Consumers Are Holding Off On Buying Smart-Home Gadgets Due To Security, Privacy Fears (businessinsider.com)

According to a new survey from consulting firm Deloitte, consumers are uneasy about being watched, listened to, or tracked by devices they place in their homes. The firm found that consumer interest in connected home technology lags behind their interest in other types of IoT devices. Business Insider reports: "Consumers are more open to, and interested in, the connected world," the firm said in its report. Noting the concerns about smart home devices, it added: "But not all IoT is created equal." Nearly 40% of those who participated in the survey said they were concerned about connected-home devices tracking their usage. More than 40% said they were worried that such gadgets would expose too much about their daily lives. Meanwhile, the vast majority of consumers think gadget makers weren't doing a good job of telling them about security risks. Fewer than 20% of survey respondents said they were very well informed about such risks and almost 40% said they weren't informed at all.

Comments

Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean it's not because they're not really, you know, that useful?

Pretty much every home automation gadget I have seen so far is just another take on the 'fixing something that ain't broke' rule.

Re:Oh really?

[TheRaven64]

I suspect it's a mixture of several reasons. In no particular order:

• Complexity implies unreliability. Something with a simple mechanical switch is likely to be (or, at least, perceived to be likely to be) more durable than something with a microprocessor, a smartphone app, and some cloudy things.
• Most 'home automation things are not actually useful.
• They're all big on vendor lock-in. This means that you're screwed if the vendor goes out of business, but it also means that devices from different vendors don't play nice together. People don't actually want to have 20 apps installed on their phones to control different aspects of their homes.
• They're getting a reputation for poor security - who wants their home to advertise to potential burglars that they're going to be out for the next few hours?
• Even when they have decent security, that just means that unauthorised people won't get the data, it doesn't mean that the vendor won't be spying on you and selling info about the inside of your house.
• Even the useful things are very expensive both in relation to build costs and to utility.
• They're so very hipster that if you don't live in the Bay Area you'd be deeply embarrassed if any of your friends saw that you owned one.

Re: Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it's not security and privacy fears. It's security and privacy ISSUES. I love how these articles all make refusal to adopt subscription money sucking, poorly engineered, planned obsolete data collecting trash as somehow being an issue of fear. It's an issue of rational thought.

Re:Oh really?

[murdocj]

Hard to believe it's not more durable. The light switches in my house were there 40 years ago. You think a "smart switch" would work 40 years from now?

Re:Oh really?

[aaarrrgggh]

Lighting control, security, and whole house audio are areas where it clearly is valuable; whole house TV/watch anywhere is likely not as much of a "killer app." My wife and I love having all the disparate lights go on at set schedules and based on it sensing motion. It is nice to have Sonos start up when we turn on the kitchen lights, and unmute the bedroom speakers a few minutes after the lights go on. It is nice having the Christmas lights come on both in the early morning and evening, but shutting off late night so our neighbors don't lose the spirit.

What isn't nice today is programming that. I have a mix of Insteon, Hue, Sonos, and a few other random things pulled together by a Universal Devices ISY-994i and a Beaglebone. For the life of me, I can't figure out why one lighting state changes on the Hue strips at 6:23AM. It sucks needing to get another component (IR Blaster) to be able to fully control some of the fake candles and laser projector.

But, I sure as hell don't want Alexa/Google to be listening (or watching) all the time to try to figure out what I am wanting to do. I'll program and hard wire crap to avoid that.

Re:Oh really?

[aaarrrgggh]

Generally agree with your points; home automation components likely max out around a 12-year life, and one little component breaking can be quite a pain.

However, vendor lock-in is generally only an issue with the simplest of setups. With a ~$300 controller (plus $50 power line modem) I can manage insteon, zigbee, IR, and any network accessible resource for control at a minimum. Status can be a little more tricky, or require extra components.

A year ago, it took a reasonably tech savvy person to do it. A decade ago, it required a five-figure Crestron controller and integration tomdo the same things. Today, as long as you don't give a shit about privacy it is a breeze.

Re:Oh really?

[nctritech]

What bothers me about them is that most of these "smart" things don't work without the vendor actively allowing it and don't work without being connected to the damned internet all the time. If the vendor stops supporting it or goes out of business...it's a very expensive pile of bricks. There is no value to me in buying stuff like that and modifying my house to accept it all when I can't guarantee it'll be functional in even 5 years! It's not a cell phone; you can't just go out and buy another smart home system and install it in five minutes. Plus, what happens when it breaks down or stops working? Do you lose the ability to use the smart things in a stupid way, i.e. are you now locked out of your house?

Re:Oh really?

[GuB-42]

For me, the lack of a real standard is the big thing that plagued home automation for decades. They should have learned their lessons by now, but no...

I considered it a I was working on my house a few years ago. I had to completely overhaul the wiring, lighting, heating, A/C etc... so I looked into it since it was almost a clean slate. And guess what, I found absolutely nothing satisfying.
First problem is the price : a standard, good quality name brand light switch is around $10, its smart counterpart is maybe $50. Do this for all the small things and it adds up to thousands. Not a deal breaker but enough to seriously consider the value of such a system.
Second is the lack of choice. To continue with the light switch, my local DIY store has plenty of light switches of various designs, the smart light switch is only available online an only has a single design.
Third is compatibility : now that I found the overpriced smart light switch and smart light bulb that fits my need, turns out that they are not compatible. There may be shims and gateways that can make them understand each other but at that point, I have already given up.
Fourth is the lack of long term guarantee : this is for my house, not for a smartphone. I expect my system to last for at least 10 years, and hope for 20 or 30. This kind of work is quite an investment and I want it to last. Systems that stop working after 3 years? No thanks.

The system that grabbed my attention the most is KNX : it's an ISO standard and it's robust but it is too expensive and it is not the kind of stuff you find everywhere.

Re:Oh really?

[jhecht]

I tried one "smart" wireless replacement switch and it lasted maybe four years. Then I had to replace it -- and have the electrician climb into the attic to replace the the controller on the light fixture because the maker of the first one went out of business. That one lasted a year or two, and the replacement didn't work. I finally figured out it had been miswired, but that requires bringing in the electrician yet again.

Re:Oh really?

[vtcodger]

The biggest problem I've seen is that gizmos that might actually be good for something generally have user interfaces that are horrible beyond belief. The multitude of simple mechanical devices in a modern household -- can openers, thermostats, light switches, etc have evolved over decades or centuries into simple forms that are comprehensible and easy to use. Their digital replacements often are strange beyond belief.

Re:Oh really?

[omnichad]

So concerned with vendor lock in that they forget about long-term customer lock-in. You can't make someone think about their home the way they think about "disposable" tech. The lack of interoperability is number 1. Number 2 is the external dependency on a server to do basic control functions - and that server will go away before the device fails.

I want it to connect to my own home hub or server for the same reason I prefer Blu-Ray over "digital copies." I am in control of when it goes away.

Re: Oh really?

[omnichad]

adopt subscription money sucking

Like Echo/Alexa requiring a "music storage" service to hold your music somewhere outside of your home just to charge money to stream it back to you. Google gives you reasonable amounts of external storage, but then won't let you connect a nice external amp/speaker to their voice control system.

Re:Oh really?

[omnichad]

Blu-Ray copy protection is permanently broken for all the discs I own. And that's enough for me. If I stop being able to rip them, I stop buying them. I hate dealing with physical discs and copy them to a media server anyway.

Re:Oh really?

[Tintivilus]

I have about 40 SmartHome-brand Insteon switches in my house. Every year one or two of them crap out and need to be replaced at $50 a pop and an hour of tinkering with wiring and controller programming.

Automation can be useful but I'm not sure if it's useful enough to justify the continuing maintenance overhead.

Security

[inking]

Are you sure it’s not the fact that a smart valve controlling how much hot water comes into your heating costs several hundred dollars whereas a non-smart one costs a bit more than a coffee?

Re:Security

[murdocj]

That's subtle.
What was that quote "a liberal is someone who reaches into your shower to turn the water down because they say you're using to much hot water."

I think the quote is "a conservative is someone who charges you 10x what hot water costs because you don't deserve hot water"

Re:Security

[AmiMoJo]

Here is a link to the actual report: https://www2.deloitte.com/cont...

Reading it, they say that consumers do actually understand that companies (ab)use their personal data and share it with third parties. They also say that 91% are willing to accept legal terms when using apps, web sites and wifi without bothering to read them. Most importantly, since there is no real choice (everything has an EULA, all of them are impenetrable legalese) consumers don't see that as a barrier to ownership, just an inherent part of the technology.

So actually the summary of this report seems to be saying the opposite of what the report does. Consumers are not put off at all by privacy violations, they just accept that if they want that tech they have little choice.

Smartphones are no better...

[infolation]

Smartphones are no better... but their privacy-undermining technologies are not explained in simple language to consumers.

The 'Smart-Home Gadget' explicitly advertises its privacy invasive status, whereas the camera-and-microphone-equipped smartphone device they carry everywhere they go (and sleep with in their bed) has apps installed with equally privacy invasive permissions and features.

When I read 1984 as a child, Winston had to sit in an alcove, unseen by the telescreen, to write his diary. I was bought up to find the concept of the telescreen abhorrent.

Re:Smartphones are no better...

[geekmux]

Smartphones are no better... but their privacy-undermining technologies are not explained in simple language to consumers.

They're explained to consumers every time a data store gets hacked.

They're explained to consumers every time a "bug" exposes data.

They're explained to consumers every time a vulnerability is exploited on their perpetually unpatched hardware.

Sorry, but I'm fucking done with the excuse that consumers somehow don't know. They know. They just don't care. Security is not worth the hassle to the masses.

Re:Smartphones are no better...

[Baron_Yam]

> They know. They just don't care. Security is not worth the hassle to the masses.

For many, a smart phone has become a necessity. Of course it ISN'T, but it's thought of as one. It's certainly convenient to always have your phone, email, various social networking apps, some games, and a web browser on your person at all times.

The average person is also not a techie. A smart phone isn't a computer running various programs of various origins to them. It's just a thing that does stuff. A black box.

Re:Smartphones are no better...

[Zocalo]

The average person is also not a techie.

Actually, I don't think "being a techie" makes much difference either. Think about how many who are technically competent, including those that actually have an idea of what is going on and the capabilities of big data, still continue to use the services of Facebook, Google, and so on, despite the now almost weekly stories highlighting just how easy it is for companies to make connections and draw conclusions that at first seem to be impossible. Technical knowledge is almost certainly a major factor in why people eventually decide to opt-out (or try to), but it apparently has no bearing on why people keep voluntarily throwing their often highly personal data at all sorts of companies, as opposed to situations like Equifax, where they probably didn't even get a say in the matter. That willingness seems like it's mostly down to a combination of two things: apathy, in that they know but it's too much effort to change, or contentment, in that they've accepted the trade-off as they understand it (almost certainly poorly, regardless of technical aptitude) and don't see any need to even look for an alternative approach.

Re:And they learned this from Facebook!

[Z00L00K]

I did learn this in the 80's - from Max Headroom.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Too expensive, no reliability, not enough upside

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who would ponder a smart gadget to save money, probably are smart enough to embrace the myriad of cheaper heating/cooling/whatever strategies that save more. I mean, does a smart thermostat dial that learns your routine, an extremely simple algorithm, really deserve to be a couple hundred bucks compared to a $20 one that can be programmed? All it has going for it is being pretty and slightly more convenient but the few times it's better is not going to make up the difference to most people. It's not like its designers had to design something complex like a new 3d engine for the latest batch of video games.

On top of that, switches are plain reliable. I've been in houses where 115 year old light switches (and wires) were still operating. Basic switchs cost around $1 or something today. I've had ceiling fans still work after 40 years, still on a basic switch, with a dangling yank cables operating the light and fan speed operation. Otoh, I've seen fans where $30 smart switches, controlling all operations from the light switch box, are broken after a measley 5 years and often unavailable since the model is updated or manufacturer just gone. Replacing an entire ceiling fan (or 2 or 3) is hours of aggravating physical work with ladders no smart switch is worth, no matter the few second conveniences it provides.

Re:Current state of problems with IoT

[jonwil]

I don't get why manufacturers are so reluctant to provide even the most basic security on these things. There is no reason why these bluetooth "smart locks" (for example) couldn't implement decent authentication/encryption on the things except that the manufacturer wants to save the 1c/device (multiplied by x number of devices) it would cost to pay a few programmers to actually implement decent security (heck, they wouldn't need to reinvent the wheel when the open source community has already done it and they can just grab an off-the-shelf library to do most of the work for them)

Smart people

[gweihir]

Buying smart-home devices at this time would be really dumb. They are insecure, unreliable and overpriced. The only thing they will do for you is cause problems.

Re:Smart people

[vtcodger]

I've been told that after years of practice and exercise, certain monks can develop the discipline to type their occasional weight measurements directly into a spreadsheet.

Not practical for normal human beings of course.

As I've said a dozen times already...

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've no interest whatsoever in coming come to a burnt-out shell that used to be my apartment because some script kiddy wants to show off his 1337 5k111z on my "smart" oven. None.

oh yeah, everybody wants one

[FudRucker]

who wants an "always listening" microphone connected to a for-profit corporation sitting on their desk listening to EVERYTHING, every idle thought spoken out loud, every private conversation between two people be it, spouses, lovers, friends, business partners, siblings, etc.. all to be commoditized and used to advertise to you or sold to who knows what

fuck that, amazon, google and microsoft can go to hell because i refuse to consent to that

Re:oh yeah, everybody wants one

[geekmux]

who wants an "always listening" microphone connected to a for-profit corporation sitting on their desk listening to EVERYTHING, every idle thought spoken out loud, every private conversation between two people be it, spouses, lovers, friends, business partners, siblings, etc.. all to be commoditized and used to advertise to you or sold to who knows what

Based on the number of "always listening" devices sold to date, I'd say millions of people do.

fuck that, amazon, google and microsoft can go to hell because i refuse to consent to that

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft no longer give a fuck what you think. Refuse all you want. You and the other 1% of consumers will be ignored.

Not good enough...

[XSportSeeker]

Considering every breach, hack and leak that has already happened, and how much the tech industry is trying to push these spying devices into peoples' lives, 40% is still far from being good enough. The average consumer should be fighting back this trend of smart assistants and IoT devices like it was some sort of pandemic.

dongles

[fluffernutter]

I bought a ZWave switch and dongle once during the Windows 98 days. Played with it a bit, but didn't really work very well. Needed the dongle in a specific place in the house to contact the switch or get another couple hundred dollar station. The next time I decided to pull it out ant play with it I was on Windows 7 and there was no compatible driver for the dongle. So I thought to myself, do I really need this switch to work this badly that I will want to buy a new dongle with every new OS? The answer was no so I gave up on home automation at that point.