tankman1989
Active Member
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One of my clients has a home automation system that is connected via powerline network connection (all devices talk to the monitor device via power lines). The various systems send back monitoring data to the device which is connected to the network and the device updates the equipment manufacturer's servers with the various data. This seems normal but there is something that raises a red flag IMO and I'd like other's take on this.
The data that it updates is stuff like power usage, run times, power cycles, etc, minimal data that I can see.
If the device looses internet connection, it collects data and updates when it sees the connection again. The thing is, that it will take DAYS to update a couple weeks of data. The device has a 100MB connection & a 30MBps internet connection.
The manufacturer says that the device only updates a little at a time because their servers can only handle so many connections and process so many devices at a time and it is basically a queue for the updates. I call BS on this and think it is totally ridiculous.
The data that is supposedly being send is stuff os simple graphs of maybe 10 statistics per device every 5 mins.
So, for this equipment to function "properly" this device needs 24/7 network access for it to update continuosly. I can't set a schedule for it to connect for 20 mins a day and update the server b/c the manufacturer's servers "can't process the data like that"...
I'm waiting to talk to the company later next week and am anxious to hear the ludicrious story they are going to tell me explain why it can't update in a bulk upload.
I asked during installation why there wasn't software that could be installed on a computer that could collect the data from the device and update the servers or ANY reason not to have this thing on the network all the time.
Another suspicious thing is that I see a strange SSID pop up once in a while at this location and there are no wireless devices active (no houses in 1/4 mile either, so it is something in-house). IDK if it is this device, but it isn't supposed to have wireless functionality. I only see the network when I use special wifi detection software and I think the network doesn't broadcast normally, so I'm kind of wondering if it might be linked to this monitoring device.
I'm not publishing the name of the device or company b/c I don't want to publicly say anything bad about the product until I talk to them and hear their side.
I'd really like to hear others opinions on this and see if there may be reasons as to why it can only update at such a slow rate.
I'm foing to run wireshark or TCPdump on the network this weekend and watch the device and see what the deal is, but I'm not really experienced with those programs, so I'm not sure what I can learn from that.
Any thoughts on this?
Oh, the device was manufactured about 2 years ago and I don't know what kind of storage it uses, but even if it was as slow as USB 1.1 it would be able to transfer at 11Mbps so this trickle rate just seems off.
The data that it updates is stuff like power usage, run times, power cycles, etc, minimal data that I can see.
If the device looses internet connection, it collects data and updates when it sees the connection again. The thing is, that it will take DAYS to update a couple weeks of data. The device has a 100MB connection & a 30MBps internet connection.
The manufacturer says that the device only updates a little at a time because their servers can only handle so many connections and process so many devices at a time and it is basically a queue for the updates. I call BS on this and think it is totally ridiculous.
The data that is supposedly being send is stuff os simple graphs of maybe 10 statistics per device every 5 mins.
So, for this equipment to function "properly" this device needs 24/7 network access for it to update continuosly. I can't set a schedule for it to connect for 20 mins a day and update the server b/c the manufacturer's servers "can't process the data like that"...
I'm waiting to talk to the company later next week and am anxious to hear the ludicrious story they are going to tell me explain why it can't update in a bulk upload.
I asked during installation why there wasn't software that could be installed on a computer that could collect the data from the device and update the servers or ANY reason not to have this thing on the network all the time.
Another suspicious thing is that I see a strange SSID pop up once in a while at this location and there are no wireless devices active (no houses in 1/4 mile either, so it is something in-house). IDK if it is this device, but it isn't supposed to have wireless functionality. I only see the network when I use special wifi detection software and I think the network doesn't broadcast normally, so I'm kind of wondering if it might be linked to this monitoring device.
I'm not publishing the name of the device or company b/c I don't want to publicly say anything bad about the product until I talk to them and hear their side.
I'd really like to hear others opinions on this and see if there may be reasons as to why it can only update at such a slow rate.
I'm foing to run wireshark or TCPdump on the network this weekend and watch the device and see what the deal is, but I'm not really experienced with those programs, so I'm not sure what I can learn from that.
Any thoughts on this?
Oh, the device was manufactured about 2 years ago and I don't know what kind of storage it uses, but even if it was as slow as USB 1.1 it would be able to transfer at 11Mbps so this trickle rate just seems off.
