Apple, Amazon, Google, and Zigbee Alliance to Develop Open Standard for Smart Home Devices [Updated]

[PastaPrimav]

I swear to god if this makes all my current HomeKit stuff obsolete... Hoping Hue bulbs and Lutron wall switches will be fine and whatever is being updated can be pushed out to the bridges of each.

We're not talking about stuff that is independently controlled by Apple. Stuff that ships from 3rd parties can, and often is, obsolete before it even goes out the door.

Your entire HomeKit household is not going to get an OTA update to bring it all inline with a new standard.

The most Apple might be able to do is build a temporary bridge between kits. When Apple ships their implementation of the new standard for Home automation, they could potentially have a HomeKit-to-NewKit bridge that at least lets you begin using new devices alongside the old ones. But that's it. Anything completely new about the NewKit is not going to roll backwards automatically into any existing product.

 

[baryon]

Finally! Maybe HomeKit will have a use then? I've personally never come across anything that works with HomeKit.

 

[H2SO4]

Not sure if this is the best move for Apple. I’ll take security over product availability or price any day. Apple seems to be the only one with security at the forefront.

Maybe Apple know something you don't?
Maybe they know that the usual narrative is BS?

 

[SDJim]

I haven't had the experience of others in finding only ultra-expensive IoT devices for HomeKit? I found a killer deal on Philips Hue, which is HK compatible, and then Wemo plugs are $10/piece at Costco. Switches can get pricey, but they all are, and there are a lot of options, including Legrand, or even Lutron, which has some nice products. Between that, and the major smart locks working with HomeKit, I don't see much of an issue.

 

[cmaier]

Finally! Maybe HomeKit will have a use then? I've personally never come across anything that works with HomeKit.

Ecobee? August? Eve? These things exist now and work great.

 

[Makosuke]

Oh, thank God. Finally.

It's going to be a while before there are actual products on the market and the ecosystem matures, and even longer before legacy devices fade away, but long-term having all three major players on the same platform is pretty much guaranteed to make a huge difference in terms of number of products available for any individual one, and the security of all of the above since I assume Apple cares more than Amazon or Google about that.

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This particular XKCD joke/example of "A new standard that nobody will support because all the old standards are still in use!" is entirely different than this sort of homogenization, because this isn't really a case of competing standards--this is a case where the three major players in an industry all had independent systems doing exactly the same thing so device manufacturers were forced to support each one separately, and often skipped one (or more) entirely.

Coming up with a shared standard when there are three big players in an industry isn't developing a competing standard, it's developing a standard, period. It's defacto, yes, but if you have one home automation standard backed by Amazon, Google, and Apple, there really isn't anything else--you either support that or you support nothing, and it's unquestionably going to be cheaper for device manufacturers than supporting Amazon, Google, and HomeKit independently.

You don't need to worry about it competing with the other three popular standards because the companies in charge of those other three standards will (presumably) replace them with the new one, and the other 11 in the hypothetical example don't exist because the vast majority of the market is ruled by those three gorillas.

The analogy here would be a lot more like cell networks, which did the exact same thing--by eventually consolidating around one defacto standard, and adding in modems that read a lot of different bands, the days of X phone doesn't work on Y carrier or in Z country are gone; the same iPhone works on any of the US carriers and virtually any carrier elsewhere in the world.

 

[ellsworth]

Even though the WeMo switches, bulbs and bridge devices can be a pain in the ass when setting up, once they're set-up, they actually work. My entire home is outfitted with Belkin's WeMo devices. Most are supported under Apple's HomeLink. I hope they continue to be supported in this new venture.

 

[Makosuke]

Not sure if this is the best move for Apple. I’ll take security over product availability or price any day. Apple seems to be the only one with security at the forefront.

I would assume that Apple is going to insist on stringent security in the new shared protocol. If anything, that's what they're bringing to the table in exchange for a bigger selection of products and cheapskate manufacturers not having to support Alexa and Google individually while also getting Apple customers thrown in for "free".

 

[Coconut Bean]

Sure they're compatible. But since I'm not using the Google or Amazon "protocols" to communicate with my devices, and indeed have them disabled, those avenues of attack are closed.

You clearly don't have a security background. That's ok, not everyone does and would not understand the concept of pivoting.

Lightbulb vs door vs PII are literally privacy and security, both electronic and physical. Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're suggesting that should a nefarious individual remotely unlock your door, it's totally fine; that they only have access to your doorway now. 😆

That example is literally the physical parallel to someone man-in-the-middle'ing a lightbulb signal and then observing you logging into your doctor's website.

The problem is that with the mentality that anything potentially could be a threat you are only relying on your own trust in various providers. And that's fine, you might even trust Apple within certain areas. And that's ok.

But homekit as it is does not in anyway solve the security issues with smart devices. Yes in theory it could work with internet but very few people would utilize it in a closed network anyway or segregate it enough and control all in and outgoing traffic. Homekit does not enforce communication only within its protocol, heck most of the smart devices home with their own app for setup.

So from a security perspective, or pivoting perspective their own little to no difference between homekit or Google home. Or what do you think?

When it comes to control of the device itself it differs though from what I understand.

Technically Google or amazon can control your devices, but the probabilty of it (very low) can be justified if the loss is small, say with a light bulb. Door is a little bigger loss if they decide to screw you over. And of course medical records most people wouldn't trust them with.

edit: not to mention that every single device you add to your network is a security issue. Including all your friends and families devices...

 

[cmaier]

The problem is that with the mentality that anything potentially could be a threat you are only relying on your own trust in various providers. And that's fine, you might even trust Apple within certain areas. And that's ok.

But homekit as it is does not in anyway solve the security issues with smart devices. Yes in theory it could work with internet but very few people would utilize it in a closed network anyway or segregate it enough and control all in and outgoing traffic. Homekit does not enforce communication only within its protocol, heck most of the smart devices home with their own app for setup.

So from a security perspective, or pivoting perspective their own little to no difference between homekit or Google home. Or what do you think?

When it comes to control of the device itself it differs though from what I understand.

Technically Google or amazon can control your devices, but the probabilty of it (very low) can be justified if the loss is small, say with a light bulb. Door is a little bigger loss if they decide to screw you over. And of course medical records most people wouldn't trust them with.

edit: not to mention that every single device you add to your network is a security issue. Including all your friends and families devices...

This post makes little sense. Of course Homekit DOES solve many security issues with smart devices.

 

[Ralfi]

This sounds significant.

What I want to know is, does it mean we’ll be able to select which Voice Assistant is our default, no matter what brand of smart device we have??

I mainly have Apple devices, but have recently added a Google Nest Mini & would love for Google Assistant to be more accessible across all my smart devices, without the need to open the App on my iPhone/iPad etc..

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

THIS is why Amazon is not allowed in my home:

Product warning issued after attacker hacks Amazon Ring, harasses little girl

A recent attacker hacked an Amazon Ring device in a little girl's room. Now, several consumer and privacy groups urge people not to purchase these devices.

www.androidauthority.com

 

[Coconut Bean]

This post makes little sense. Of course Homekit DOES solve many security issues with smart devices.

Care to evolve what I've got wrong?

 

[bbednarz]

Finally! Maybe HomeKit will have a use then? I've personally never come across anything that works with HomeKit.

You have not looked very hard at all then.
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THIS is why Amazon is not allowed in my home:

Product warning issued after attacker hacks Amazon Ring, harasses little girl

A recent attacker hacked an Amazon Ring device in a little girl's room. Now, several consumer and privacy groups urge people not to purchase these devices.

www.androidauthority.com

To be fair, I believe this was a case where a username/password was stolen. Not like they actually hacked into the network through the camera. All they had to do was install the app and login. But it is one reason why I don't like the idea of indoor security cameras, especially ones sent to the cloud...
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We're not talking about stuff that is independently controlled by Apple. Stuff that ships from 3rd parties can, and often is, obsolete before it even goes out the door.

Your entire HomeKit household is not going to get an OTA update to bring it all inline with a new standard.

The most Apple might be able to do is build a temporary bridge between kits. When Apple ships their implementation of the new standard for Home automation, they could potentially have a HomeKit-to-NewKit bridge that at least lets you begin using new devices alongside the old ones. But that's it. Anything completely new about the NewKit is not going to roll backwards automatically into any existing product.

What I mean is current stuff not being able to be used in unison with the new stuff. If they were to redo the Home app and only stuff up to the new standard works that would be a large ordeal.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

To be fair, I believe this was a case where a username/password was stolen.

So in all of the situations, this was the case? And even in the horror story shared there, they only had the device "a couple of weeks." I'm not saying it's not a case of reusing userids and passwords, but the chances seem thin.

And why would they be scrambling to patch it if it's a "localized" (for lack of a better term) authentication problem?

 

[k1121j]

I was just saying that we need a home standard, because it’s getting confusing for the average customer

for real depending on my device I have to say ok google or her Siri its getting annoying. I was about to ditch nest for it not working with HomeKit emailed google that's 9 smoke detectors and 3 thermostats and 2 cameras i'm ready to pitch....if you don't like my lack of grammar don't read it
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I don't see mention of ZWave, Insteon, X10, etc. as part of the conversation.

I ditched x 10 forever ago it was way to unreliable and inconsistent for me and depending on my home wiring it required extra modules it was such a headach

 

[Tech198]

This could prove good.. If it works, at least one solution for all.. I think it was kinda stupid to force peple to buy x to work with y only.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

The last time Apple was on a standards committee, they quit and made their own competing technology and created even more fragmentation. I’m referring to when Apple was part of the Khronos group developing the Vulkan graphics API. They did an about-face and created their own graphics API: Metal. Now because of Apple, we don’t have a cross platform, modern graphics API, when the entire point of the committee they were part of was to make that happen.

So yea, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Apple gave the world OpenCL. Nvidia dragged its feet on Vulkan and OpenCL. Apple let 24 months go by and nothing. So they released Metal 1.0 before Vulkan was even finalized. They clearly knew through communications that Nvidia doesn't give a rat's ass about viable standards, other than their own.

The President of Khronos.org is just a face for Nvidia. He has been pushing out spec after spec of standards that rarely get adopted. Meanwhile, Nvidia kept CUDA first class and OpenCL 3rd class within their drivers.

The best thing Apple did was dump Nvidia and go AMD.

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

I was just saying that we need a home standard, because it’s getting confusing for the average customer

I was just saying it yesterday because I am in the middle of an experimentation with this stuff right now that I just bought. I have been happy that all of it works with google which is super easy to set up, but what I don’t like is all the different apps, accounts, passwords you need, and it is really difficult to get everything you need from just one company which is super annoying.

So yeah, it’s a mess right now, but hopefully this alliance will help.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I too wish Z-wave would be on board.
Not a fan of Zigbee.

Considering Apple, Google and Amazon are in board, I think you’ll see Z-wave join in. I can’t imagine they want to be left out of the new ecosystem. I don’t think they can go it alone vs the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon. Maybe they want to try? If so, good luck to them...

 

[ColBatGuano]

Great idea. Dumb name.

My guess is it's just the working title. A better marketing name will be created later.

 

[jettredmont]

Most homekit stuff is ridiculously expensive. I get security issues for things like cameras, but do I care if Google/Amazon/etc knows my smartplug lamp is on or off? Or how much electricity its using? No so much.

Not when its $10 vs $40 (homkit version) for the device. $40 per outlet REALLY adds up. Same with bulbs, do people care if its "secure" really? What possible personal info is out there from a bulb being on or off?

It isn't about someone "knowing" how you use your outlet or lightbulb. It is about someone being able to control them, or, more nefariously, the chips inside them (to do things on your home network that the device wasn't designed to do).

Homekit's requirement of encryption is the primary (almost only) reason why all the cheap Chinese knock-offs only support Alexa and Google, and it is 100% the reason why I'd insist on Homekit compatibility even if I was primarily controlling these things via Alexa or Google.
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I understand that but is there any EVIDENCE that the current standards non-homekit devices uses are NOT generally secure? Not conjecture and thoughts on Google and Amazon and what they do with data.

Other than the recent Ring issue, which could be on their end and not a standards issue (nothing has been made public how they were accessed, could be a simple too easy password account hacked thing), I have not heard of any public smarthome vulnerability cases out there.

And if one thinks anything Apple made/their standard is immune to cyber attack anyway, I have ice to go sell Eskimos. NOTHING is foolproof; especially connected to the internet. Even if the word Apple or Homekit is slapped on it. I may enjoy my iphone but not living in the distortion field either.

I guess I should also add any evidence this new open standard would NOT be secure. So far we know a few words about this total and a lot of assumptions being made just based on names involved.

See https://******.com/?q=iot+hacked+devices and have all your questions answered.

TL;DR: Yes, many many IoT devices have been compromised due to weak and/or nonexistent security. Lack of encryption is the primary gateway into an IoT device, and Homekit requires encryption. No, not a panacea, but a hell of a lot better than "save money and pray I never get pulled into a botnet."

 

[fairuz]

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Apple, Amazon, and Google are in this. Unless they're competing with their own standard, nothing else is going to stand a chance.
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Everyone: "Privacy is a fundamental right."
...
Apple: "Privacy is a fundamental right!"
Also Apple: Default search engine is Google, Siri now "assisting" Alexa, Google and Cortana, massive IP-based open source "sharing" project with Google and others (Facebook...Amazon...etc.) is underway.

I think you're mixing up using IP and sharing IP addresses.

 

[Lalatoon]

This is nice specially its open source and available to the public through GitHub.

 

[fairuz]

And, we will have to buy all new stuff… It's the lightning cable all over again.

You bought the stuff knowing that this entire market is in its infancy and it's fragmented to the point where it's useless. Nobody uses smart home stuff, except for a few people who want their houses to be more annoying to live in. So either AA&G can agree on something or keep the market to geeks only.