Sure-- $50 per "connected device" I want to keep working on my terms. There's also the cost of "care and feeding" labor for the then-dedicated mobile device. Th

Sure-- $50 per "connected device" I want to keep working on my terms. There's also the cost of "care and feeding" labor for the then-dedicated mobile device. There's battery hygiene. There's certificates expiring and rigging the clocks to keep things working. There's firewalling and proxying the devices against the inevitable vulnerabilities making them unsafe to have even on my home network. That's assuming it's even possible to keep things running, too. If the manufacturer needlessly brings a "cloud service" into the mix my "connected device" stops working when the plug is pulled on a service I can't self-host and can't pay to keep going. For any one device it's probably no big deal. If my time is worthless it's no big deal. If my familiarity and comfort-with-routine with a particular device's workflow is worthless then it's no big deal. When it's a multiple of devices in your life, when you place a high value on your time, and when you derive tremendous personal value out of muscle memory and personal routine then I think it adds up to a bill-of-goods. The general nature of the market for "connected devices" is demoralizing and draining. I don't want to throw all my shit away every couple of years based on the aggregate of various manufacturers. I don't want to change my routine because some marketing plan dictates I no longer get to use something I've incorporated into my life. It's massively frustrating that "the future" has arrived for so many things, except nobody will sell it to me on terms I can accept. I don't have enough time in my life to build the stuff myself. I'm a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a mainstream market so nobody will ever create what I want. I can think of a decent number of "connected" devices I'd love to but, except they don't exist in a form that respects me. They exist in forms made to serve manufacturer's needs to sell me the same thing again in a few years, to build the lowest cost, most disposable devices for the maximization of profit with no regard for the environment, and to have the lowest long-term maintenance cost for software (by way of just throwing it all out and re-spinning every few years).