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

Posted by BeauHD on from the open-minded dept.

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.

10 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Oh really? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re: Oh really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Oh really? by murdocj · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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?

    4. Re:Oh really? by nctritech · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    5. Re:Oh really? by GuB-42 · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

  2. Security by inking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  3. Smartphones are no better... by infolation · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Smartphones are no better... by geekmux · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion