Hello Home Assistant Users! I’m Annika, I recently joined Nabu Casa as a UX Researcher. We’re currently investigating how Home Assistant can better support in evaluating and protecting a home’s privacy. If you want to help us, we’d be happy to learn about your approaches, thoughts, and experiences.
Imagine the following scenario:
A close friend/family member/colleague is moving into their new home and finally has the chance to set up the smart home they’ve always wanted. They trust your advice and specifically ask how to protect privacy in their new smart home. What would you recommend that person to do?
Please help us create a list of best practices for that person.
A list of things I have thought and would recommend:
Limit third party devices and if you have to use them, set them up on a guest network that has network isolation. You can go further here and start setting up VLANs and limiting outbound network traffic but that may be beyond most people’s desires due to some of the complexity.
Set up remote access securely!
Strong passwords for everything - use a password manager.
Limit the information you collect from devices and inform people what information is collected on them e.g. if you set up the HA app for someone and set location to on and don’t tell them, they might not realise their location is always tracked and recorded. Another thing to consider is do you really need that information or can it be reduced in some way to improve privacy?
Be careful of the custom add-ons and integrations you install and make sure they are genuine and doing only what they say they are.
General network recommendations like setting up a dedicated firewall device (e.g. pfSense, OPNSense plus Zenarmor) and moving all IoT devices to a VLAN with restricted network access etc. would completely overwhelm nearly all of my friends.
So I’d suggest to them to only use IoT devices that don’t need an internet connection, including the vacuum cleaner with built in camera (they pretend to like to store the room maps but then maybe they also upload videos in the cloud). I think HA should make it more clear which integrations are completely offline and which actively use the internet. No matter if for a lamp, a intercom, a fan or a vacuum robot, there are lots of integrations that only work online. They should include a clear warning sign in the HA UI so people stop buying from these brands.
Also I would suggest to ditch all companies where you’re not purchasing a product but you as a person are the product. E.g. Android & Google services, as their business model relies on learning as much as possible about you and then selling your profile.
While everybody here is focusing on security, especially from network perspective, I’d point to other aspect; selection of home automation technologies/ecosystems to be integrated:
Estimate number and type of devices you want to setup in your smart home upfront. This might influence technology selection (WiFi vs. Zwave vs. Zigbee, vs Matter, etc.)
Do not jump into impulsive buys just to start; make planning and select target ecosystem wisely. While HA can deal with lots of different ecosystems via proper integrations, it will make your life easier to select limited number of them and stick to.
Select technolgy that is easily scallable for your needs. For example using large number of WiFi connected devices might easily saturate your network/router/AP (consumer grade devices have some limitations), so consider technology limitations carefully. Or be prepared for upgrades as you go.
Judge your technical skills carefully. Consider simpler to use tech/ecosystem if you do not feel comfortable with tinkering with tech and just want some level of simple automation. Select more advanced or even DIY solutions if you feel comfortable with with and want some more joy from creating of your smart home.
Consider smart devices you might already have at home! Will they integrate? Might be good starting point into adventure.
There are some very good points above, which align well with the foundational values of HA, especially, local control. Of course there’s a natural tension between that philosophy, and the desire most people have for “hands-off” technology which they don’t have to set up or manage. I’m not sure HA can ever be a mass-market product without sacrificing some core values.
But, while I have your attention, since Nabu Casa is hiring, how about putting someone in charge of going through the hundreds of FRs and starting to work down that list?
These are things that users actually want. Too often lately it seems changes are being forced on users, rather than responding to their actual needs.
My input is that if we are narrowing it to “smart home” then I recommend starting by only going with a combination of Z-Wave Plus and Zigbee 3.0 devices depending on budget.
Z-Wave and/or Zigbee is IMHO the best way to stay secure, however since both are private wireless network uses mesh networking technology the best practice is generally to only stick to one or the other is possible, but my personal experience is that I do not trust cheap Zigbee devices so would suggest just using those from non-critical stuff like lighting and other products for trivial automations that do not use a lot of power, then use Z-Wave from devices that use a lot of power as well as for critical stuff like for example security alarm components.
I currently generally recommend avoiding buying WiFi and LAN devices too unless they are open-source and fully local-only, and even then I still try to stay away from them unless they can provide features and functions that Zigbee or Z-Wave devices do not.
And while slightly off-topic I today also recommend getting all Ubiquiti “Unify” series network equipment for WiFi and LAN, + if cameras are wanted then Unifi Protect if it can be achived within the persons budget).
Next is getting a Synology NAS with RAID-1 (mirrored disks) for local backups and network storage.
I also recommend iPhone instead of Android phone and tablets today because you get 5+ years upgrades/updates (as that means not just security updates but also major OS upgrades).
Other general recommendation is to alway use different random passwords + a password manager.
PS: Maybe goes without saying today, but I first recommend buying the Home Assistant Green applicance (and until two days I also recommended buying Home Assistant SkyConnect USB dongle for Zigbee).
Have all IOT devices (sensors) on their own VLAN and that should be cut off altogether from the internet. Then only open that connection to the internet for that VLAN to update firmware, then lock it down again.
Get rid of every single device connected to the internet that listens to your voice. This includes turning off the ability for your phones to liten to voice commands.
For your outgoing internet connections, from within your router (so all devices in your network are automatically included) set up multiple VPN tunnels with mutiple external VPN service providers that do not have their headquarters in any nine-eyes countries. Set up each tunnel to be connecting to a server in a country that is not a member of any nin-eyes country. Then, either pool those connections together as the internet connection for everything in the home, or set up a round-robin scenario where the connectiouns to the internet alternate between the tunnels. I actually do the former*, I am using two vpn service providers and 5 open tunnels with each, all 10 of those tunnels are then pooled together as the internet connection. Every time I open a browser, or even refresh it, the connection appears to be coming from a different location (this can be checked with whoer.net or whatismyip.com).
Ensure all dns queries on your network are encrypted with DoH or DoT.
Ensure you have a strong firewall in place at all times.
Set up your internal network such that guests are on a guest vlan and ssid, and only have acces to a couple things (e.g., chromecasst, printers) as appropriate.
*This is primarily because even the best VPN Service provider’s have servers that go down from time to time, and if you are using that one server for your anonymous outgoing internet connection, the tunnel will be broken. Since I have 10 tunnels set up there are always at least 6-8 of them open and functioning properly, so the internet connection still goes through the ones that are working, thereby ensuring there is no interruption to my internet service.
For a given reason it should be mention that this is not limited to smart “speakers” like alexa and google whateveritscalled but as the enshittification get’s pace we are now in a world where it can be common that smart TV’s or cleaning robots use microphones and cameras against you(r privacy)
My advice for 99% of famliy members would be: use Philips Hue, it’s the best compromise of usability, eco-system and local control. Even with the now-obligatory Hue account creation. Overall, i still think it is the best option for most people. Another advice would be: don’t use voice control, unless you are willing to give up a lot of potential privacy.
For that other 1 percent (the tech-savy family members): use Home Assistant in combination with zigbee devices and a good zigbee dongle. Philips Hue still being highly recommend due to their light quality, good in-wall light switches and good PIR sensors. But most zigbee brand devices will cover your privacy when coupled with a dedicated zigbee dongle (conbee II for example), so just pick what you like.
Only buy wifi-devices when it can be controlled fully locally, a very good example being HomeWizard Energy.
But to be completely honest: for most family members/friends, i would not recommend Home Asssistant at all, due to its technical nature. It’s a 1000 times more complex to setup and maintain than just using an all-in-1 eco-system like Philips Hue. There is no perfect full-privacy solution yet that is so easy to use that i would recommend it as such to family/friends. There is always a compromise to make.
Thinking more about this, the best thing that Home Assistant imho could do, is to become much more easy to setup and use. The streamlining focus of the last years has resulted in big improvements, but in its current state its not even close to be recommended for most people.
So, if we want the smarthome world to be more privacy friendly, make steps to make Home Assistant as accessible as possible. This would be the stepping stone for many families to become fully privacy-proof.
in your post the 9-eyes or even 14-eyes are to be avoided when choosing a VPN located in one of them. (even though at first glance they would seem to be trustworthy)
Made me choose Proton (mail) years ago.
(as a side note: I also have Pia and Tunnelbear as a backup, but just read I should really ditch Pia…the fact these have completely different results when eg connecting in hotels abroad should raise awareness)
Countries in general could, should probably, also be scrutinized and excluded from entering your network via the Router options. Our company policy has a long list of them that should be blocked, and it made me do the same on my private Network.
Didnt see it mention anywhere here yet, so that would be an additional consideration as best practice.
O and did I mention to force the HA logins of your children to be local only
had my share of fun with the lights and toggles at first, but when I realized they were growing up and still sharing their devices (and dare I say accounts…), I decided that local control only might be less user-friendly to them, but more secure to my Home…
Of course there are differning opinions but have made my WiFi network very robust I very much prefer Shelly wherever possible, so have stayed away from other networks (Zigbee/Zwave). I have had through trial and error via WiFi had to make alot of adjustments however, for example learning about turning on mDNS with the right bonjour services to be able to case to Chromecasts across vlans, having to resort to very simplified protocol with separate dedicated SSID’s for third party IOT WiFi devices that are poorly designed with old chipsets for communication to ensure they are 100% reliable and always connected, etc…
and smart phones 
