would also work when the company closes shop, that is
when no longer any form of workforce or capital for anything might be
available.

It might be time to actually require that from (also software) manufacturers
since there seems almost no change in that regard.

~~~
avian
> Ideally in a form that would also work when the company closes shop

You typically already have to provide full hardware schematic when submitting
an electronic product to test labs to get various certifications.

It doesn't seem that far fetched that you would also have to submit server
software and the certification house would keep it in escrow in case you go
bankrupt.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that will happen though.

~~~
tcd
Let's assume product uses domain.com to get updates.

domain.com one day might be owned by $badDude - that's a huge risk

domain.com might return 404's - that's pretty terrible.

What happens to domain.com once $business is now $noLongerBusiness?

You can provide a method of flashing firmware onto the device itself (possible
security risk?), but where do you get the files from? How do you verify
they're safe?

Then, you need to host the server software itself (depending on how it's
coded, that ranges from quite simple to your worst nightmare), and you expect
someone to keep that secure? The EU dictates GDPR compliance, which adds
additional cost to maintenance.

It's just easier and cheaper to just not bother with servers if the company
can't keep them online.

~~~
vbezhenar
Let user change server domain. Firmware must be signed by certificate with
that domain. So now user can change server domain to his own server (or
someone he trusts) and sign firmware with that key. It poses no security risk.

------
jaclaz
First thought being that the "Zigbee Alliance, an industry group that develops
standards and certifies products to ensure multi-vendor interoperability"
essentially certified something that after all _does not_ allow "multi-vendor
interoperability".

I can well understand how each vendor would try to create its own "walled
garden", but the whole idea of such "standard" (actually most of the time
"pseudo-standard") associations should be exactly that of contrasting the
single firm attempt to cut out the other vendors in the same area.

~~~
luma
Zigbee interoperability isn't what you might think it is. Think of it like a
layer 1-4 interop, while layer 7 (application layer) can, and in many cases
is, up to the device vendor. That means Zigbee radios in your house can use
each other for mesh networking, but may not actually be able to talk to each
other in any meaningful way. ZLL and then ZHA are intended to address this,
but aren't always widely adopted by device vendors for a bunch of reasons, one
of which might be the "walled garden" you mention.

Solutions like Z-Wave also have a tightly-defined application layer which
allows nearly all devices to have some level of meaningful interaction with
each other. For example, a Z-Wave motion sensor from Vendor A can turn on a
Z-Wave light from Vendor B in response to motion. This was largely possible
due to all Z-Wave radios being made by one organization. There are now
promises of opening the stack a bit so partners can also develop radios, and
it remains to be seen what impact this will have on the interoperability of
Z-Wave devices in the future.

~~~
bkor
If you like tinkering, look into Zigbee2mqtt (=software). It supports loads of
Zigbee devices so you can mix various devices together. Everything you need to
do is pretty well explained.

IMO home automation is currently anything but smart. It's fun if you like to
tinker with things. That'll allow you to get great results. It's still too
cumbersome though for non technical family members. Everything needs to be
made easier by several factors.

~~~
darkwater
Why? Did ever normal people install electric equipment (wires, fusibles,
switches etc) in their homes? The biggest problem here is that most
electricians are not keeping up with the tech and, as always, tech is atill
young and moving too fast. But in most cases you shouldn't worry about zigbee,
z-wave, mqtt etc, you should just tell the electrician what you want to
achieve, the basic workflow and that's it. Then you could customize it if you
are a bit skilled/interested, or call them again (paying a fee).

------
anotherevan
Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I
control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I
can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!

Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a
printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes
an unexpected noise.

[https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-
enthus...](https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthusiasts-
everything-in-my-house-is-wired) (via foxrob92)

~~~
lioeters
It's ironic (contrary to expectation) that those who work in
tech/web/software, myself included, are often wary of adopting new technology
like the Smart Home.

I've used a "dumb phone" for a long time, and only bought a "smart" one due to
work necessity. Even now, I barely use the latter personally, or carry it
around with me, since I know it's basically a spying device for third-party
apps.

I love the concept of the Internet of Things, and have started studying it
deeper as a hobby. If my home is going to be "smart", I want to minimize its
dependencies, to understand how it works, what services it's connecting to,
what data it's sending, and make sure everything is under _my_ control,
repairable and extensible.

Like the HP printers that stop working if they can't phone home (without
informed consent, I'm sure) - or these Charter security devices that will
simply become useless after the company shut down.. I believe the reluctance
on some part of the tech-savvy population is justified, because we/they
understand the risks better than naive tech enthusiasts.

Either that, or, we're getting older and suspicious of new things - but for
good reasons, as our trust has been betrayed countless times by tech
companies.

------
JoeAltmaier
I bought an 'Audrey' years ago - early touchpanel tablet meant for the kitchen
counter. Had three buttons for 'channels' which meant url-for-specially-
formatted-web-page, for news and weather and music.

Almost immediately 3Com discontinued support for those channels. So I thought
"No problem; I'll just go into settings and change the URLs". Nope. No way to
do that.

Early internet stupidity, where some marketing type figured "Capture the
customer to our data stream so we can spam them". So screw the customer.

~~~
lwkl
Couldn‘t you make a business out of supporting abandoned IoT devices. Make a
small server that rewrites DNS requests and URLs so you can serve your own
content to these devices. Or in the case of Zigbee emulate different Zigbee
routers?

~~~
shiftpgdn
I know the chumby devices, and to a lesser extent the Dreamcast have been
given a second life due to people reverse engineering and rewriting DNS
requests. Those were consumer products with a passionate community around them
though.

------
peterwwillis
As painful as it is, I think these cultural lessons are necessary, for a few
reasons.

The first is that people should not buy something just because someone made
promises about it; that's how snake oil sales work. They promise the moon,
take your money, and run. Instead people should think critically, ask
questions, do research. That may mean becoming more technically literate, or
not buying it if they can't understand it. (Is a "smart home" really smart
just because "smart" is in the name? Or is "smart" just another "miracle cure-
all" ?)

And that follows to the second reason: we shouldn't depend too much on
technology that we don't understand or control. If your car breaks and you can
fix it, you don't have a $20,000 paperweight. If your car breaks and only the
manufacturer can fix it, _and_ they go out of business/stop supporting it,
yikes. Not to mention if you're in a bad situation where you need to get
yourself back on the road in a hurry.

But really, all that applies to all parts of your life: being able to read a
map, mail a letter, plant a garden, repair things in your home, cook a meal,
etc. Basic knowledge that I'll bet is becoming rarer with each generation. We
need to encourage people to deeply understand the world around them so they
don't end up as helpless consumers expecting someone else to take care of
them.

------
nicolas_t
Slightly out of topic. I'm actually looking into smart home devices for an
apartment I have that will be rented half of the year on airbnb when I'm not
there. Specifically, I want to be able to control lights, the air conditioner,
the heating and rolling shutters remotely.

I mostly want to do thzt because I want to be able to turn off heating and air
conditioner remotely, but I would also like to have a master button to turn
off all the lights when people live the apartment, a button to turn of lights
on a path to the toilets in the bedroom and an alarm that automatically opens
the shutters in the morning at the scheduled time (always found that waking up
by sunlight is better)

Does anyone here have any recommendation of which devices I can control
directly with something like a raspberry pi that's always on? I've read that
Z-Wave's specifications avoid the Zigbee specifications pitfall that make them
to vendor dependent..

~~~
bonzini
Zigbee lights are generally not vendor dependent. You can buy Ikea lights and
they will interoperate with a Philips hub just fine.

To use a Raspberry Pi as the hub, you can use Home Assistant and a USB or GPIO
Zigbee adapter such as the Conbee or Raspbee. Home Assistant generally
requires a Pi 3. Automations are all defined within Home Assistant so they do
not depend on having homogeneous vendors.

~~~
nicolas_t
Thanks, so I would also need to use zigbee switches everywhere and use zigbee
to turn the lights on and off? Are there any good websites that review zigbee
switches to find which ones are decent...

I usually go to Wire Cutter for this but their specific article is not really
useful since they don't recommend any pure zigbee switch but only proprietary
solutions.

~~~
bonzini
Yes, you would. I am actually working right now on a way to use an ESP8266 or
ESP32 as an interface between dumb switches and Home Assistant (via MQTT), but
it requires substantial rewiring and, being all DIY, is probably not suited
for something that you rent.

For Zigbee switches, depending on your lights it could also be power plugs.
Ikea and Philips are again the easy choices if they sell what you want.
Depending on where you are based you could also find something that fits in
your existing switchboxes.

------
crazygringo
I'd love it if there were legislation requiring products that include an
"online" component to be required to explicitly advertise the minimum number
of years of guaranteed service, and be forced to _prominently_ advertise "0
years" (prominent like cigarette cancer warnings) if it isn't guaranteed.

 _And_ be forced to post a financial bond at a level set by law that will be
forfeited and used to keep the service running (e.g. auctioning to software
companies who will bid to run the service) in case the company decides to
cancel, goes bankrupt, etc. (As long as the company runs it, they get the bond
back at the end of the guarantee.)

Consumers should know they're getting an actual guarantee, or be 100% aware
that there isn't any guarantee at all, so they actually know what they're
buying in advance.

------
tempodox
Without customer protection laws you're left to the whims of your vendor.
Trusting the promises in the sales brochure (or even taking the sales pitch as
a promise) is either courageous or naive.

~~~
Silhouette
Isn't this symptomatic of a much deeper problem with the tech industry today,
though? Consumer protection laws are useful up to a point, but even in places
with relatively strong consumer protections, the problems of closed systems,
ephemeral external dependencies and built-in obsolescence are widespread.
Almost nothing is made to be long-lasting any more. Compatibility and
interoperability are often seen as dirty words that imply loosening the
stranglehold you have on your customers. Standards are great, so we should
have our own because they will be better than everyone else's.

There's an old saying that you can't implement a technological solution to a
social problem. I'm increasingly of the view that this holds the other way
around as well.

Unfortunately, there is a vicious circle here. To support makers of products
that can be repaired and upgraded, and that don't depend on remote facilities
that can disappear but can't be replaced, and that respect user privacy and
control, and that play nicely with other products, we need to buy their stuff.
That stuff is likely to be more expensive up-front, even if it might work out
better and cheaper in the long term, so buyers need to perceive some advantage
to justify the extra cost. But until those buyers have been stung by the
deliberate limitations and user-hostile behaviours of the competing products,
_which typically only happens later_ , they often won't be very aware of the
choices they're really making. They might experience buyer's remorse further
down the line, but by then it's too late. This effect makes it difficult to
compete if you want to offer good quality, future-proof products, which in
turn limits how many people have those products and how many people see that
those products can be advantageous.

~~~
brokenmachine
I'd pay for open stuff... unfortunately there is usually nothing available on
the market but locked-down crap, so I end up going the DIY route.

At least I have fun learning, but it's depressing how ambivalent consumers are
in general.

------
Havoc
That’s why I focused on home assistant and open tech. Walled garden IoT is
madness

~~~
kalleboo
All our ceiling lights, aircon, outlets are IR-controlled.

Then I got generic Chinese IR blasters, and use homebridge to connect it all
over the LAN to Apple HomeKit.

If there is a shift in tech, someone will always be selling new IR blasters
due to the installed base. Worse case, I'll always have the IR remote controls
(or can build something out of an raspberry pi/arduino)

~~~
gog
Friends installed a new IR controlled ceiling light, but it was a little buggy
and kept turning off.

It was using the same IR frequency as one of the buttons on the TV remote :)

~~~
kalleboo
Haha, yeah IR isn't foolproof either. We bought some bottom-of-the-barrel
Chinese humidifier, and it reacted to absolutely anything IR, even sunlight
sometimes.

------
Semaphor
I only hope their customers have learned to never trust another company again
whose devices only work via a connection to their servers and not otherwise.

My Zigbee (Hue) lights are controlled with ZWave switches and nothing changes
when I have no internet or Phillips or whoever ends up dead. The only thing
that needs an internet connection currently is the voice control, but I have
plans to change that as well. Everything is connected with an rPi 3 running
home assistant.

~~~
cschneid
I have a similar setup. I really appreciate that Hue bulbs are standard Zigbee
bubls, then with a layer of fancy Phillips UI on top. If Phillips ever go
away, easy to replace with a different UI, and direct control.

User friendly, and not tied to specific vendor.

------
syshum
It is amusing and sad to me that person is going to "spend thousands more to
get a Ring system"

So you have already been burned by 1 cloud service, so you want to get burned
again? As there is nothing to day Amazon will not shutdown the Ring service at
some point

Self Host or nothing for me

------
wffurr
Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous to
pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards (due to heat, tin whiskers,
etc.) which are no longer made by their manufacturers. Or a small plastic part
breaking which is similarly no longer available.

It's just another step in the long sordid history of intentional or not
planned obsolescence.

Maybe it seems more egregious because of the rate it happens at and that the
company has to _turn off_ a service by unplugging the servers.

Ultimately, regardless of cloud features or not, you want to buy things that
are durable and repairable, whether that's self hosting a new cloud service or
fabricating a new metal part.

~~~
avian
> Smart home cloud services disappearing and bricking devices seems analogous
> to pre-Internet devices losing their circuit boards

There used to be an electronic repair shop in every neighborhood. These were
small businesses that would be able to diagnose and repair faults in random
electronic devices.

I wonder if at one point this problem of cloud services disappearing will
become widespread enough that we'll start to see businesses that will take
your bricked device, flash their own firmware to it and provide their own,
generalized cloud service as a replacement.

Obviously reverse engineering each device and making a custom firmware would
be a large initial investment, but maybe at a point where just about every
trivial thing will depend on a network service it would be economically
feasible.

~~~
wojciii
This will not work if the bootloader on your device does not allow upgrading
unsigned firmware and would take some laws prohibiting this behaviour to be in
place.

~~~
IntelMiner
One of the greatest faults of Linux was sticking to the GPLv2, GPLv3 actively
sought to deny "tivoization" as they called it, as Tivo used Linux and
provided the code, but required signed software to boot, rendering the access
to the code effectively pointless

~~~
eitland
Considering you think Linux has several great faults I think it has done
incredibly well.

This might come across as a bit snarky but have you considered that vendors
has other options besides Linux?

The alternative to

\- having the source code but not being able to install a modified version on
your device

might very well be

\- not having the source code at all (since it is written with a proprietary
os)

Now at least we have the source code in case someone wants to create a similar
system.

------
joering2
I'm not surprised by this ridiculous and bold move by Spectrum. Where I live
they have monopoly and my bill is going up 100% every year. I'm not kidding.
Upon inquiry, they lie that you had limited contract with Brighthouse signed
and now the promotion is over so they can be rising it up. The only way to
stop that is to kill your cable for at least 90 days, then apply for the new
one with their current discounts that supposedly doesn't expire. If you think
I'm singled out, there has been lots of upset about how Spectrum conducts
itself but without class-action lawsuit, nothing will happen.

[https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-
incre...](https://www.allconnect.com/blog/another-spectrum-price-increase-
duplicate)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/8zyqlt/spectrum_jacked_up_my_internet_bill_from_45_to_65/)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-
cab...](https://www.businessinsider.com/spectrum-twc-time-warner-cable-
billing-practices-unpredictable-2017-5)

------
keiferski
The old joke seems relevant here:

 _" I like escalators, because an escalator can never break; it can only
become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order
sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience."_

\- Mitch Hedberg

As much as possible, smart tech should be operable mechanically. This seems
fairly easy to do with electrical things like light switches.

~~~
Nullabillity
Stockholm recently had to shut down a huge new train station for months,
because it turned out that the escalators would break down and start going in
reverse.

~~~
Dylan16807
"in reverse" is a bit of an understatement for freefall.

Freefall is just as bad for the escalator that's _supposed_ to be going down.

~~~
jacobwilliamroy
Oh wow. I had no idea that was even a thing. That's terrifying.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0xwAYv6KKY)

------
loopz
I've yet to encounter any "smart" device or software I can tolerate, except
possibly for SMART HDDs.

Just provide _sane defaults_ , manual workarounds and opt-in for any more
dependencies and complexity.

~~~
jacobush
What's smart hdd?

~~~
xiljin
Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology for HDDs -

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T).

------
yardie
I’ve been a user of HA ever since I got a X10 firecracker plugged into my
Slackware server under my dorm room bed. I’ve hated that they’ve turned HA
into a service. A lot of these cloud HA companies are going with the cheap
razors, expensive razor blades business model. And when things don’t work out
leave you will with a pile of expensive broke equipment.

~~~
andybak
I'm sure it will be blindingly obvious in hindsight but I don't know what "HA"
stands for.

"Home Appliance"?

~~~
jlgaddis
Home Assistant: [https://www.home-assistant.io](https://www.home-assistant.io)

> _Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
> Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect
> to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server._

------
nyrosis
It's things like this that companies do that should really make one consider
setting up their own simple NVR system. It's really nice being able to manage
and upgrade your own system this way. Even when you feel like upgrading you
still have all your cat6 infrastructure in place.

~~~
pcdoodle
I fully agree, blue iris is a great example of a product updated for over 10
years.

------
guptaneil
The upcoming wave of IoT products will all be local-first because too many
users (and thus founders) have been burned by the old cloud-addicted products
that literally die when their supply is cut off.

In the meantime, just say no to cloud-only products!

------
aSplash0fDerp
Cloud is dead.

Games stop working, lifelong memories are erased (yahoo groups,photo sites),
watches stop being smart (pebble) and even smarthomes become a complete waste
of an investment.

Bare-metal will always be sexy (and higher maintenance), but prosumer tech is
not there yet to fill-in all the gaps in smarthomes.

IMO, once we start seeing inexpensive 10TB-100TB home storage appliances,
we'll start to see more tech engineered for decade+ operations.

Over 99% of tech is disposible. Just the data is carried over, so you're lucky
if you get 5 years use out of any device nowadays. 10 years is pushing it,
even for smarthomes.

~~~
swiley
The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s
always left on. As much as I dislike apple, their Apple TV might be one of the
things that pushes everyone in the direction of owning their IOT network.

There’s also (IMO) a serious lack of open source tools for managing IOT
devices. Right now a lot of the cheaper ones speak PnPP but there’s only one
functional client I was able to find for this (a buggy and obscure GTK app.)
There are a lot of good libraries though so maybe that will change.

~~~
the8472
> The problem is that normal people no longer have a machine at home that’s
> always left on.

They do, their router. The better models are half a home server anyway. They
have wifi, USB for storage, do voip, have direct internet access (no NAT
issues!). They would be an ideal platform for home automation.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Except that they usually don't own it, they rent it from the ISP.

I think the concept of home server - some box you buy separately from Internet
connection - is a concept that needs more marketing, until it becomes
normalized.

~~~
mrr54
No they rent the _modem_ from their ISP.

~~~
TeMPOraL
IME, it's typically an integrated router and cable modem.

------
DoubleGlazing
I've had the same happen to Wifi plugs bought as recently as three years ago.
They all seem to use different (buggy) apps and route the signal to the plug
through some obscure website (usually in China). Of course these sites and
domains will go down from time to time. Plus, they all use different,
undocumented protocols so homebrewing a new controller app is a no-no.

Lesson learned, I now carefully research any smart home stuff I buy now to
make sure it has an accessible API I can use if the cloud stuff goes down.

------
tomaszs
The thing is, in such circumstances, a law should allow a judge to order to
open source all software and protocols to the public.

You want to sink a ship? Cool. But we are taking what we paid for with us.

------
alkonaut
Any home relies on some external service to function at all was dumb to begin
with. People need to stop buying these gadget/service combination things.

------
cmurf
Has anyone looked at Fedora IoT? They're trying to make updates for this class
of device easier.
[https://iot.fedoraproject.org/](https://iot.fedoraproject.org/)

That doesn't itself solve, or prevent, the problem of abandoned products. But
I wonder to what degree making updates easier and more reliably deployed would
help.

------
bsenftner
They are really going out of their way to not say that any IP camera is any IP
camera - it does not matter that their "security hub" is zigbee, the cameras
are IP protocol and any Internet video streaming software will connect and
stream these camera's video quite well. Just get the FOSS iSpy app on your
home network and you're operational, locally.

------
trekrich
maybe there is a case to not have all this smart cack in your homes. The
amount of e-waste that is going to be made, because its not the latest and
greatest product/service is enoourmous. Not everything needs to be smart and
connected to the internet.

------
unstatusthequo
This is why you might consider getting services from companies where the
service is their core, rather than home security from a media company. Lower
risk of them deciding “oh, that junk we tried isn’t making enough money, let’s
kill it off.”

------
intopieces
Spectrum partnered with Ring and Abode to transition the customers - they were
offered free equipment with the purchase of 1 year monitoring. Glad that
customers got to choose between systems and weren't just left to one.

------
daniel-thompson
> A big question is why there's no way for Charter customers to keep using
> these devices, given that they rely on the Zigbee specification that allows
> multi-vendor interoperability for smart-home products. Why can't Charter
> customers connect their security devices to a Zigbee-enabled smart-home hub
> or use them with another alarm-monitoring service that supports Zigbee? One
> user on DSLReports pointed out that years ago, Spectrum devices "were
> firmware coded to prevent them from being seen and usable within the normal
> universe of Zigbee devices."

I imagine this was a pretty short conversation between the engineers and PM:

\- Engineers "Why do we have to lock them down? There's no technical reason to
do this to our customers."

\- PM "Because fuck em, that's why."

~~~
VLM
More realistically how it works in giant mega-corporations is a contractual
arrangement with another company works until it doesn't, and after the
contract is no longer in force... well... its all over.

There's a subgenre of the above where mega-corporations set up and later
dissolve an entire department. So any employee who could unlock those devices
was probably downsized months or even years ago when the project was
internally cancelled and the shutdown was planned. First, fire the engineers
because we're cancelling so no possibility of R+D, whoopsie that means no
possibility of unlocking, oh well.

------
bengale
Pretty sure in the UK you're covered for 6 years if this happens. The retailer
will have to refund the purchase if this happens.

------
m3kw9
Is good they have stuff like HomeKit or works with google, probably your best
bet

~~~
layoutIfNeeded
Ah yes, Google. Indeed the finest example of long term support for legacy
products!

------
jsilence
Delock recently released a smart plug pre installed with Tasmota. Way to go!

------
nitrogen
As someone who tried to create a company that produced smart home tech that
didn't even have the ability to phone home, this is why we can't have nice
things.

About ten years ago the market was perfect for a smart home renaissance.
Hardware was becoming cheap enough and powerful enough that your average
bootstrapping solo founder could start a business with off the shelf
components. Everything was in place for the old guard of laggy and clunky
consumer tech to become fast, efficient, and offline.

But giant corporations and VCs smell an opportunity like a shark smells blood
in the water. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon with a creeping sludge of
inferior offerings, smothering the ecosystem. Only the billion dollar
surveillance capitalists can penetrate the toxic market pollution and reach
consumers.

And so, while you may have a handful of niche/maker products that hang on, the
consumer is led to believe that everything is an Internet of Shit. And this is
why we can't have nice things.

------
ada1981
I was hoping to see someone post a DIY hack to get these working...

~~~
_eLRIC
You can always try with a zigate ([https://zigate.fr](https://zigate.fr)),
still, it won't change the fact that some manufacturers do interpret the
protocol in their own ways ...

------
dwighttk
The real dumb homes were the ones we made along the way

------
sbdsbdsbd
Nura, a young Australian company that sells smart headphones, blocked my pair
in a vain way to circumvent banking agreements in case of fraud. They are
mixing their terms of use with their terms of sell and reserve the right to
brick your device anytime they want: in other words they reserve the right to
ban you from their service (which in fact is a calibration service) but do it
in in such a way they basically trash your property rights away.

My comment was too long, so I just dumped it on pastebin:

[https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS](https://pastebin.com/2VV605BS)

