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I wondered why Samsung seems to be going hard into not just IoT, but also into cloud (by buying Joyent). IoT is going to be the new "convergence", isn't it? Te

by sjellis 10y ago

I wondered why Samsung seems to be going hard into not just IoT, but also into cloud (by buying Joyent). IoT is going to be the new "convergence", isn't it? Technical and business people get really excited, lots of effort is invested, and then average people just shrug, because it turns out that the tech doesn't solve an actual problem they they have.

niftich 10y ago
I'm not so convinced IoT will fizzle with average people. Security and cloud-dependence aside, I can see the value in certain things being connected and remote-manageable: baby monitors, lights, pet feeders, washing machines, coffeemakers, ovens, thermostats; anything where controlling or seeing data from it from a outside the room or outside the house would be genuinely useful to solve particular needs. Some others will be complete gimmicks solving no real need. And all of this doesn't account for any evolution of appliances along non-IoT spectrums or the introduction of entirely new ones: - a combined washer/dryer blackbox where dirty clothes go in and clean, dry clothes come out - an affordable at-home deboning/meatcarving apparatus - an at-home vegetable-growing planter - a 'smart' pan that controls the cooking temperature and done-ness Some of these concepts are being trialed right now, or exist at industrial scales and have yet to be scaled down. A lot of what's being talked about assumes that were it not for them being 'smart', appliances will look exactly the same in 10-20 years. I don't believe this to be true. Nothing too futuristic, but new gizmos will exist, solving real (if niche) needs, some of which benefit more from data sharing than others.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  > - a combined washer/dryer blackbox where dirty clothes go in and clean, dry clothes come out These exist and seem to be the standard laundry device in Japan from my (limited) experience. Any time I've used them my clothes come out quite damp, and an air drying step is required.
- scotu 10y ago
  regarding the smart pan, if you haven't heard about it yet, check out sous vide cooking technique (there are home level devices on the market right now for it), it's essentially what you want, just it's not done in a pan (you need a dumb pan to do the finishing, but it's a quick step, not very error prone)
- sjellis 10y ago
  Good points, particularly about industrial uses (I've seen impressive things for agriculture, and can see the use cases in institutions and other large buildings like hotels). I guess that I look at the current consumer products, and they seem like isolated gimmicks. Aside from the quality of the code on the devices, there needs to be at least some kind of secure message broker and associated apps, otherwise every individual device is going want separate control apps and be spamming you. I'm currently using a personal Slack account to manage all the notifications from cloud services etc. but it feels like a hack - a smart home with a bunch of devices probably needs a super user-friendly common interface.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  > I can see the value in certain things being connected and remote-manageable: ... pet feeders ... coffeemakers ... For what possible use cases could these items benefit from connectivity? This sounds like all the IoT hype I have been hearing for the past couple years. Let's connect everything! Even if the marginal benefit is less than the costs!

by sjellis 10y ago

niftich 10y ago

I'm not so convinced IoT will fizzle with average people. Security and cloud-dependence aside, I can see the value in certain things being connected and remote-manageable: baby monitors, lights, pet feeders, washing machines, coffeemakers, ovens, thermostats; anything where controlling or seeing data from it from a outside the room or outside the house would be genuinely useful to solve particular needs. Some others will be complete gimmicks solving no real need. And all of this doesn't account for any evolution of appliances along non-IoT spectrums or the introduction of entirely new ones: - a combined washer/dryer blackbox where dirty clothes go in and clean, dry clothes come out - an affordable at-home deboning/meatcarving apparatus - an at-home vegetable-growing planter - a 'smart' pan that controls the cooking temperature and done-ness Some of these concepts are being trialed right now, or exist at industrial scales and have yet to be scaled down. A lot of what's being talked about assumes that were it not for them being 'smart', appliances will look exactly the same in 10-20 years. I don't believe this to be true. Nothing too futuristic, but new gizmos will exist, solving real (if niche) needs, some of which benefit more from data sharing than others.

x1798DE 10y ago
> - a combined washer/dryer blackbox where dirty clothes go in and clean, dry clothes come out These exist and seem to be the standard laundry device in Japan from my (limited) experience. Any time I've used them my clothes come out quite damp, and an air drying step is required.
scotu 10y ago
regarding the smart pan, if you haven't heard about it yet, check out sous vide cooking technique (there are home level devices on the market right now for it), it's essentially what you want, just it's not done in a pan (you need a dumb pan to do the finishing, but it's a quick step, not very error prone)
sjellis 10y ago
Good points, particularly about industrial uses (I've seen impressive things for agriculture, and can see the use cases in institutions and other large buildings like hotels). I guess that I look at the current consumer products, and they seem like isolated gimmicks. Aside from the quality of the code on the devices, there needs to be at least some kind of secure message broker and associated apps, otherwise every individual device is going want separate control apps and be spamming you. I'm currently using a personal Slack account to manage all the notifications from cloud services etc. but it feels like a hack - a smart home with a bunch of devices probably needs a super user-friendly common interface.
vonmoltke 10y ago
> I can see the value in certain things being connected and remote-manageable: ... pet feeders ... coffeemakers ... For what possible use cases could these items benefit from connectivity? This sounds like all the IoT hype I have been hearing for the past couple years. Let's connect everything! Even if the marginal benefit is less than the costs!