"Smart Houses" that let you turn on lights, etc. from a distance

[turf3]

Originally Posted by Piney Creek

What do you think of these new "smart houses"? The ones where you can turn on appliances, lights, etc. from a remote control.

Is it a passing trend, or the wave of the future? Will every house be like this in another decade?

I guess I'm showing my age, but I worry that it I can unlock the front door from miles away, so can a thief. If I can turn on the oven from a remote control, someone else can do that too and start a fire. I guess there must be some sort of security feature to prevent that, but how long would it take a malicious person to over ride it?

Am I just hopelessly behind the times?

Going back to the original reason for the thread, I can tell you what I think on a couple of accounts.

1) The actual security risk is probably considerably overblown, as numerous people have pointed out; why would a thief bother to hack your stuff when they can just kick in the side door, grab some valuables, and be out of there in 2 minutes?

2) If you choose not to participate in the "smart house" trend, keep silent about it or you will catch a lot of grief about supposedly being a: "Luddite"; "too old"; "ignorant"; "out of date"; "condescending"; "technophobe"; etc., etc., etc.

[Nonesuch]

While no Luddite, I do enjoy laughing at owners of cloud-tethered products when they are bricked by the maker, as has happened to Google Revolv and Netgear VueZone and many more to come.

Originally Posted by turf3

2) If you choose not to participate in the "smart house" trend, keep silent about it or you will catch a lot of grief about supposedly being a: "Luddite"; "too old"; "ignorant"; "out of date"; "condescending"; "technophobe"; etc., etc., etc.

I'm cool with people who chose not to buy "smart house" stuff for their own house.

Not so much for the ignorant Luddites writing condescending posts about how everybody should shun home automation because the only safe way to live is be a technophobe who believes the storylines promoted on CSI and Mr. Robot.

[cekkk]

I seem to recall back in the nineties a flurry of interest in "smart" houses. We visited a few in Maryland. About that time I read a book that had lots of interesting ideas and suggestions. I think the title was The Well Built House. Anyway, I'd have thought that some of those ideas would be in common practice today, even way before today.

But of the ones I recall, only foam block construction has made any inroads, and not much at that.

Using an app to turn stuff on and off ain't really that amazing.

I'm thinking about farmers who lose top soil by plowing their fields in the fall. Because Grandpa did.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by djmaxwell

Even this example requires physical access to the device. The hack was not done over the internet. In order for it to happen, the end user needs to download a malicious app to it.

Ransoming a thermostat seems a bit far fetched. For the ransom, you can just get a new one.

I imagine that a hacker would have a difficult time to break through the securities of most secured Wi-Fi networks, but sooner or later a hacker somewhere will hack the system.

[headingtoDenver]

Originally Posted by RayinAK

I imagine that a hacker would have a difficult time to break through the securities of most secured Wi-Fi networks, but sooner or later a hacker somewhere will hack the system.

Again, why would they in the first place. If you have something in your house they really want, they will just kick in the door or smash through a window. No hacking required.

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by headingtoDenver

Again, why would they in the first place. If you have something in your house they really want, they will just kick in the door or smash through a window. No hacking required.

Good point, but I was only referring to breaking through the security of a smart home network. It may not have to do with stealing, but spying, or whatever...