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My big problem with IoT devices is trust. When a third party has control of my data, I have to trust the company is going be a responsible steward for my data.

My big problem with IoT devices is trust. When a third party has control of my data, I have to trust the company is going be a responsible steward for my data. This is particularly telling since few of them (none?) have binding terms of service which protect the rights of the buyer. So you have situations like this where abuse happens or companies like Canary which made a rather big and infuriating change to their policies on storing data. To make things more complicated, if it's a small company you have to worry about it getting acquired. I've had multiple occasions where products I've purchased have shifted from having decent terms to terms which make me want to toss the product in the trash. As a result, I'm extremely cautious about purchasing IoT products. I haven't given up smart devices entirely, but I avoid the ones that require an account to sign in or rely heavily on cloud services. Smart cameras are particularly tricky since they reveal so much about you, particularly combined with machine learning and face identification.

mv4 7y ago
We built a video security assistant that's completely autonomous. Hoping to start selling direct in a month or so.
reaperducer 7y ago
I avoid the ones that require an account to sign in or rely heavily on cloud services. This is the best IoT advice I can give anyone. I've had at least a dozen "smart" lightbulbs orphaned by two different companies. One went out of business, the other just decided not to support them anymore. The amazing thing is with the first group of bulbs, the IoT company actually pushed out a software update bricking the controller box before it went out of business. This was a box that could have functioned forever because there were several tinkerers who had reverse-engineered the protocol and seemed close to releasing open source integrations. Naturally, there was no notice. The only way I found out was when the bulbs wouldn't respond anymore and I went to the company's web site where there was a notice. You know what doesn't always work? Smart light bulbs. You know what always works? Dumb light bulbs.
- w0m 7y ago
  that's also why sometimes it's worth a little more for the name brand/larger company. I paid a little more for Hue, but my first bulb still functions the same or better than the day I bought it.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    Agreed, but at the time there were no big brands. Now if I buy IoT, I buy Homekit simply because I think Apple is the least likely company to go out of business or abandon the kit.
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  One of the most frustrating was my anova Sous Vide with bluetooth. It had a fairly useful app that worked well for monitoring temperature and setting temperature until they changed their policy to force users to create an account on their site. Fortunately I can just use the cooker without the app entirely which is much better than what Canary did. I do like my smart lights, but I'm for a good chunk of them I'm buying the ones where the brain is integrated into the switch and the switch defaults to being a dumb switch when it can't find the cloud connection.

mv4 7y ago

We built a video security assistant that's completely autonomous. Hoping to start selling direct in a month or so.

reaperducer 7y ago

I avoid the ones that require an account to sign in or rely heavily on cloud services. This is the best IoT advice I can give anyone. I've had at least a dozen "smart" lightbulbs orphaned by two different companies. One went out of business, the other just decided not to support them anymore. The amazing thing is with the first group of bulbs, the IoT company actually pushed out a software update bricking the controller box before it went out of business. This was a box that could have functioned forever because there were several tinkerers who had reverse-engineered the protocol and seemed close to releasing open source integrations. Naturally, there was no notice. The only way I found out was when the bulbs wouldn't respond anymore and I went to the company's web site where there was a notice. You know what doesn't always work? Smart light bulbs. You know what always works? Dumb light bulbs.

w0m 7y ago
that's also why sometimes it's worth a little more for the name brand/larger company. I paid a little more for Hue, but my first bulb still functions the same or better than the day I bought it.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Agreed, but at the time there were no big brands. Now if I buy IoT, I buy Homekit simply because I think Apple is the least likely company to go out of business or abandon the kit.
ogre_codes 7y ago
One of the most frustrating was my anova Sous Vide with bluetooth. It had a fairly useful app that worked well for monitoring temperature and setting temperature until they changed their policy to force users to create an account on their site. Fortunately I can just use the cooker without the app entirely which is much better than what Canary did. I do like my smart lights, but I'm for a good chunk of them I'm buying the ones where the brain is integrated into the switch and the switch defaults to being a dumb switch when it can't find the cloud connection.