As someone who is all-in on smart home kit, I tend to agree. Everyone who visits my home loves how it all works, but I have a strict rule that nothing is connected to the Internet: it’s either a local protocol (ZigBee, Matter) or connected to a local-only VLAN and is orchestrated by Home Assistant. It’s increasingly difficult to recommend products to people starting out that don’t involve some vague cloud service that can’t be relied on, and most people don’t want to go from zero to Home Assistant.
Okay we need to talk about this because in my opinion this hasnt become a boomer opinion that, as proven over and over again, is just a better and smarter decision. Most of things that are “smart” dont need to be. Why does a fridge, toaster, TV, matress or oven need to be connected to the internet??! For what?!
Most of things that are “smart” dont need to be. Why does a fridge, toaster, TV, matress or oven need to be connected to the internet??! For what?!
I’ve recently seen an add stating that, big brand washing machine have WiFi, we have quality and low pricesbut indeed, it’s getting crazy, and what happens when you change ISP?
I do not know what happens during an ISP change, but i do know that during the recent amazon server outage, these smart appliances stopped working. There was a case where someone with a smart matress (yeah apperently that exists), couldnt sleep because the matress was launched into a weird W shape position and heated itself up.
smart functionality should be in addition to regular functionality, never instead of
everything should work “normally” if the smart functionality is not available for any reason
no effing vendor portals, no effing ads, no effing data collection
smart functionality should be accessible locally to my house ONLY
As an example, a smart light switch should be a light switch that everyone is familiar with and works as they expect to turn on and off the light. in addition I might make it accessible on my local network to voice assistant, turn it on or off by schedule or when I arrive at home ir enter the room
I disagree. Most of them are shit because they’re designed to serve the manufacturer, provide additional profit streams.
However there’s no reason they couldn’t provide useful functionality to the customer.
it would be useful to receive fridge alerts if there was a problem
it would be useful to receive a toaster alert on pop up, or on malfunction
I really like using my phone as a tv remote, because I know where it is. I also like easy casting - I wish that wasn’t so broken. How did music manage to build something useful with Bluetooth streaming but the video equivalent has always been so broken?
my oven is connected to the internet. It’s nice to be notified when it’s preheated and when the cooking is done. …… at the expense of the vendor portal and all it entails
and yes I like to collect personal data, especially related to my health. If there were a private way to collect data from my mattress, I’d be Interested. You don’t have to be.
The most frustrating part is makers of smart appliances can save money by making them cheaper. Instead of a WiFi chip and vendor portal, just embed a dirt cheap Thread radio that simply exposes whatever is useful and let the customer take it from there, or not. Most smart appliances stuff people would find useful is monitoring and alerting, locally
I’m trying to make the point that smart devices aren’t inherently bad and can even be a good thing. However currently it’s just another way to exploit the customer. Maybe we’ll see more ethical implementation as these become mainstream. Maybe we’ll even see competition based on who implements smart devices ethically.
Literally watched their “industry initiative” to make a standard that works with everybody’s phone and doesn’t brick devices, and only lightbulbs use it.
I avoid smart home type shit
As someone who is all-in on smart home kit, I tend to agree. Everyone who visits my home loves how it all works, but I have a strict rule that nothing is connected to the Internet: it’s either a local protocol (ZigBee, Matter) or connected to a local-only VLAN and is orchestrated by Home Assistant. It’s increasingly difficult to recommend products to people starting out that don’t involve some vague cloud service that can’t be relied on, and most people don’t want to go from zero to Home Assistant.
Okay we need to talk about this because in my opinion this hasnt become a boomer opinion that, as proven over and over again, is just a better and smarter decision. Most of things that are “smart” dont need to be. Why does a fridge, toaster, TV, matress or oven need to be connected to the internet??! For what?!
Mattresses?! Yo, they need to stop lol
I’ve recently seen an add stating that, big brand washing machine have WiFi, we have quality and low pricesbut indeed, it’s getting crazy, and what happens when you change ISP?
I do not know what happens during an ISP change, but i do know that during the recent amazon server outage, these smart appliances stopped working. There was a case where someone with a smart matress (yeah apperently that exists), couldnt sleep because the matress was launched into a weird W shape position and heated itself up.
Well that’s a new nightmare fuel for me. Glitchy mattresses.
I feel like I’m pretty tech-savvy… which is why I don’t want software in anything where plain old physics will do the job. Software breaks.
As a software engineer, my variation on this is
As an example, a smart light switch should be a light switch that everyone is familiar with and works as they expect to turn on and off the light. in addition I might make it accessible on my local network to voice assistant, turn it on or off by schedule or when I arrive at home ir enter the room
I disagree. Most of them are shit because they’re designed to serve the manufacturer, provide additional profit streams.
However there’s no reason they couldn’t provide useful functionality to the customer.
The most frustrating part is makers of smart appliances can save money by making them cheaper. Instead of a WiFi chip and vendor portal, just embed a dirt cheap Thread radio that simply exposes whatever is useful and let the customer take it from there, or not. Most smart appliances stuff people would find useful is monitoring and alerting, locally
So they would be useful to you if they were completely different?
I’m trying to make the point that smart devices aren’t inherently bad and can even be a good thing. However currently it’s just another way to exploit the customer. Maybe we’ll see more ethical implementation as these become mainstream. Maybe we’ll even see competition based on who implements smart devices ethically.
Literally watched their “industry initiative” to make a standard that works with everybody’s phone and doesn’t brick devices, and only lightbulbs use it.
There’s at least one XKCD about this…