Blurred Lines—When the
Physical Space Meets the
Virtual Space
Android and iOS are the most popular smartphone operating systems in the world.
In addition to many other uses, these phones are useful for their mapping functionality. Prior
to 2007, when the first iPhone was released, Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality
on phones was barely usable—most of us printed out directions on a sheet of paper using
Yahoo! Maps or MapQuest. It’s only been a few years since we began to rely so much on the
GPS abilities of our smartphones, yet it’s now hard to imagine how we got by in the past.
Many of the tools we now have at home are likely to go through the same revolution. As
we’ve seen in the previous chapters, we are rapidly heading toward replacing offline devices
such as traditional door locks, radio-based baby monitors, and lighting with IoT devices that
can be accessed and controlled remotely. In a few years, similar to our current sentiments
regarding GPS functionality on our smartphones, we are going to wonder how we were able
to get by without being able to communicate with various things in our homes (such as door
sensors, thermostats, and motion detectors) regardless of our location. The notion that we
were once unable to tell remotely if we’d left our home’s front door unlocked will seem unfa-
thomable.
SmartThings (acquired by Samsung in 2014) is one company that is trying to lead the
dream of the IoT-connected home with its suite of products, such as the SmartSense Multi
Sensor and SmartPower Outlet. The SmartThings store has a slew of products that individuals
can buy and install themselves.
Given that SmartThings is so focused on enabling the IoT in the home, this chapter focu-
ses on evaluating the security in the design of its products. It is important to identify compa-
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