6 ms·

Oh wow, this is amazing. There's been a lawsuit in court about someone in Germany who sued their landlord because the landlord has put a Google Nest fire alarm

• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• cbg0 8y ago
  > What would have happened if Google had secretly put a microphone into their fire alarms as well, not just their home security system? You could have found it by dismantling the device and the renter would have won their case against the landlord.
  • xg15 8y ago
    As people could - in theory - have with the security system, yet apparently didn't.
  • merb 8y ago
    it wouldn't the case was dismissed, because it's the wrong court. second it was dismissed because just because it's modern and has several technology that can be missused doesn't mean that it will be missused. in germany you need to actually have evidence to really get something like that dismissed. Especially since the landlord actually also offered that she can use her own fire alarm (when she buys it)
  • jve 8y ago
    I hope you all know that Nest fire alarm aka Nest Protect v2 features microphone for automatic sound (health) checks.
    • xyzzy123 8y ago
      Yeah so the nest protect is, when you look at it objectively, a ceiling mounted general purpose remote sensing package. It’s basically only lacking a wide angle camera and I suspect that’s because they figured it would cross too far into “creepy” for it to be saleable. It seems to me like a team sat for a while, looked at all the possible ways they could get people to mount a package like this in every room and settled on calling it a smoke alarm. At the most optimistic they started with a smoke alarm and gradually realised they could build a general purpose platform based on the hardware being deployed in lots of rooms and many types of sensors being dirt cheap now. Decided they could enable new capabilities (and data goldmines!) in software later. It’s a pity there’s not an actually customer controlled version of it.
      • jve 8y ago
        Are there any alternatives to nest protect that would: Sense Carbon Monoxyde AND smoke AND fire off some event to mobile phone via wifi/sms/whatever?
        • ozzyman700 8y ago
          Yes, depending how comfortable you are with soldering. https://hackaday.com/2014/07/29/a-cheap-diy-smoke-detector-that-can-save-lives/ https://hackaday.com/2014/07/29/a-cheap-diy-smoke-detector-t...
        • graeme 8y ago
          There's the first alert onelink. May have the same issues though, it has a microphone and an alexa integration. Also support homekit, unlike the Nest Protect. Are there any best practices for using a device like this but not having it communicate with the wider world? I.e. It can communicate with you via a homekit hub, but can't connect outside your LAN https://onelink.firstalert.com/withalexa/ https://onelink.firstalert.com/withalexa/
  • SilasX 8y ago
    And then they probably would have been fined for disabling a fire safety device...
  • StanislavPetrov 8y ago
    Probably a DMCA violation thanks to our benevolent overlords.
• merb 8y ago
  to be fair it was silly that this was handeld at the BVerfG. In now way could that be a "verfassungsproblematische" entscheidung. I mean the person argued, that the lower court argued wrongly about his informational self-determination which is stupid because the person had the chance to buy her own fire alarm (on her own expenses).
  • est31 8y ago
    The renter did not have the chance to buy the fire alarm, read it again. Instead, the renter offered it but the landlord refused.
    • merb 8y ago
      Read it again. The landlord refused to buy it, not that the renter could not use it: > 1. Der Beschwerdeführer wurde von der Vermieterin (im Folgenden: Klägerin) seiner - in einem Mehrfamilienhaus gelegenen - Wohnung auf Duldung des Einbaus von Rauchwarnmeldern in Anspruch genommen. Er lehnte das von der Klägerin ausgesuchte Gerät ab, weil es nicht lediglich dem Brandschutz diene, sondern mittels Ultraschallsensoren und Infrarottechnologie dazu geeignet sei, Bewegungsprofile von Personen zu erstellen, die sich in der Wohnung aufhielten. Sogar die Aufzeichnung von in der Wohnung geführten Gesprächen sei technisch möglich. Der Beschwerdeführer bot der Klägerin an, auf eigene Kosten ein einfacheres, ohne Funktechnik ausgestattetes Modell in seiner Wohnung zu installieren. Dazu war die Klägerin unter Hinweis auf die Vorzüge des von ihr gewählten Gerätetyps nicht bereit. Das Funksystem diene lediglich dem Zweck, eine Fernwartung sämtlicher im Haus befindlicher Geräte über ein im Hausflur installiertes Steuerungsgerät zu ermöglichen.
      • est31 8y ago
        Yeah, the landlord refused to buy it, but instead wanted to install the wirelessly controlled fire alarm. Surely the renter could buy it for themselves but then there'd be two alarms, one bought by the landlord and one by the renter. The question was about the alarm the landlord installed.
      • black_puppydog 8y ago
• est31 8y ago
  Replying to myself as I can't edit it any more: Apparently it wasn't a fire alarm from google but "Brunata Metrona Funksystem Star" [1]. It is still wirelessly connected though, not to the internet but to a ground station in the house, outside of the flats of the renters. Then once per year the station is read out by someone who connects a cable to it. [1]: http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/ag_koeln/j2015/220_C_482_14_Urteil_20150429.html http://www.justiz.nrw.de/nrwe/ag_koeln/j2015/220_C_482_14_Ur...
• vegardx 8y ago
  The microphone / motion sensor issues aside I would never sleep in an apartment where someone could remotely silent an alarm.
  • vectorEQ 8y ago
    :D in my country, i never saw anyone with an alarm on their house :D maybe the issue is not to remotely silent the alarm, but that it's needed in the first place :D
    • pergadad 8y ago
      Legal obligation on landlords in any developed country
      • braythwayt 8y ago
        Fire codes in many developed regions also require working smoke alarms whether the property is rented or owner-occupied. Add to that the economic incentives involved when you wish to insure you property against fire and liability, or mortgage it (which almost always imposes a requirement to insure the property).
    • dpark 8y ago
      Do you also live in a country where homes never catch fire? “Not needed” implies that there is no fire risk or that the risk is so low that you don’t care.
  • dpark 8y ago
    You have some serious enemies, huh?
    • gcb0 8y ago
      projecting much? :) I personally agree with the point being afraid of incompetence, not malice.