Odds and ends with a technical slant.

  Securing Internet of Things (IoT) devices within VLANs. On my home automation network I have a separate restricted VLAN for IoT devices. There is a single main reason why I set this up, security. Pretty much all of these devices have some form of processing ability within them. Almost all of them will have some small form of Linux installed with them. I have many IoT devices, some from manufacturers like Belkin and TP-Link, others from smaller outfits like Lifx (light bulbs) and Broadlink.    Additionally, when I get a smart TV, it will be heavily restricted as to what external services it can access (if any). I want to be able to control it over my network, but I don't want it spying on me or spamming me with adverts. All of these are what I would call consumer devices and the lifetime I would expect from a consumer device is quite long (5+ years). However the support the manufacturer provides for these devices can sometimes be measured in months. That is als...

I recently received two Everything Presence One Sensors from the Everything Smart Home YouTube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/@EverythingSmartHome ). I was quite lucky to get them as during the ordering process back in December, as I had a bit of a cock-up on the credit card front and couldn't put the payment though. Oddly a few hours later I got an email from the site, asking me if I'd like to pay. A change of location and PC later and I had succesfully paid, which is cool, considering they sold out pretty quick. Fast forward to March and I recieved two sensors plus cases. It comes with a 3D printed case (with mounting stand), a main board, a PIR sensor and a Millimeter Wave sensor. It is a well made custom made board, with the nice option to mount the Millimeter Wave sensor in one of two directions. Assembly is simple to anyone who has successfully put together an MFI wardrobe.  The assembled sensor looks like this: It looks quite neat. To setup, it is a case of plugging i...