Slashdot Mirror
Led By Nest, 'Thread' Might Be Most Promising IoT Initiative Yet
An anonymous reader writes Nest, Big A%@ Fans, Yale door locks, ARM, Freescale, Samsung and Silicon Labs launch the Thread Group, a standards initiative for using 6LoWPAN-based network technology with mesh capabilities optimized for home automation. Because it blends IPv6 with low-power 802.15.4 radios, a layer of security, peer-to-peer communications, and other special sauce for whole-house connectivity, Thread looks extremely promising in an increasingly crowded field. Plus, millions of units of enabled products are already deployed by way of Nest's little-known Weave technology.
There's a press release. Thread is based on open technology, but it's not clear that the protocol specifications will be available for non-members. No hardware changes are required for devices with 802.15.4 radios, and the group claims the new protocol fixes enough flaws in existing standards (mostly ZigBee) to be worth the software upgrade. Promises include increased reliability (mesh network with multiple routing points), lower power use (by not requiring sensors to wake up for traffic from other sensors), and easier bridging between the mesh network and Internet (thanks to using IPv6).
Would someone like to translate the summary into english?
" and other special sauce "
Is this open sauce or propriety like whats on KFC
Seriously? There is a business called 'Big Ass Fans'?
I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
The 'insecure-device-to-internet-attachment-protocol' field is crowded with nominally standard and/or standards-based flavors, generally not the sort that play well together, each with its own acronym soup, optimistic vender coalition, and lofty promises. Does this one have anything going for it aside from the installed base of Nest thermostats?
One protocol to supervise them all, One mesh to find them
One protocol to bring them in, and in the darkness bind them.
In Mountain View, where the Shadows lie.
(Hey, sorry. It's early.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm all for automation and I think it looks promising.
What I don't want to see are solutions that are dependent on outside resources (for example SIRI on the iPhone, it has to use a connected server to do what it does), I prefer to see solutions that are autonomous, inclusive and complete without the need for Internet or an outside server (unless you choose to do so)
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
This isnt an article summary, its a cry for help. Clearly op is choking on a viscous combination of scrabble letters and entropy from /dev/random
also...its Slashdot. im fairly certain the word "Ass" is probably the most welcoming explitive most of us will have the privilege of experiencing this afternoon.
Good people go to bed earlier.
http://xkcd.com/927/
You won't be networking everything in it. Period.
The press release and the website talk about banking class security, and things like Thread closes identified security holes found in other wireless protocols and provides worry-free operation.. But what I see is that every product in this wireless mesh network is a potential point of access from outside, and must be up-dateable if you are going to maintain a current "best practices" of threat mediation - which IMHO is going to be a security maintenance nightmare. So what am I missing?
And that's not even considering things like a DOS attack by firing a high-powered radio signal at your target.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
So secure. Wow!
Whole house connectivity - what am over complication of a simple problem.
I have light switches, a programmable thermostat that sets the heating or cooling based on time of day and I can overrride the program at any time.
When I worked wharehouses, they had the same things and at night we just turned off the circuit breakers and shut everything down.
Nice simple and very effective.
Looking at this technology, it looks very complex and prone to bugs, errors, and a large learning curve - to have a computer casically turn off a switch. And allows Big Ass Fans et al. to charge more for an otherwise low tech product(s).
And of course, this technology also uses electricity and I think it's a bit of a wash at best to have a server running to control all of this stuff in order to save energy.
We have this technology and folks are trying to use it because they can and because it adds to their margins. It also makes the product flakier. For example, all these computers are being put into devices that did quite well without them in order to make an old thing look new and add to the margins. It's getting near impossible to get a car that doesn't have all these touch screens and ridiculous buggy expensive electronics that add nothing to functionality.
Ranges - like cooking ranges - and other appliances have the same issue. What once was a reliable product is now a buggy POS that requires service people to come out and replace boards until it works again - only to have the board go out. And when the warranty is up, those boards go for $200 (even though they're made in China for $5).
And the more electronic shit we put into stuff, the more energy it uses.
Now we're into Jevon's Paradox.
All your bases are belong to us !!
http://xkcd.com/927/
I use UPB (kinda like X10 v2). It's still wired, but every device serves as a repeater, so signal strength shouldn't be an issue. It's pretty easy to program (I had an app turning lights on and off in about an hour).
The "Internet of Things" is a giant clusterfuck of proprietary "standards" that change with almost every hardware generation, and devices that talks to outside servers whether you want them to or not. It makes home entertainment remotes look good in comparison. I for one won't be buying any of this stuff until that's sorted out.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
"He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake,
he knows when you will leave the house, so make sure your jewels are fake."
Google Claws already has your data - no need to "access from outside"
Nest sends it to the server at home cloudbase so the server can crunch the data to tell Nest what to do.
Just one bad elf out of the list with access to that data, and it will be sold to grinches everywhere.
Oh and that list includes Google as well as NSA elves.
what's wrong with ZigBee? It already has mesh, routing, and has been in active use for a decade now. This sounds like an Embrace, Extended, & Extinguish.
The company is called Big Ass Fans. We are grownups here.
if the NSA wants to come into my home they can knock on the door and hope not to get shot like everyone else.
anything google touches is immediately poisoned.
I hope they use compiled Forth running in light-weight processes, so that they will be implementing Thread with multi-threaded threaded code.
Oh flip you muddy funster !
The nice thing about a LoWPAN network is that it can effectively stay up forever within its confined area. The problem with it is that it can go rogue if it comes in contact with a green-eyed girl, and it is quite susceptible to attacks from wisecracking truckers, and any hacker with access to a seven-demon bag.