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Commentary about the silliness of the avalanche of IOT devices being created right now aside (99% of consumer internet startups are based on dumb ideas and fail
by rollback 11y ago
Commentary about the silliness of the avalanche of IOT devices being created right now aside (99% of consumer internet startups are based on dumb ideas and fail, but that doesn't mean there is no market or trend!), it's inevitable that this stuff is going to get traction in the market and it's a vast market. I doubt it's going to happen based on a bunch of edge-case $99 devices though.
The big trend here is the cost of wifi enabled microprocessors dropping down to nearly nothing. Last year we were excited about raspberry pi dropping prices down to $30 for sensor-enabled hardware on the network.
This year you can buy a wifi-enabled microcontroller for _$3_ (search esp8266). And that's not even in volume. At that price, pretty much anything consumer electronics companies build can be addressable on the network.
Add to that voice control, which is crude but usable and built into every phone already and improving quickly. The idea of walking into your house and looking for a light switch is going to feel like walking up to your TV to change the channel did 30 years ago when the remote went into wider use.
I find the economic arguments about not saving money using IOT devices a little amusing, on HN especially. My guess is that almost everyone reading this forum spends a shitload of money buying techno gadgets for reasons beyond "it saves me money."
- jhallenworld 11y agoWell here is an interesting argument for voice control: it's more hygienic. All touch points are potential sources for disease. On the other hand, maybe we are increasing allergies by making the environment too sterile. What hygienic technology will replace touch screens?
- mreiland 11y agoIs that actually a problem? That sounds like a made up solution. For the vast majority of people, simply touching something that someone else in your home has touched isn't going to cause you any sort of problems.
- octo_t 11y agoPossibly not in the home, but in the office or public places? Definitely.
- oblio 11y agoYet we use public transportation in many parts of the world and few bad things have happened. We use door handles everywhere. Etc.
- Zigurd 11y agoDoor handles are a big problem in hospitals. I'd take the bet that they are a bigger problem in public places than is generally acknowledged.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoInterestingly this is actually a solved problem that we have forgotten the solution to. Copper naturally kills most pathogens. Brass door handles therefore act to prevent touch based spread of pathogens -- but plastic is cheaper.
- mschuster91 11y agoI think it's not the price but the looks. Copper tends to oxidize and form an ugly green-ish hue of copper oxide, while proper plastics or other non-biocidic metal will not degrade in looks.
- ars 11y agoBrass works fine too.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoI do actually say use brass rather than copper in my OP for this exact reason.
- 11y ago
- Nickersf 11y agoHow is living in a sterile plastic bubble good? Our immune systems need bacterium to fight or it will weaken. I'm not saying go rummage through medical waste, but some exposure to dirt is normal - or at least has been for hundreds of thousands of years.
- stephengillie 11y agoA damp, soapy sponge cleans smartphones pretty well. And a damp cloth to rinse before drying. Still waiting for waterproofing to become a standard smartphone feature. Then we can start debating handwashing vs dishwashing, and also use the phone to record the washing cycle on video from inside the dishwasher.
- icebraining 11y agoApparently, it's already standard - in Japan.
- fallingmeat 11y ago"...wifi-enabled microcontroller for _$3_..." have been available (in volume) for, at least, a few years now. I'm not sure why, all of a sudden, this is such a promising solution on the most trivial of problems. As an engineer in this industry, these companies often seem like carpetbaggers, attempting to enter niche markets they know little of, with a solution who's only merit is it's hype.
- jdietrich 11y agoThe ESP8266 is making waves because a) it's substantially cheaper than anything else on the market, b) it integrates the WiFi MAC, the entire RF system from balun to baseband and a useful microcontroller and c) it is fantastically easy to use. Espressif will sell you a single ESP8266 for less than $2; the ESP8089 is less than a buck, again in single quantities. TI's 1ku pricing for a CC3100 SoC is $6.70. Nordic's cheapest 2.4GHz SoC is about $3.50/1ku, and that doesn't do WiFi. The cheap Espressif chips really are a big deal IMO, in the same way that cheap ARM A-series processors from Rockchip and Allwinner have radically changed many consumer markets. You can run an HTTP server on a chip that is price-competitive with an ATTINY88.
- HeyLaughingBoy 11y agoThe important part is what you parenthetically dismiss (in volume). I know they've been around in volume for years, but most of the stuff I build doesn't come close to triggering that kind of volume. Therefore, the guy who wants me to send data from his forklifts to a central server in the warehouse can get it done at a cost he can more easily stomach when the hardware cost is under $20 as opposed to being around $100. Price matters!
- rsync 11y ago"My guess is that almost everyone reading this forum spends a shitload of money buying techno gadgets for reasons beyond "it saves me money."" My guess would be that the HN reader is more discerning and sophisticated than that. I am guessing that a lot of HN readers are considering questions like: - how many different sources of data egress do I want in my home ? (as few as possible) - how many different wireless network topologies should be running, and overlayed, on my home ? (perhaps zero, other than wifi and cellular) - how fragile should my appliances be to things like DoS, firmware compatibility, licensing, network connectivity, etc. ? (not fragile at all) Think of your current interactions with your printer. Think of how often that works flawlessly and how often it doesn't and think of the underlying business models and network models that make it so (god-damned) fragile and user-hostile. Now imagine everything works like this. That's the Internet of Things. I suspect many HN readers are quite wary of it ...
- shostack 11y agoThe business model part of your comment scares the crap out of me the more I let it sit. Case in point, printer manufacturers are now nlargely no longer selling individual b/w and color cartridges. They now sell them physically connected as a single block and when one color goes, you gotta toss the whole thing. And God help you if you try to refill with generics and void the warrNty. Now picture that applied to your home, with companies doing their damnedest to lock you into their overpriced proprietary consumables. Familiar with Simple Human? Case in point and they aren't even a Smart Device. Imagine if they refused to update unless you switched to their SaaS model like some certain software companies have.
- unprepare 11y agoReminds me of Keurig introducing DRM into their new 2.0 coffee brewers. It uses a scanner to authenticate the k-cups, and refuses to brew cups it determines as non-authentic.
- sliverstorm 11y ago+1 for knowing how to spell 'wary'. Seriously, I've discovered a horrifyingly small number of people spell it right.