Home automation thread

[kscarrol]

Yeah, I view door locks are like wheel locks. They will deter a lesser thief but a determined criminal will not be stopped by either...

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by kscarrol

Yeah, I view door locks are like wheel locks. They will deter a lesser thief but a determined criminal will not be stopped by either...

That is why I say locks are more about convenience than ACTUAL security. Same with M_sixs comment. They are there to deter unmotivated thieves, else you'd be sacrificing a lot of convenience. And most people are good, and most thieves are opportunists.

In my hood we had a rash of thefts but it was teens literally going up to cars and pulling on the door handles, finding unlocked cars and rifling through them. One guys car got stolen because he left his car outside with the damned keyfob in it. The moment people stopped doing that all of the thefts stopped.

And this idiotic fantasy that, somehow, someone is going to come HACK your home, is some movie BS. Unless you're holding on to something worth millions dudes aren't doing the planning, taking the risk and executing Oceans 11 on your shit. Its teens or crackheads smashing in windows, rifling, through some shit and running away.

As far as it being spyware, same thing. Unless you have national secrets, are paris hilton, or something of the like you benefit from "security by obscurity." AKA get over yourself, nobody gives enough of a shit about YOU.

And if its corporate data mining you're worried about, LOL, its a little late if youre posting on the internet from a smartphone. Google isnt going to learn anything more from my speakers than they already learned from the millions of web crawlers, affiliate programs and phone data other than how often I turn on lights and shit. You people arent using onion through a VPN on a live OS FOB for all of your web traffic. The big companies already know what makes you cum.

[beachBmmr]

Originally Posted by M_Six

True. Our back door has a glass window. Wouldn't take much to get in. Even if I had a high-end intrusion alarm, it would take the county sheriff's dept an hour to get here.

That said, there's a house for sale down the end of our street. The owner (I think) seems to have left a new, two-stage snowblower outside his garage. Been there for almost a week. It's 20ft from a street. It wouldn't take two guys 3 minutes to pull up, load that thing into a pickup, and drive off. But we just don't seem to have that issue here. (Knock on wood.)

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/building...ions/security/

They make security film for windows that cannot be defeated with an Axe...

[NoMoreVauxhalls]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

LOL this is just silly. OK bro, enjoy the bourne fantasy that someone is hacking your door lock instead of just picking it, bumping it or smashing their way in. Youd think we would be hearing about it by now.

First – please don’t refer to me as ‘bro’. I find it condescending and patronising. I’m not your ‘bro’.

The OP of this thread shared his experiences and wanted to hear about the experiences and opinions of others. So you decide to go into attack mode and start calling people stupid, idiotic, and silly just for sharing their opinion? Really not called for, IMHO.

And, to be clear, I don’t have sleepless nights or tremble in my boots about smart locks. There’s all levels of criminal. There’s the ones that will smash your window to gain access, and there are the tech savvy ones who'll use completely different means. YMMV.

But for those tech-savvy ones, a smartlock is just some other thing to crack, just like the keyfob relay attacks that result in cars being stolen right off their owner’s drives. Smartlocks use some form of wireless to function, and as long as they do that, they are susceptible to hacking. End of. How big of a risk is it? I don’t know. And frankly, I really don’t care as I wont be using one anytime soon.

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

I like how everything is like politics now. Someone posts about a subject a bunch of people have zero knowledge on and a baseless opinion on and they just cant help but come in and share their stupid opinions.

It's called a forum. OP asks a question, and is interested to hear about the opinions and experiences of others. Don't agree? Fine - not everyone has the same point of view - but do it in a cordial way. Also, no politics here.

Lastly, for the record, I’ve worked in the computer security industry for almost 30 years in many different domains. I also hold a number of security-related US patents. So I know a fair amount about the varied threats and vulnerabilities that are present, and I'd say that my security knowledge is probably just a smidge more than "zero".

OP - apologies for derailing this thread.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by NoMoreVauxhalls

I mean – in theory, I would love a smart lock on my front door that detects my phone/watch as I approach and just unlocks. But I’d also be super nervous that someone could gain access to my property if that lock malfunctioned, or was hacked/bypassed.

My front door deadbolt sends Apple alerts to my Watch, my iPhone, my MacBook, and my DW's Watch/iPhone whenever it is locked, unlocked, or jammed. Plus, OCD psycho dog has figured out that he needs to lunge at the door in full knucklehead mode whenever he hears the deadbolt unlock. If that doesn't deter them, they will be staring at the business end of one of our firearms-du-jour before they can get out of the foyer.

In all seriousness, I had a Valentine's Day delivery arrive on Monday to surprise my DW, and had to unlock the front door to sign for the package. I didn't even hand the tablet back to the delivery driver before my Watch was ringing with a call from my DW from work, asking if I was OK because the front door unlocked.....

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by NoMoreVauxhalls

First – please don’t refer to me as ‘bro’. I find it condescending and patronising. I’m not your ‘bro’.

Ok bro.

He asked for experiences, you dont have experiences, so yeah Im going make fun of you for sharing unfounded opinions. Ill go ahead and dismiss you now since you obviously have nothing to actually contribute to the subject of home automation.

Later Bro!

[dtox9]

Originally Posted by beachBmmr

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/building...ions/security/

They make security film for windows that cannot be defeated with an Axe...

https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/inves...ecurity/84533/

Here's an interesting video comparing standard tempered glass - glass coated with the 3m security film - and a laminated glass composition designed for school safety.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

My front door deadbolt sends Apple alerts to my Watch, my iPhone, my MacBook, and my DW's Watch/iPhone whenever it is locked, unlocked, or jammed. Plus, OCD psycho dog has figured out that he needs to lunge at the door in full knucklehead mode whenever he hears the deadbolt unlock. If that doesn't deter them, they will be staring at the business end of one of our firearms-du-jour before they can get out of the foyer.

In all seriousness, I had a Valentine's Day delivery arrive on Monday to surprise my DW, and had to unlock the front door to sign for the package. I didn't even hand the tablet back to the delivery driver before my Watch was ringing with a call from my DW from work, asking if I was OK because the front door unlocked.....

Same but I dont do the watch, but I do get all of the notifications. It lets me know if its unlocked and, if unlocked from the outside WHO unlocked it based on the code, and if its locked.

You can have it auto-lock but I often leave it unlocked for parties and friends coming over so I turned that off but after a while it will send me a, "Im unlocked, should I lock" notification as well. Which was SUPER handy as my girlfriend was really bad about relocking after receiving a delivery, which she would do with her regular old deadbolt all of the time at her own house.

The funny thing is the security check as part of the bedtime routine. If a door is locked it would just confirm, "the back door is already locked" but if it wasn't it would say, "Locking back door...back door is now locked" and Id sideye her embarrassed face (only slightly, since I'm just ribbing her).

[NoMoreVauxhalls]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Ok bro.

He asked for experiences, you dont have experiences, so yeah Im going make fun of you for sharing unfounded opinions. Ill go ahead and dismiss you now since you obviously have nothing to actually contribute to the subject of home automation.

Later Bro!

LOL. I'll leave you to it. Enjoy your thread

[bvrider1]

being condescending is a trait my parents taught me to avoid. It took me many years to learn and put it in practice.

Best of luck.

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Ok bro.

He asked for experiences, you dont have experiences, so yeah Im going make fun of you for sharing unfounded opinions. Ill go ahead and dismiss you now since you obviously have nothing to actually contribute to the subject of home automation.

Later Bro!

[M_Six]

Got my HomePod Mini today. Setup was a snap, but now it's downloading an update and it's taking a while. As soon as it was on my network, it started playing a song from my iTunes collection. If there's one thing that drives me nuts about Apple, it's the propensity to always think you want to listen to your music. That said, the sound from this tiny speaker is amazing.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by M_Six

Got my HomePod Mini today. Setup was a snap, but now it's downloading an update and it's taking a while. As soon as it was on my network, it started playing a song from my iTunes collection. If there's one thing that drives me nuts about Apple, it's the propensity to always think you want to listen to your music. That said, the sound from this tiny speaker is amazing.

Hey at least it didnt start playing U2!

I wonder if it was a demo thing, to impress you with the sound. The google ones ask you (or kind of suggest) you to do that when you set them up.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Hey at least it didnt start playing U2!

I wonder if it was a demo thing, to impress you with the sound. The google ones ask you (or kind of suggest) you to do that when you set them up.

It could be a demo thing. But when I added my Apple TV 4k to Home the other day, it also started playing a song.

[ryan stewart]

to be fair I dont thing the "assume music" is an apple thing. My google home ones occasionally will ignore my routine trigger "im going upstairs" (which turns on the light to the stairs, the upstairs hallway and a lamp in the master bedroom, then turns off the entire first floor about 20 seconds later) it plays John Lee Hooker.

[omasou]

Apple HomeKit to control Lutron light switches/lights and Philips Hue bulbs for socket control. Had/have some Lutron sockets but they are a bit slow and not needed w/Hue. I tested Chamberlin/Liftmaster/myQ for one garage door, works well and will add to the others.

For heat, security, locks and surveillance I use Nest/Yale. Once I find better HomeKit alternatives I will de-Google the house.

Geofencing helps turn stuff off w/Homekit and there is always a HomePod or HomePod mini within distance that I don't need to use the phone or watch.

I really want to move the surveillance over to HomeKit to keep videos on my iCloud but not happy w/the choices, yet.

Planning to replace Nest/Yale locks with Level Locks but need to remediate the front door deadbolt first.

PS the value of the locks are not increased security but convenience, notifications and peace of mind that you remembered to lock up.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Hey at least it didnt start playing U2!

The only audio file that I have on any of my Apple devices is a .mp3 that contains 15 minutes of loud radio static. When it decides to entertain me with music, it just winds up annoying me even more.....

[M_Six]

I had one issue where my new HomePod Mini was in standby mode and wouldn't act as the main router. Then I realized that my Apple TV 4k 4th gen had been previously set up as the Home hub. Once I removed that, the HomePod Mini took over. I just set up an automation to turn on a light when I arrive home and turn it off after 5 minutes. Testing it now (using Test This Automation in HomeKit). The light turned on, but did not turn off after 5 minutes.

[Patrick303]

I have a lot of HA in the new house running on HomeKit using a HOOBS bridge:

• Yale deadbolts on front door and garage service door
• Level Lock on garage-to-house door (awesome if you want a smart lock that doesn't look like one)
• Ring PoE doorbell and security cameras (+1 battery powered spotlight camera for the dog run)
• Ring alarm w/contact sensors, motion sensors, water sensors, smoke/CO2 sensors
• Chamberlain WiFi garage door openers
• Nest thermostat w/additional temp sensors
• A shit ton of Insteon light switches

I'm using a wall mounted iPad in my kitchen as my Apple hub. This works out great because I love being able to tell Siri to turn on lights or set a timer when I'm cooking and my hands are dirty.


One thought on having smart locks...while I will admit that nothing is burglary proof, I think it's a lot easier for a criminal to watch a youtube video and make a bump key than figure out how to hack my wifi network and/or my smart lock. My Yale locks have no keyhole to use a bump key.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by Patrick303

One thought on having smart locks...while I will admit that nothing is burglary proof, I think it's a lot easier for a criminal to watch a youtube video and make a bump key than figure out how to hack my wifi network and/or my smart lock. My Yale locks have no keyhole to use a bump key.

Same, I have the Yale locks for the same reason. I knew once i replaced everything (even the garage to the house) I wouldn't carry a key so I figured no reason to even have the override. No picking, no bumping, etc. For those that wonder, if the battery dies there are contacts on the bottom you can push a 9v up to in order to turn the lock back on, then just put your code in.

Another BIG thing about the Yale locks is they did a smart thing, they slightly taper the vertical edges of the deadbolts. Previously I had another one with a complete straight deadbolt and if someone didnt completely fully close the door and it tried to lock it would stop. The taper on the Yale one actually causes it to PULL the door shut using the taper and latch it. Like the soft close trunk mechanism.

[omasou]

Originally Posted by Patrick303

One thought on having smart locks...while I will admit that nothing is burglary proof, I think it's a lot easier for a criminal to watch a youtube video and make a bump key than figure out how to hack my wifi network and/or my smart lock. My Yale locks have no keyhole to use a bump key.

Upgrade to WiFi 6 w/WPA3 (and WiFi 7 is around the corner) Best most would be criminals don't have a device supporting the newer protocols.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by omasou

Upgrade to WiFi 6 w/WPA3 (and WiFi 7 is around the corner) Best most would be criminals don't have a device supporting the newer protocols.

FYI it only matters if both ends support AX(e).

Either way I wouldn't worry about it, wifi is just the radio, the signals sent over it are already using their own form of encryption.

And again, nobody is sitting outside hacking your front door, they would be able to smash in a window, get what they want, and be gone in the time it would take them to complete any exploit.

People with those skills are busy trying to ransom businesses and hospitals out of millions, not some dude out of his 6 year old samsung TV.

[Patrick303]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

People with those skills are busy trying to ransom businesses and hospitals out of millions, not some dude out of his 6 year old samsung TV.

Hey, I take offense to that! My tv is only 5 years old!