Cellular vs Wifi Connectivity

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Ravenvalor

Ravenvalor

Senior Member
Location
Triad region of NC
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Electrician
Hello,

Is it worth it to spend the extra $30 per month for cellular connectivity in order to prevent possible security issues by using WiFi for your personal PV system connectivity?

Thanks for the help.
 
Um, no. For one thing, it shouldn't cost that much. For another, I've installed thousands of systems and never ever heard of anyone getting hacked that way.
 
jaggedben said:
Um, no. For one thing, it shouldn't cost that much. For another, I've installed thousands of systems and never ever heard of anyone getting hacked that way.
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Hacker might change something that effects performance, but I don't think there is much for them to steal, which likely means not so much interest to hack it unless purely done as some sort of prank for the thrill of it. Most hackers are trying to find some sort of financial gain or something that will lead to that.

If you share same passwords as for other online activity and they are able to attain those maybe they can gain something from that
 
kwired said:
Hacker might change something that effects performance, but I don't think there is much for them to steal, which likely means not so much interest to hack it unless purely done as some sort of prank for the thrill of it. Most hackers are trying to find some sort of financial gain or something that will lead to that.
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He is worried about the solar system providing some kind of backdoor to the other stuff he does with his wifi, which is probably the rest of his life. It's not an unreasonable concern, but in my experience solar companies are competent enough that it's no more worry than any other device on your network.

kwired said:
If you share same passwords as for other online activity and they are able to attain those maybe they can gain something from that
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That's nothing to do with cell vs. Wifi.
 
zbang said:
I've never thought of it, but how many residential solar systems have wired Ethernet? I'd much rather have that, but then most of my home is hard-wired for the network (wifi is for the phone/tablet, not much else).
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My guess would be about 5 percent have 100% hardwire ethernet cord. But it depends a little how you consider it. Solaredge has a dedicated zigbee device that plugs into the router via ethernet, but communicates wirelessly with the inverter(s). So it's not 100% hardwire, but from the standpoint of not being on wifi (and therefore not susceptible to changing wifi passwords or SSIDs) it's the same as ethernet. It was also somewhat common in the past for installers to use EoP devices to extend ethernet connectivity, but I think that's fallen out of fashion (not very reliable).
 
zbang said:
I've never thought of it, but how many residential solar systems have wired Ethernet? I'd much rather have that, but then most of my home is hard-wired for the network (wifi is for the phone/tablet, not much else).
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The Envoy with my 2015 era Enphase system is hard wired. It was 10BaseT EoP until I installed a mesh with Ethernet ports.
 
jaggedben said:
He is worried about the solar system providing some kind of backdoor to the other stuff he does with his wifi, which is probably the rest of his life. It's not an unreasonable concern, but in my experience solar companies are competent enough that it's no more worry than any other device on your network.
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I agree it is a reasonable concern because you're relying on the equipment manufacturer to keep their system firmware up to date. IOT devices are usually poorly implemented and rarely patched even when vulnerabilities are exposed.
 
zbang said:
I've never thought of it, but how many residential solar systems have wired Ethernet? I'd much rather have that, but then most of my home is hard-wired for the network (wifi is for the phone/tablet, not much else).
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If you're going to put something like solar on your WiFi the safest bet is to put it OUTSIDE the regular home network, and packet filter the crap out of it. That means a second wireless access point, with a private SSID, with a strong WPA key, and only the networking ports needed by the solar equipment allowed in and out. The reason is that many of those long-lived devices will slowly become network security risks as the devices become obsolete and the networking software stops being supported.

I keep meaning to put all of my home automation gear onto a separate WiFi network, but I'm also tired of WiFi home automation equipment and am migrating to Z-Wave. WiFi home automation equipment has the same attack surface -- devices that no longer have firmware upgrades and which slowly accumulate security vulnerabilities.
 
infinity said:
I agree it is a reasonable concern because you're relying on the equipment manufacturer to keep their system firmware up to date. IOT devices are usually poorly implemented and rarely patched even when vulnerabilities are exposed.
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It's not just that they are rarely patched because the vendor is thoughtless. Think about something like a WiFi enabled LED bulb. Are you willing to rely on the vendor to keep updating the firmware for the 10-15 year life expectancy of your slick color-changing, dimmable, "scene-enabled" lightbulb?
 
Thinking of Enphase in particular and how they keep pushing software updates that occasionally break wanted features, I'm not worried about the software having been abandoned. Now if the solar manufacturer has gone out of business that might be different.
 
jaggedben said:
Thinking of Enphase in particular and how they keep pushing software updates that occasionally break wanted features, I'm not worried about the software having been abandoned. Now if the solar manufacturer has gone out of business that might be different.
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They wound up owning the assets of a company I worked for 6 or 7 years ago. I don't think anyone has touched the gateway code I wrote.

On the other hand, it was all hard-wired, so not as risky as WiFI.
 
tallgirl said:
If you're going to put something like solar on your WiFi the safest bet is to put it OUTSIDE the regular home network, and packet filter the crap out of it. That means a second wireless access point, with a private SSID, with a strong WPA key, and only the networking ports needed by the solar equipment allowed in and out. The reason is that many of those long-lived devices will slowly become network security risks as the devices become obsolete and the networking software stops being supported.

I keep meaning to put all of my home automation gear onto a separate WiFi network, but I'm also tired of WiFi home automation equipment and am migrating to Z-Wave. WiFi home automation equipment has the same attack surface -- devices that no longer have firmware upgrades and which slowly accumulate security vulnerabilities.
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Is necessary if you live in the boonies? If someone is going to hack you they are either going to do so through the ISP side of things or will be parked in front of your house while breaking into your wifi network.
 
Well, there are a couple of issues. A properly configured WIFI or wired LAN system is pretty secure to start with. But it's only as secure as the devices that are connected to it. If they make a connection through the LAN to the internet and a cloud server and can receive connections from outside the LAN then you are at the mercy of the security provided by that device. If someone gains access to the device they are on your LAN and once connected it's open season on your system. That's why we hear stories about people putting webcams on their LAN so they can watch the baby from work and they find out someone has been able to connect to the camera and watch them. I have never heard of anyone gaining unauthorized access to an inverter from the internet, but it might be hard for a homeowner to know and the manufacturer has nothing to gain by admitting it has happened. I'm not a proponent of IOT devices that can receive connections from the internet. I won't even connect my light bulbs to the internet. :)
 
My design rule #2 is any equipment permanently installed that needs access to a LAN to do its job must use a wired connection. PV should not rely on WIFI for proper operation.
 
tortuga said:
My design rule #2 is any equipment permanently installed that needs access to a LAN to do its job must use a wired connection. PV should not rely on WIFI for proper operation.
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I don't think it does in any case. Internet access is just for monitoring on most residential PV systems.
 
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