this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
6 points (87.5% liked)

Selfhosted

39937 readers
378 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
6
Security considerations of WiFi vs Zigbee for self-hosted IoT (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
17 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hi everyone. Before anything else, I would like to mention that I do not plan to expose absolutely anything to the internet other than using a VPN, and that's if necessary.

Now, if I understand it correctly, ZigBee compatible devices need a controller attached to the computer to decipher messages? Since we are talking about security, it seems that the ZigBee network has its own encryption technology.

Coming to WiFi which was my original plan, we have established protocols like WPA2. I had intended for all of my IoT devices to be locked in a separate VLAN with no external access.

Which one of them do you think is better for privacy and longevity? I am going to use the basics such as lights, temperature/motion sensors (would like to flash with custom firmware like Tasmota if possible) - alongside some custom devices, which would also be programmed from scratch (ESP32 based). The problem I have with the devices from the latter proposition is that I have to keep on top of security trends myself, but I suppose that's the trade-off one makes with custom devices.

Please tell me what you use at home and why, between Zigbee and WiFi?

Thanks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The communication method doesn't mean anything security wise. Here's a simple example.

Device #1 is an ESP32 based WiFi device with your own firmware. It won't phone its Chinese parent company every hour because you made the firmware yourself. It's no less secure or more wrong than using your phone hooked to your WiFi.

Device #2 is a ZigBee device. It doesn't have any connection to the internet. But you need a hub to interact with it and you decide to use Amazon Echo for simplicity. Now your house is fully owned by Bezos.

You need to inspect every device to see if they suit your needs.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks. If I use a Sonoff controller and plug it into Node-red, how would that score for privacy?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Sonoffs are usually safe.