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Podcast: SmartThings’ new edge strategy

August 19, 2021 by Stacey Higginbotham 2 Comments

Welcome to this week’s episode! We kick it off with a discussion of SmartThing’s new focus on the edge with local control and user-derived device handlers. We then dive into four security stories starting with a flaw in the software development kit (SDK) for a Wi-Fi module, challenges with random number generation on IoT devices, and a flaw in an SDK by ThroughTek Kalay that affects smart cameras. We reserve most of our frustration, though, for BlackBerry, which had learned of a flaw in its QNX operating system and decided not to patch it. It was a pretty bad week for IoT security. But we did get some fun news. The Industrial IoT Consortium has changed its name and tweaked its focus to spend more time on business process and not just the IIoT tech, and Inmarsat plans to launch a new satellite network for IoT devices next year. We also discuss Google’s Fuschia OS appearing on more Nest devices. We end the segment by answering a listener question about the Span smart electrical panel.

The Otii Arc device measures power consumption. Image courtesy of Qoitech.

Our guest this week is part of a mini-theme focused on sustainability in the IoT. Last week, we heard about a new emphasis on price performance per watt from an Arm executive. This week, Vanja Samuelsson, CEO of Qoitech, visits the show to discuss adding power consumption measurements throughout the product and software design process. Samuelsson discusses common energy-draining behaviors that they can address when measuring power consumption through their design process and talks about customers such as Deutsche Telekom, which encourages developers to perform power analysis to help prevent poorly behaving devices on its network. Given how much I hate changing my batteries in sensors or recharging my wearables, I hope everyone listens to what she has to say.

 

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Filed Under: Featured, Podcast Tagged With: Blackberry, FireEye, Fuschia, google, Inmarsat, Mandiant, Qoitech, Silicon Labs, SmartThings, Span, Vanja Samuelsson, Very, Works With

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Comments

  1. Frank Marco says

    August 19, 2021 at 12:41 pm

    Dear Stacy,
    I am at my wits end with the smart things set up in my home. The motion sensors routinely and often go off-line for no apparent reason whatsoever.

    If I wasn’t so baked into the system I would start fresh with something completely different.

    Everything is updated everything has fresh batteries and on a weekly basis the sensors go off-line not all of them but one or another. I simply can’t believe this is happeningWith a product that is so popular and so widely used. I don’t know what to do.
    One option I had was to completely use HomeKit or Amazon Alexa but I still think I need a hub for the sensors. My home system primarily depends on motion sensors for the most part. In any case thank you so much
    Frank

    Reply
    • JD Roberts says

      August 24, 2021 at 9:45 am

      SmartThings has frequent issues with devices being marked offline that aren’t. See the SmartThings forums for many discussions (but few solutions). 😥

      You didn’t say what brand/model your sensors are, but since you are already using HomeKit, two possible options are to use Philips Hue motion sensors with a Hue bridge or Aqara motion sensors with an Aqara G2 camera or Aqara hub and bring them into HomeKit that way.

      Both options are very reliable with HomeKit and run local there (even when the exact same devices are flaky on SmartThings). No custom code required.

      That won’t bring them into SmartThings, though: just HomeKit. So you would have to recreate your automations in HomeKit, if necessary using Shortcuts or the very popular third party app, Home+ 5, to support more complex rules.

      So the odds are good that you can have reliable motion sensors, just not currently on the SmartThings platform. Maybe the new SmartThings Edge architecture will help with the offline issue, it’s too soon to say on that.

      Reply

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