Internet of Things news of the week, December 2 2022

Here’s what made news in the IoT this week. Get this summary in your inbox every Friday with our newsletter.

Got a Eufy security camera? Your video isn’t secure. Given what’s going on with Twitter, we don’t really need another tech company in the headlines. But we have one courtesy of Anker, the company behind the Eufy brand of connected devices. Eufy claims that video from its smart home cameras is encrypted. That’s good — provided it’s true. Unfortunately, it’s actually not that secure. A hacker has revealed that you can view any Eufy camera stream using the VLC Media Player app and a unique address of Eufy’s cloud servers. Anker has denied the possibility of this hack to The Verge. However, writers there tested the hack and were able to view live footage from their own Eufy cameras. While there are currently no reported exploits using this hack on a widespread basis, I’d personally shut off those cameras until this issue is resolved. (The Verge)

Learn to build an event-driven IoT architecture: At the risk of sounding like I’m assigning homework, this tutorial from Amazon is worth the read. Don’t worry, it’s high level enough to be understandable. At the same time, it provides enough detail to make clear how the different Amazon Web Services (AWS) tools work with sensor data. More importantly, you can start gaining insights from that data as quickly as possible. I also like the best practices for building an event-driven solution from IoT data. They’re applicable both within the AWS world and outside of it. (AWS Architecture Blog)

AWS IoT gets better device messaging: Since this week is the big AWS re:Invent show, I’m doubling up on some Amazon news. AWS IoT now supports the MQTT5 message broker. MQTT is a commonly used standard for IoT data and version 5 was ratified in 2019. I guess nobody told Amazon until now. Luckily, you don’t need to use MQTT5 across all devices; Amazon says you can mix and match between the new MQTT5 protocol and the older version 3. With the updated standard, you’ll gain faster message processing, load balancing for message reception, and receipt acknowledgments for your devices. (Amazon)

You might not recognize your Ecobee app: OK, you obviously know what the Ecobee mobile app is if you have it installed. But did you know there is a major user interface change currently rolling out in the app? In early 2023, Ecobee will push the same interface to older thermostats. I’ve used this new interface since I reviewed the latest Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, and I love it. It’s much easier to change settings and see temperature data. Expect to see it in your Ecobee app soon, if not already. Next year, the new interface will be pushed to the Ecobee Smart Thermostat with voice control, Ecobee 4, Ecobee 3, and Ecobee 3 lite models. (Ecobee)

Fighting droughts with smart farming: I had no idea that a reported 70% of all freshwater usage went into growing crops. But I learned that and a lot more from a recent Inverse article. Simply by monitoring soil conditions, farmers can use the data to intelligently water agriculture. And that can reduce water demand by between 20% and 72%. That’s a wide range, but any water savings is a good thing. I also didn’t realize that putting sensor antennas underground can have a profound impact on data transmission. This post is well worth the read for these tidbits and more about agricultural IoT solutions. (Inverse)

New York City buses are gaining AI: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York City is upgrading its buses with artificial intelligence. Don’t worry, these buses aren’t self-driving. Instead, AI is used to predict when a bus might break down before it actually does. The MTA started testing the AI system in 2019 on 326 buses, and guess when the number of buses that actually broke down started declining? Yup, in 2019, likely because buses that would have been stuck on the side of the road were repaired in advance of a breakdown. (Gothamist)

Need a reference guide to global IoT cybersecurity regulations? This one is for device makers, although as a consumer of IoT devices, I also find it quite fascinating. There’s a public GitHub repository listing all of the IoT cybersecurity regulations around the world, by country. At the moment, there are only listings for 16 countries, but I expect that to expand over time. It’s interesting to read how different countries approach the same problem. You can get those details through links in the repository pointing to publicly available, but often hard to find, regulatory information. (GitHub)

Build a weather station for Home Assistant: I know, even more homework. But many readers use Home Assistant to power their smart homes, so I wanted to surface this DIY project. Using an ESP32 module, sensors for atmospheric pressure, a 3D-printed anemometer, and a basic rain gauge, you too can get real-time weather data. You’ll need to build the project yourself, but all of the code to make it work is provided in this tutorial. And the data looks great in the Home Assistant dashboard! (HackADay)