Philips Hue - Update and new Computer Sync

Philips Hue launched a big update to their app and bulbs today after announcing it at the Consumer Electronic Show in the USA.  This promptly broke their servers for a while so if I was you I wouldn't update my app and bulbs for a few days yet.

Building on their Smart Home success this will also offer the ability to sync your computer with games and movies that you are playing or watching on your PC.  It will work through a Windows10 and MacOS app called Hue Sync.

This app monitors whats on your screen and automatically changes the mood and dynamics/colours of your lights.  Imagine watching a scary movie and the lights dim as the movie scene gets darker, glimpses of candlelight flicker in the back of your room mimicking the film unfolding before you.  Sounds cool, and you get to dial in how intense you want the effect to be.

There is also a new implementation of the Philips Hue app for Android and iPhones, featuring a modern style that makes navigating to scenes and rooms much easier.

Philips Hue also mentioned that they will be releasing their first outdoor lighting and fixtures and hinted there may be a security element to some of the outdoor lamps.

The Hue ecosystem is going from strength to strength, I'd still like some hard switches, directly available from Philips, so if you are listening....

Also you can now sync your Razer gaming products with your Philips Hue lights.  See the cool video below.

Home Cinemas of the Rich and Famous - Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry, who was Chandler Bing as one of the stars of Friends- the Sitcom that ran for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 - has his LA home up for sale for a cool $13.5 million.

The iconic Hollywood Hills mansion was originally built in 1962. Overlooking the Sunset Strip it features floor to ceiling Windows to admire the expansive city views.

Updated by Whipple Russell architects who said about the project "The challenge was to create indoor and outdoor living experiences that retained unobstructed views to the horizon line and sky. Our intent was to preserve the integrity of a mid-century classic while rejuvenating the structure with our contemporary uses of color, wood, light and water. The aim was calm elegance and functionality, married with touches of 21st century whimsy as seen in the choice of sculptured art. Water is fully integrated into the design, from the infinity pool, and reflecting ponds, to the wet-edge waterfall along the walkway to the theater. The only spaces not in the original footprint are the Master Bedroom, which floats out at the edge of the property, and the Home Theater that is tucked in beneath it sharing a wall and windows with the pool.

It's all very swish but what we are really interested in, is the home cinema.

The Home Theatre sits underneath the house with 2 inch thick glass windows looking into the swimming pool, very cool.

It's had an update recently with a Wider screen and more modern furniture in the latest pictures but it's obvious Matthew really enjoys his Home Cinema.

New Year - New Office

Happy New Year everyone, we hope 2018 is going to be as great as 2017.  

Our new office is taking shape, we've got a ceiling going up in the toilets and a final matt black coat on the metalwork before we lay the concrete floor.  We are really looking forward to showcasing all the latest in Smart Home technologies here in our Phuket HQ. 

2018 will also see a satellite office opening up in Chiang Mai and us offering our Audio system and Home Cinema expertise as Consultants and Designers for UK based projects.

We will also have some news regarding Networking services that we will be offering a little later in the year.

Amazon Smart Home pair top 2 sellers over Xmas

Amazon's Echo Dot, it's Alexa powered mini speaker was the biggest selling item on Amazon over the Xmas period - Selling an estimated 10 million+ units during the holiday period.

Amazingly (lot of A's in this article) the Amazon Fire Stick (powered with Alexa) was the number two best selling item.

Seems everybody is getting into the voice control game, even my dear Mum got a Sonos One with built in Alexa for Xmas.  When my Nan get's one I can rest assured that it's finally thoroughly and absolutely mainstream.

Sonos speakers vulnerable to Hacks

If you have a poorly configured or badly setup network.  Wired are reporting that the Sonos Play set of speakers including the Play:1 and the new Sonos One are among a set of Smart Home speakers that are vulnerable to commandeering over a poorly configured network. 

Secure Home Networking is becoming more and more important in the modern home, the sheer amount of technology that relies on the internet, from music systems, Internet Radio, Netflix, IPTV, IP Cameras to TV's it's becoming much more important to have a secure, resilient home network.  It's something we take very seriously here at H3 Digital and 2018 will see us concentrate efforts to enable us to offer the very best in Home Networking available.

"PERHAPS YOU'VE BEEN hearing strange sounds in your home—ghostly creaks and moans, random Rick Astley tunes, Alexa commands issued in someone else's voice. If so, you haven't necessarily lost your mind. Instead, if you own one of a few models of internet-connected speaker and you've been careless with your network settings, you might be one of thousands of people whose Sonos or Bose devices have been left wide open to audio hijacking by hackers around the world.

Researchers at Trend Micro have found that some models of Sonos and Bose speakers—including the Sonos Play:1, the newer Sonos One, and Bose SoundTouch systems—can be pinpointed online with simple internet scans, accessed remotely, and then commandeered with straightforward tricks to play any audio file that a hacker chooses. Only a small fraction of the total number of Bose and Sonos speakers were found to be accessible in their scans. But the researchers warn that anyone with a compromised device on their home network, or who has opened up their network to provide direct access to a server they're running to the external internet—say, to host a game server or share files—has potentially left their fancy speakers vulnerable to an epic aural prank.

"The unfortunate reality is that these devices assume the network they're sitting on is trusted, and we all should know better than that at this point," says Mark Nunnikhoven, a Trend Micro research director. "Anyone can go in and start controlling your speaker sounds," if you have a compromised devices, or even just a carelessly configured network.

Trend's researchers found that scanning tools like NMap and Shodan can easily spot those exposed speakers. They identified between 2,000 and 5,000 Sonos devices online, depending on the timing of their scans, and between 400 and 500 Bose devices. The impacted models allow any device on the same network to access the APIs they use to interface with apps like Spotify or Pandora without any sort of authentication. Tapping into that API, the researchers could simply ask the speakers to play an audio file hosted at any URL they chose, and the speakers would obey.

The researchers note that audio attack could even be used to speak commands from someone's Sonos or Bose speaker to their nearby Amazon Echo or Google Home. They went so far as to test out the attack on the Sonos One, which has Amazon's Alexa voice assistant integrated into its software. By triggering the speaker to speak commands, they could actually manipulate it into talking to itself, and then executing the commands it had spoken.

Given that those voice assistant devices often control smart home features from lighting to door locks, Trend Micro's Nunnikhoven argues that they could be exploited for attacks that go beyond mere pranks. "Now I can start to run through more devious scenarios and really start to access the smart devices in your home," he says.

Mark Nunnikhoven

'Anyone can go in and start controlling your speaker sounds.'

Given the complexity of those voice assistant attacks, however, pranks are far more likely. And the audio-hacker haunting Trend Micro warns about may have already actually happened in the wild. The company's researchers point to one posting from a customer on a Sonos forum who reported earlier this year that her speaker had begun randomly playing sounds like door creaks, baby cries, and glass breaking. "It was really loud!" she wrote. "It's starting to freak me out and I don't know how to stop it." She eventually resorted to unplugging the speaker.

Beyond merely playing sounds through a victim's device, a hacker could also determine information like what file a vulnerable speaker is currently playing, the name of someone's accounts on services like Spotify and Pandora, and the name of their Wi-Fi network. In testing devices running an older version of Sonos software, they even found that they could identify more detailed information, like the IP addresses and device IDs of gadgets that had connected to the speaker.

After Trend Micro warned Sonos about its findings, the company pushed out an update to reduce that information leakage. But Bose has yet to respond to Trend Micro's warnings about its security vulnerabilities, and both companies' speakers remain vulnerable to the audio API attack when their speakers are left accessible on the internet. A Sonos spokesperson wrote in response to an inquiry from WIRED that the company is "looking into this more, but what you are referencing is a misconfiguration of a user’s network that impacts a very small number of customers that may have exposed their device to a public network. We do not recommend this type of set-up for our customers." Bose has yet responded to WIRED's request for comment on Trend Micro's research.

None of this adds up to much of a critical security threat for the average audiophile. But it does mean owners of internet-connected speakers should think twice about opening holes in their network designed to let external visitors into other servers. And if they do, they should at least keep an ear out for any evil commands their Sonos might be whispering to their Echo after dark."

Amazon extending it's Smart Home ecosystem

Amazon has just acquired Blink.  Blink was started in 2014 and builds connected Wi-Fi home security cameras and also a new video doorbell just launched earlier this week.  Blink was started via a crowdfunding campaign where it raised more than 1 million US$.

The Blink Video Doorbell can be used either wired or wirelessly running from 2 AA batteries and allows you to watch a HD real time image whilst speaking to whoever is at the door.  It also has motion alerts, video capture and night vision.  The Blink video doorbell is IP65 so is water resistant for outdoor use.

Amazon has recently been gearing up for what are termed home entry products such as the Amazon Key and Cloud Cam that will allow Amazon delivery drivers to enter your home or parts of it to make a safe delivery, within their allocated time slot and monitored by the Amazon Cloud Cam.  The Blink technology may help them assimilate the doorbell into the system in some way.

Amazon is making some serious forays into the smart home market, the amazing success of the Alexa products has really catapulted Amazon into lead position over Google, Apple and other technology companies.

Merry Xmas to everyone

Christmas 2017 is here, We even had a visit from Tim Newton from the Thaiger who brought Santa to see us in the office.

Tim from the Thaiger brings Santa to the H3 Digital Office.

2017 was a great year, we accomplished loads and had a truck load of fun doing it.  Amazons Alexa technology was the breakout Smart Home technology which came on leaps and bounds.  I currently use Alexa in my own home in Chiang Mai (1 Echo and 2 Dots) to control my Sonos music system and my Philips Hue Smart Lights. Also Spotify came to our shores at the fantastic price of only 129 baht a month I can listen to just about any music I want to - Even Xmas compilations - arrgghhh!!!.

We've got a load of plans for 2018, Our new Phuket headquarters/office should be ready by March and we can't wait.  The home cinema may take a while longer but we expect to move in by mid 2018.  We also expect to be doing more for our ReBoot initiative with the kids at BaanYa, details to follow shortly.

Hope everyone had a great Xmas and enjoys their New Year celebrations.

Handover - Sonos Sound System at Surin Beach Apartment

Another satisfied customer.  Xmas is just around the corner and we are busy finishing up a lot of audio and visual systems for our clients to enjoy.

H3 Digital's Rob Hobbs hands over Jacky's Sonos and Big Screen TV project

Jacky wanted to equip his newly refurbished apartment at Suriyana, Surin Beach with Sonos multi room audio throughout.  He came to the right people, we've got more than a decade of experience with Sonos and installing home music systems.

Sonos Play 3

Jacky opted for 4 individual zones of audio with in-ceiling speakers for Living Room, Bedrooms and Kitchen, a stereo pair of Play:3s in his upstairs office and a Sonos Playbar and Sub for the Living Room TV.

Sonos Playbar

Flexson TV Mount for Sonos Playbar

We used Flexson’s Cantilever wall-mount that allows the Playbar to move in unison with TV for a great viewing and listening clarity as well as looking the business.

Customer Handover - Chiang Mai Home

This week we completed the smart home systems for Gerry in Chiangmai.  Gerry had a new villa built for him in the Hang Dong area and was interested in making sure his new villa was going to be up to date with home technology, easy to use and most importantly fun.  He wanted movies and music for his family to enjoy in all areas of his new villa.

H3 Digital MD Ben Hobbs presents Gerry with his Smart Home handover pack.

Nuvo P200 and in-ceiling speakers.

We installed for Gerry a multi room audio system from Nuvo in his Living Room/Lounge, Office, Bar Area, Swimming Pool/Sala, Gym and Terrace areas.  This consists of a Nuvo P200 music amplifier for each room (but housed in an equipment rack in the M&E room) and a mixture of in-ceiling and outdoor architectural speakers also from Nuvo.   

Chiang Mai Smart Home Villa - Audio & Video by H3 Digital

This allows Gerry and his family to access the system from any iPhone, iPad or Android device and play music from USB, Internet radio or any music stored anywhere on his home network.  They can control volume and songs in each individual room or group them into one or more party zones all playing the same audio.

Music all around the swimming pool

Gerry opted for a 65"OLED TV from LG for his Living Room.  This 4k TV is fed via one of our Reference:Movie4k media centres and controlled via Logitech Harmony Elite and Smart Hub.  Movies and Music are streamed from the internet or stored on his 16Tb server.

Nuvo In-Ceiling Speakers

Two more rooms feature Reference:MovieHD media centres which stream in Full HD to the kids room and the office area.  Both these areas utilise the harmony Ultimate Touch screen remotes for one-touch control.

We also supplied and installed the wifi for the villa, 4 access points, network switches and ethernet/cat-5 to key points within the villa.