Tag: Dragos

Episode 410: Inside the CSA’s plan for health device interoperability

This week’s show starts off with news from the Connectivity Standards Alliance as Kevin and I talk about the new Health and Wellness Working Group. Then we discuss some of the challenges that people face trying to use Matter devices across multiple platforms. It’s not seamless or easy yet. Also on difficult things, we discuss the challenges of securing the industrial IoT thanks to a new report from Dragos. Then we offer a preview of a new wireless technology for so-called massive IoT that will be on display from Wirepas at Mobile World Congress later this month. For those who were hoping for an open source voice assistant, I have bad news. Mycroft.ai is ceasing development of its open-source voice platform, and in addition, will not be shipping voice assistants to Kickstarter backers. There’s good news, however, for Arlo customers who were set to see the end of life for some of their cameras in 2024. Arlo has extended that date, and will continue to offer free 7-day cloud storage to existing customers. For listeners who are interested in energy-harvesting sensors, there’s an upcoming campaign for an open source board from Riotee that will provide solar-power sensing and Bluetooth. And if you’re more into working out and connected fitness, Tonal is looking for cash. Finally, we answer a listener question about upgrading his router and cleaning up his smart home.

Mycroft’s Mark II next-generation open-source smart speaker won’t ship to Kickstarter backers. Image courtesy of Mycroft.

Our guest this week is Michelle Mindala-Freeman, who is the head of marketing and member services at the Connectivity Standards Alliance. She’s here to explain why the CSA is launching a new standards working group for health and wellness. We talk about what types of companies should be involved, what sorts of use cases the CSA hopes to deliver and why now is the right time to make such a standardization effort happen. Given that helping people age in place is one of the more compelling reasons to install smart home devices, the CSA is likely to find members willing to work on the problem. I also ask what other problems the CSA might try to solve. Enjoy the show.

Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: Michelle Mindala-Freeman at the Connectivity Standards Alliance
Sponsors: InfluxData and Silicon Labs

  • Matter is having a rough start
  • Say goodbye to Mycroft’s open-source voice platform
  • We expect a new open-source board for energy harvesting sensors
  • Why the time is right for the CSA to tackle health and wellness
  • How will the smart home share wellness data?

 

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Episode 375: Arduino gets $32 million for enterprise IoT

This week’s show is an exercise in controlled chaos, as I am once again quarantined in a hotel room (this time with my teen). Kevin and I discuss Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and Apple’s claim that HomeKit is the foundation of the upcoming Matter smart home protocol. Insteon users got a shock this week when their formerly dead hubs mysteriously turned on and their cloud-based integrations began working. We explain what we know. SmartThings is getting a new app, and Microsoft signed a multi-year deal to help Procter & Gamble with its digital transformation. In security news, we discuss new ransomware that starts on the IT side but can move over to the OT side to wreak havoc, as well as a new program from Dragos to help small businesses secure their OT networks. Finally, in chip news radar chip company Vayyar raised $108 million and Arm launched a new low-power image sensor for embedded vision. During the IoT Podcast Hotline, we answer a listener question about how to prepare his smart home for a move.

Arduino launched the Portenta line of boards for the enterprise a year and half ago. Image courtesy of Arduino.

Our guest this week is Fabio Violante, the CEO of Arduino. Arduino raised €30 million ($32 million) this week as it seeks to add software and hardware to meet the needs of enterprise and industrial product designers. We discuss why Arduino is branching out from the DIY market, and how it differentiates itself from other computing platforms such as the Raspberry Pi or Nvidia’s Jetson Nano. Violante also shares his observations about the state of the market and the popularity of certain connectivity options, protocols and cloud platforms. It’s a good show.

Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: Fabio Violante, the CEO of Arduino
Sponsors: Nordic Semiconductor and Wirepas

  • Apple contributed a lot to HomeKit and we all will benefit
  • Who is the new Insteon owner?
  • Microsoft is helping Procter & Gamble make better paper towels
  • Good and bad news for OT security
  • Why Arduino is stepping up to the enterprise

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Episode 325: The IoT goes to Congress

Hello! This week we start with Congress, where the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings related to interoperability and lock-in tied to smart home devices. We drew special attention to testimony by Jonathan Zittrain, who wrote a long, but insightful statement about the development of the web, the benefits gained when using interoperable protocols, and what the government should do to ensure the openness of the IoT. After that, we discuss Amazon’s use of person detection on its new Echo Show devices to use motion-sensing as a trigger for routines and Apple’s planned features for its next smartwatch. We then talk about the new Level lock and why you may want to wait before buying a smart lock. In our news roundup, we track the rise of smart home devices, IKEA’s new $199 picture frame speaker, a new cellular module, and Accenture’s acquisition of umlaut, an industrial IoT engineering firm. We close on a question from a listener about which devices will support Matter going forward.

IKEA’s new speaker hides within a picture frame, but IKEA has limited art available. Image courtesy of IKEA.

Our guest this week is Lesley Carhart, an incident responder at Dragos. Carhart’s specialty is industrial IoT incident response which means she’s been busy, given how often ransomware attacks have taken out critical infrastructure in the past few months. She explains how she got into doing industrial security and how it differs from IT security (which she also did). She shares what industrial clients want IT security professionals to understand, and shares how people can get into the field of providing industrial IoT security. In my favorite moment, she explains the Purdue Model of security used by manufacturing and industrial clients. Understanding these things will only become more important as we place more assets online. Please listen.

Host: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: Lesley Carhart, an incident responder at Dragos Sponsors: Bsquare and Edge Impulse

  • A few remedies to prevent lock-in by the tech giants
  • Wellness is gaining ground in the smartwatch world
  • Maybe wait on that smart lock purchase
  • Hardhats may be necessary for industrial IoT security response
  • What the OT world wants the IT world to know about security

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