SmartHome threats - privacy intrusion, surveillance, hacking, etc.

Hey!
I'd like to have some Smart Home (SH for short) elements in a house I'll be building soon. As many such devices are hooked up to the internet, there is some non-zero (maybe even <0.1) probability that some hackers/crackers will be able to bypass security protocols, etc and be able to operate my SH elements as if they were me.

For example, they could:
- view camera images,
- eavesdrop on householder conversations,
- take over control of the entrance/garage gate,
- open my door when I am on holiday,
- trigger false alarms to lull the vigilance of the security agency so that they would 'not react properly' if a real alarm was triggered.

I guess the software of the companies offering SH solutions is not open source licensed (unless some company did though?), so there is no way for the community to verify that it does not contain some obvious security vulnerabilities, trojans or "back doors" into the system. In such a situation, can one just trust the company to be honest, everything is ok and there will be no intrusion into the users' privacy?

How do you guys look at this?

Greetings,
Jacek

Jack80dev wrote:

I would like to have some Smart Home (SH for short) elements in the house I will be building soon.

And these elements, will you install, connect and program yourself ? Or will a company do it ? As a company, the fitters of your alarm, monitoring, etc. will you trust ?

I have found 2 platforms for SH: Domoticz and HomeAssistant, which have code under an open source licence.
Have any of you used either one? Will you share your impressions?

Anything that uses the cloud will be vulnerable to hacking sooner or later. You only need to read about similar cases in recent years. Personally, I trust only local solutions that do not use the cloud and do not need to be connected to the Internet, over which I have full control. Domoticz is ok if you don't require specific settings, I use it as well as recently openHab because it has integration with an old 20-year-old alarm, maybe it would also work with domoticz, but due to laziness I don't want to knock down an open door and at the same time learn about a new platform. It depends on what you want to achieve because playing with lights on and off + raising roller blinds gets boring after some time. OpenHab has the advantage that you can basically integrate the whole system from its level, be it a camera system or other devices, because there is a lot more integration, I don't know yet (I've been playing with it for a few days) but maybe it can also be connected to domoticz. You can start by playing with domoticz, it is much easier to use than openhab.

Think, as you are at the construction stage, if and how many devices could be embraced "on cable" . Minimise the wireless crammed in everywhere.