Stacey on IoT

Bit of a surprise seeing this article today. A little while back I was made aware of some interesting business practices from the entrepreneur Alex Hawkinson[1], probably best known for being the founder and CEO of Physical Graph; later rebranded to “SmartThings” and sold to Samsung.

Being the co-founder and CEO of SmartThings, Alex clearly has an understanding for the IoT space at large. It would make sense then that when CSC ServiceWorks wanted to “modernize” their fleet of washers and dryers that they would pull Alex in to help guide them - providing him with a seat on their board[2]. CSC ServiceWorks is a company that knows how to run laundromats - not a tech company. To avoid having to hire employees and manage the software for a fleet of IoT washers and dryers, CSC ServiceWorks instead contracts a small startup company called BrightAI to develop this IoT solution for them[3@44:30]. Interestingly, Alex is also the founder and CEO of BrightAI[4].

BrightAI CTO, Robert Parker[4], also has a history of dismissing security concerns in IoT, inferring that traditional security practices could be replaced with AI [5@34:30].

The two students here seemed to do everything “right”, from adhering to a disclosure period and even going as far as reporting the issue to the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon would not have needed to go far to report this to the appropriate parties, given that Alex holds an advisory role at the university[1].

The…

Simpler and monolith (an endlessly re-suggested reply) has it's place, but I see it as impossible for any "simple" solution to ever gain enough mindshare to win. A lot of people suggesting monoliths & hosted services, but they are never going to have the community, the presence of something like Kubernetes, which unites people, which people collaborate over, in the same way we all got to learn & experience & co-develop for Docker. The question posted somewhat gets it wrong, "Kubernetes became a thing after Docker became a thing (and so on," implies that they're different things, that tech is about different things, but in many ways Kubernetes is a natural extension & outgrowth, it is a part of the Docker scene, & has continuity with it.

Kubernetes is a thing now, but it's patterns are still underspoken of, underpracticed, underdeployed to the rest of the software world. We will get better at being like Kubernetes, for great benefit. Folks learning how control-loops are advantageous, and learning to use universal API Servers for all their systems will continue to drive not just Kubernetes, but the patterns underlying Kubernetes further into our applications & services & technologies. Tech like KCP[1] is an early indicator of this interest, in using the soul of kubernetes if not it's specific machinery, by creating an independent, non-Kubernetes, but Kubernetes compatible API Server. Having universal storage, having autonomic system control are huge advantages when system…

What I don't like about Matter is that the participants in the standard itself don't seem to be proceeding with the ideal of having an abstract, unified control device. From a further link [1] from the posted article:

> Consumers will still need a lot of apps: One of the initial promises of Matter was that consumers would be able to add a device — like Amazon’s Echo — to their smart home controller but wouldn’t have to download a special app for every outlet or light switch they bring into the home. But at launch, and likely for a couple of years as the standard gets more robust, consumers will still need apps for anything beyond the basics, including installation. Even my panelists realized that this was the case.

I hope these companies realize that they are basically excluding themselves from a lot of potential customers by pulling this crap. I would have put smart bulbs as upscale stocking stuffers every holiday season if it wasn't for the fact that I have no idea what product / version / "ecosystem" the potential recipients use. "Just install a new app" is not a reasonable solution.

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[1] https://staceyoniot.com/5-ways-matter-will-disappoint-users-at-launch/

Thanks to the person who posted this comment on the article, https://staceyoniot.com/the-next-big-wi-fi-standard-is-for-sensing-not-communication/#comment-121317

> Great article. To get out ahead of this, I’ll go ahead and pre-write this for the IEEE. They’re going to need it in a few months.

> “The IEEE has heard the concerns of consumers and takes privacy very seriously. We recognize that the potential value of the proposed standard is enormous, but that it must be paired with technologies that prevent it’s misuse in an ever more dangerous cyber world. As such, we are delaying the implementation of this technology in the .bf standard, and we will re-address it once we have come to a consensus across all stakeholders including privacy and consumer advocates.”