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> I see people buying internet-required devices as the same people who buy the registry cleaners. They don’t know enough about computers themselves, and the adv
by ardy42 6y ago
> I see people buying internet-required devices as the same people who buy the registry cleaners. They don’t know enough about computers themselves, and the advertorials/computer magazines don’t do them any favors.
In some cases, you don't have a choice. As far as I know, all current Roomba models have their schedule programmed via an smartphone app. I don't have one, so I don't know if it exactly requires the internet, but it's close. Older models (like the ones I have) used buttons on the unit and had no need for any kind of network at all.
- ryandrake 6y agoActually I don’t mind things being controlled by a smartphone over the Internet. That’s nice and convenient. What I object to is things being controlled by a company’s internet service, commanded by the user’s smartphone. One just requires my smartphone, the device and an internet connection, the other adds the company as an unnecessary middleman.
- ardy42 6y ago> Actually I don’t mind things being controlled by a smartphone over the Internet. That’s nice and convenient. What I object to is things being controlled by a company’s internet service, commanded by the user’s smartphone. One just requires my smartphone, the device and an internet connection, the other adds the company as an unnecessary middleman. That's not quite right. For all practical purposes, internet control also requires a server sitting on a public IP address somewhere, and that's where things start break down. 1. If you run the server yourself, then you're dealing with patching it and otherwise supporting that infrastructure. 2. If a third party tries to run a server as some kind of service, they're stuck supporting all the protocols and schemas of all kinds of internet connected devices, since AFAIK there are little to no standards. Then there's the problem of funding such a project. With both of the above situations, the device also needs to support configuring a different server. 3. If a manufacturer runs the server, then you avoid most of the problems of the above options, but then you're at their mercy, and liable to loose functionality at some indeterminate point in the future. The invisible hand of the market, PBUH, appears to have determined that 3 is the best (most profitable) option.
- ryandrake 6y ago> For all practical purposes, internet control also requires a server sitting on a public IP address somewhere We really need to get over this hurdle. In the ipv4 world, yea, users generally have one public IP and NAT complicates things a little. In the IPv6 world, every device should be publicly addressable and it should just be a firewall rule to make it accessible to your smartphone app. That way, no server is required, so the question of who runs it is moot.
- ardy42 6y agoEven with IPv6, you're still in scenario 1 from my list. Also, using it would really only help with carrier-grade NAT. Someone with the amount of skill needed to setup a server probably has the skill setup port forwarding and dynamic DNS on their router. Which reminds me of the DSL modem/router combo my roommates had gotten in my first apartment before I moved in. The router was MSN and had no local configuration page, all configuration had to be done through some external Microsoft server that didn't work by the time I got there (so I could never do any port forwarding).
- Semaphor 6y agoWow… I have an old Roomba as well, but I was planning on getting another if it ever died completely. In that case I’d simply get another brand.