How a hunhu home works.

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The box

A small computer that sits beside your router. It runs hunhu: it watches the cameras, keeps your rules and switches things on and off.

It works without the internet. If the line drops, the house carries on; only chat waits for it to come back.

Its disk is encrypted, so a disk pulled out of it can’t be read.

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Router and wifi

Your router brings the internet into the house and makes your wifi. The box plugs into it with a cable.

Most devices join the same wifi as your phone. That is the home network, and it is how they reach the box.

When an adult’s phone joins the home wifi, hunhu knows they are home. Home or away, nothing more.

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Cameras

The cameras you have, or new ones, send their picture to the box over your network, by cable or wifi. A recorder (a DVR) stays as it is.

The box looks at the picture itself and spots people, cars and dogs. It doesn’t recognise faces or read number plates.

Clips are stored on the box and deleted after the period you choose.

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Sensors and switches

Sensors tell the box what is happening: a door opened, someone walked past, the lounge is at 24 °C.

Switches let it act: a smart plug turns the heater off, a small relay behind a wall switch turns the stoep light on.

Each one talks to the box on your own network, without a cloud account. Anything wired into your mains is fitted by an electrician.

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Wireless

Wi-Fi: the same as your phone uses. For plugs, switches and cameras, which are always plugged in.

Bluetooth: short range and very low power. For small battery sensors. Little Bluetooth relays around the house pass their messages to the box.

No hub to buy: the box and the relays do that job.

LaterZigbee and Thread, two other low-power radios, come later. This first version doesn’t use them.

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Sleep and batteries

A battery sensor sleeps almost all the time, so one small battery lasts a long while.

When something happens, a window opening, it wakes, sends one short message and sleeps again. You can’t ask it how it is; it only speaks when it wakes.

hunhu shows when a sensor has gone quiet for too long, and when its battery runs low. Plugs, switches and cameras are always awake.

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Where your data goes

A reading goes from the device to the box, and from the box to your phone or a screen at home. It stays inside your house.

Only a little crosses the wall to the internet: alerts to your phone (encrypted, never the picture), security fixes, and the time.

Chat, hunhu Cloud, an outside assistant and error reports cross only if you turn them on.

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Security

The house runs on the box, so it needs no cloud account to work.

Your camera passwords are stored encrypted on the box. Security fixes install by themselves overnight.

Locks and the gate always ask you to confirm before they move, and you decide who can use what.