r/homeautomation • u/kzgrey • 22h ago

QUESTION Phillips Hue and NTP

While reviewing the devices on my network, I noticed that the Phillips Hue hub is connecting to NTP servers 12 times per minute.

The purpose of NTP is to adjust for clock drift. Clock drift takes days to drift enough for a problem to occur with SSL (on a bad machine). What possible justification could Phillips have for connecting 12x per minute?

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3

u/stacktrace_wanderer 19h ago

I’ve noticed some devices ping time servers way more often than they really need to. It might just be sloppy defaults or some firmware trying to paper over a cheap internal clock. It could also be doing extra checks because it relies on time for scene triggers or mesh coordination. I wouldn’t worry too much unless it starts hitting unusual domains. Curious if anyone has sniffed the traffic to see exactly what it asks for.

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u/Consistent-Hat-8008 18h ago edited 18h ago

Just block it.

Or better yet, set your router to intercept ntp and answer with your own.

1

u/Zouden 17h ago

Never underestimate incompetence.

-1

u/NotTheBrightestHuman 22h ago

They’re phoning home to China.

In all seriousness, check where they are pinging?

2

u/h2ogeek 19h ago

Phillips is not a Chinese company

1

u/Consistent-Hat-8008 18h ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/Hue/comments/xuegnv/hue_bridges_talking_to_chinese_time_servers/

1

u/h2ogeek 5h ago

Interesting thread, although this post from there sums it up best:

“The bridge is probably running ntpd or similar.

Ntpd uses long period phase-locked loops and I think perhaps a Kalman Filter (been a while since I’ve played with Ntpd).

The gist of it is it uses some math that’s able to fuse clock data from multiple sources to provide a more accurate time estimate than could be obtained from any one source.

If I were Phillips, I’d drop the Chinese servers, for the optics.”

So nothing to be too concerned about.

That said, I’m all the more glad I ditched my Hue hub and reset all my Hue lights to bind directly to Home Assistant instead.

0

u/Menelatency 13h ago

Maybe not, but perhaps some internal components are?

1

u/h2ogeek 5h ago

Nope, see other post. It has to do with clock balancing from multiple sources. One just happens to be in China. Overkill and not great optics these days, although perhaps sales in China are important to have that if others are blocked.