Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Can You Have A Smart Home That's Not 'In The Cloud'?
With the announcement of Google Home on Wednesday, one anonymous Slashdot reader asks a timely question about cloud-based "remote control" services that feed information on your activities into someone else's advertising system:
In principle, this should not be the case, but it is in practice. So how hard is it, really, to do 'home automation' without sending all your data to Google, Samsung, or whoever -- just keep it to yourself and share only what you want to share?
How hard would it be, for instance, to hack a Nest thermostat so it talks to a home server rather than Google? Or is there something already out there that would do the same thing as a Nest but without 'the cloud' as part of the requirement? Yes, a standard programmable thermostat does 90% of what a Nest does, but there are certain things that it won't do like respond to your comings and goings at odd hours, or be remotely switchable to a different mode (VPN to your own server from your phone and deal with it locally, perhaps?) Fundamentally, is there a way to get the convenience and not expose my entire life and home to unknown actors who by definition (read the terms of service) do not have my best interest in mind?
Yesterday one tech company asked its readers, "What company do you trust most to always be listening inside your home?" The winner was "nobody", with 63% of the votes -- followed by Google with 16%, and Apple with 13%. (Microsoft scored just 3%, while Amazon scored 2%.) So share your alternatives in the comments. What's the best way to set up home automation without sending data into the cloud?
How hard would it be, for instance, to hack a Nest thermostat so it talks to a home server rather than Google? Or is there something already out there that would do the same thing as a Nest but without 'the cloud' as part of the requirement? Yes, a standard programmable thermostat does 90% of what a Nest does, but there are certain things that it won't do like respond to your comings and goings at odd hours, or be remotely switchable to a different mode (VPN to your own server from your phone and deal with it locally, perhaps?) Fundamentally, is there a way to get the convenience and not expose my entire life and home to unknown actors who by definition (read the terms of service) do not have my best interest in mind?
Yesterday one tech company asked its readers, "What company do you trust most to always be listening inside your home?" The winner was "nobody", with 63% of the votes -- followed by Google with 16%, and Apple with 13%. (Microsoft scored just 3%, while Amazon scored 2%.) So share your alternatives in the comments. What's the best way to set up home automation without sending data into the cloud?
B-but can the cloud be very small; on your own server in your own home?
I can't say about using proprietary, premade devices like Nest, but if you're willing to use Arduinos/ESP8266/whatnot and do a bit of programming you can use an OpenWRT-based router to run an MQTT-broker, or you can use a separate device like e.g. a Raspberry Pi for that and then Arduino/ESP8266/whatever for toggling of relays or logging power-consumption or temperatures or whatever you want automated. You don't actually have to connect any of the stuff to the Internet at all, or you can use an MQTT-client over an SSH-tunnel, or write your own front-end using Apache2 and PHP or a billion different other ways if you want it reachable from the Internet, too -- you have full control over what can and what can't be done over the Internet or if any of it can be accessed from the Internet at all.
This is, however, obviously the hard, DIY way of doing it. If you want an easy plug-and-pray system I have no idea if there even exists anything that doesn't share your stuff with 3rd parties. I, not-so-surprisingly, am in favour of the hard way that doesn't share everything with random, greedy 3rd-parties.
Since this "smart" home stuff began to emerge, I've always wondered what the great thing about it was. I personally do not mind having to leave the chair to turn on the lights, or having to carry physical keys with me to unlock the door. Nor do I mind having a "dumb" fridge where I have to think of the stuff to buy myself.
As a proper slashdotter, I spend a big chunk of my time in front of a screen, so I'm no way non-digital. Still I don't see any benefits in a "smart" home.
B-but can the cloud be very small; on your own server in your own home?
Not unless you want to spend a lot of money, and hundreds of hours of your own time.
Look, the economics of this is simple: By producing data that can be monitized, the cloud companies can reduce the up-front price. Most people go with the cheapest option. This reduces costs even more, since NRE can be spread over more units. It would be very difficult for a non-cloud company to compete with that. People that care about their privacy, and are willing to pay extra to protect it, are a niche market.
My home automation system uses an Amazon Echo and a Samsung SmartThings hub. The Echo is cloud based. I would prefer a non-cloud solution, but to be honest, I would not be willing to pay much more for it. I don't really care that much if Amazon knows what time I turn off the lights.
That's bullshit. Speech recognition was at like 97% or so for years before people had always on connections. And it gets even easier if you're dealing with commands and have people using fixed commands. Sort of like what Google does with OK Google. If you add House Activate or something similar before the command, then the system just has to see if what you said matches a known command.
The only thing that's at all tricky about it is setting it up so that it doesn't activate in response to the TV or radio.