HA and IOT devices on a separate LAN

[kjjordans]

Hi,
It seems to me that there are a lot of good reasons to create a separate network for Home Assistant and devices to communicate on.
does anyone know of a guide on how to achieve this?
Do you think that it is worth doing or a waste of time?

[gpbenton (Graham)]

Someone suggest a similar setup here. I haven’t done it (just bookmarked it in case I get the time), but the author did offer to answer any questions. The whole thread is quite interesting.

Best Way to Protect from Hackers?

I work in IT security, and one of my biggest issues with Home Automation, is that I see a lot of really insecure setups from people who, whilst very smart, don’t know much about digital security. When you have devices that control your locks, stove, gas fire, alarms etc, people don’t seem to click that it’s really important to prioritise security. In the few Home Automation installations I’ve done for others, the cost of the security work has trumped the installation, and I refuse to do install…

[wingers1290]

Okay so this is a cool topic that I like. The traditional home network is not suitable for IoT; this is becoming increasingly more evident every day.

The problem is that the only alternative to the home network, is the enterprise network. And what home wants to hire a full time network administrator to keep things working correctly day in and day out?

Is there a middle ground? If so, it involves the application of AI or smart algorithms designed to manage a network for you.

In either case, you should absolutely use multiple subnets for IoT devices. I recommend 4:

• General home devices (phones, pc, laptop)
• Guest devices (you don’t want guests accessing your IoT!)
• IoT devices
• IoT controllers

IoT devices generally do not require access to the general home network, because they all work through a controller (such as HA!). Ideally, there should be complete seperation between them with zero packet exchange. The cool thing is that if anyone compromises your home network/wifi they won’t be able to access your IoT and secretly record your every move.

I recently wrote a blog post about how home networks are facing these limitations: https://echoit.co.nz/securing-home-automation-networks/

Very happy to answer any questions here.

[kjjordans]

Thanks for the info and the great article. it is amazing how easy it is to set up iot devices yet there is very little info on how to best secure the network.
i agree that a simple gui interface for setting up this kind of service would be great. in the meantime it looks like I’m going to have to spend some time at the command line. do you know where I could find some resources to learn how to set it up? I have a few raspberry pi laying around.
some devices also need full internet access such as google home. how do you deal with that?