OpenWink - Introduction

Do not connect the Wink Hub to any network and don't play around with the Wink app on your smartphone!  By downloading and using the Wink app or signing up for the Wink cloud service, you're agreeing to the Wink EULA, possibly without reading it.  Wait until you've made an informed decision before you are prohibited from controlling the hardware you own.  

We're not big fans of using a cloud service to control our home automation.  Delays, security and reliability are all completely out of our control if we leave it up to someone else (and by the EULA we say that's OK).  As far as reliability and response time are concerned, Wink hasn't started with a great track record.  Reports of lights turning on randomly are a little troubling, but since our garage door opener and door locks can be connected to the Wink Hub, the performance of the cloud service is more than a little troubling.

Wink is one of many companies we might give some very sensitive data without fully considering the risks.  Once put on a server, your information becomes the property of someone other than you.  In the case of the Wink Cloud service, the data given to Wink includes your home network SSID and passphrase, historical and current GPS track data from your cell phone and the digital data to connect to and control your lights, thermostat, cameras and other home occupancy monitoring equipment and even your door locks and garage door opener, depending on what you connect to the Wink Hub.  Wink has left a back door on your Wink Hub, which is a pretty capable Linux computer inside your home network.  Although we don't expect any company (including Wink) to misuse this type of data, there have been enough internal and external leaks of sensitive personal data over the last decade to (hopefully) make a person a little more cautious.

OpenWink lets you maintain 100% ownership and control of your information.  Your information stays in your home or on your mobile devices and none of the transmitted data goes through equipment owned, monitored or controlled by Wink or HomeAutomationHacking.com.  Not only does OpenWink not install a back door, it closes and locks the one left by Wink.

Since there are a lot of them on the market right now, we're starting or course with Wink Hubs that haven't been updated to the current downloadable firmware.  OpenWink will configure the Wink Hub to protect it from lockout.  There are whisperings that "upgraded" Wink Hubs have been rooted, which we'll research as soon as time and market saturation warrant...At the moment, we're having too much fun to risk locking ourselves out of our Wink Hubs.

OpenWink puts the hardware you bought under your control.  It is a complement of scripts to customize the Wink Hub and a web interface that will actually do something.  It works with OpenHAB running on a Raspberry Pi as a replacement for the Wink cloud service.  Since your personal finances and your door locks can be affected by loose security, we're compiling recommendations to safely connect the system to the outside world.

Because OpenWink is intended to pair with a Raspberry Pi, we're taking advantage of the Ras Pi's exposed UART pins and starting the Wink Hub customization over UART.  This is the simplest way for someone with little or no coding experience to take control of their own hardware.  Unfortunately, no one seems to have found a strategy that doesn't require a bit of flexibility on the part of the new Wink Hub owner, either by installing and using software that is unusual for 95% of the computer-using public or opening up the Wink Hub's outer case.  Since our class is being taught at a makerspace, there's no shortage of people who are intimately familiar with soldering sensitive electronics.  We are developing instructions to guide those who are not familiar with ESD precautions and soldering.  We are also putting together a branched process that is wireless only.

So far, OpenWink is comprised of:

• A script (OpenWinkRPi) to be run on a Rasbberry Pi that has just been pulled out of the box, which configures a freshly downloaded Raspbian image on first boot, with no coding experience needed.  This script performs all of the configuration to prep the Ras Pi for unlocking the Wink Hub and installs OpenHab.
• A small preconfiguration script (OpenWinkpcfg) that is transferred from the Ras Pi to the Wink Hub over UART, which performs the first configuration steps to safely connect the Wink Hub to a network, and includes a web page that will download and install:
• The complete OpenWink package which permits full control via an upgraded web interface and OpenHAB.

We'll follow shortly with articles with a more detailed description of OpenWink and the step-by-step instructions for setting up your own OpenWink/OpenHAB home automation system.