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The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap c

The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. I also can't imagine letting an internet connected anything in my home, and I keep all internet electronics in one room. Sure, other people can live in a surveillance zoo, but I prefer to keep mine limited. If it has a circuit, stow it.

viraptor 6y ago
There's a lot of IoT stuff which doesn't reach out to the internet. You can also reflash some commercial solutions with open firmware. Also, there's quite a few local only solutions using ZigBee / zwave that you can manage from Home Assistant.
- chrisBob 6y ago
  I think the I in IoT is really for Internet, so I am not sure if it counts if it is local only.
  - tehlike 6y ago
    Vpn
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    Literally yes, but come on. "connected home" and IoT are so close in use case, and _because_ most connected home things are Internet-only, let's not pick at terminology too much. I would love to have a connected home that did not require _any_ external connectivity or web accounts. Why did I need to login with my Google account and enable location services to set up a Chromecast Audio?
    - 8note 6y ago
      I imagine it enables Google to enforce location based licensing for where you can listen to certain songs at a given price point. Listening to a song in the forest is free, listening to it in a bustling street costs 10¢ per play because you're performing it to people walking by
  - NegativeLatency 6y ago
    Intranet?
    - Mordisquitos 6y ago
      Surely it would be IntranetS of Things.
- prower 6y ago
  Or you could just flip the switch with your actual thumbs. There's a discussion to be had to on placing every basic action on our daily lives on a finicky smartphone.
  - tehlike 6y ago
    Automation is what you are missing. I love that my light turns on in the hallway when sun sets. Or the lock locks/unlocks as I leave or approach the house. Or that I can see my camera over vpn.
    - prower 6y ago
      I totally understand it for security, as ironic as it is (given the topic). For everything else though, I feel like there's a "honeymoon" effect in place, where the theoretical and immediate convenience overshadow the implications. To make a silly comparison, it's like buying digital videogames on a console instead of their physical versions, knowing you're trading immediate convenicence while giving away control, ownership and future availability. I would have much less problems processing IoT if the "I" was scrapped and optional by default. I guess I have an hard time understanding people relying on the internet at all.
      - tehlike 6y ago
        Correct. Most people like myself go with no cloud versions of smart home gear. And use vpn to have a lot more control. A camera that works only locally (dafang hacks + wyze), home assistant, zigbee/zwave for example.
        jabroni_salad 6y ago
        That's definitely a popular stance in the community of people who care enough to join the home automation and general electronics community, but if 'most people' is a factor, Amazon's best sellers are all "works with alexa" and "no hub required", and all of those products will surely die when their cloud tenancy is turned off.
- GuB-42 6y ago
  You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Home automation is a mess, IoT or not. There are standards like KNX, but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. As a result, I can't buy any A/C unit, rolling shutter, light fixture and thermostat and just connect them to my home network, the selection of "smart" appliances is actually very limited. I mean, home installation is thought out on the scale of decades, because renovation is a pain. People want something simple and reliable, that is the reason why some taps, switches, sockets, etc... are 10 times more expensive than others while looking the same and people still buy them. It is the complete opposite from what Silicon Valley is pushing.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    >but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. I think the "solution" to this is some sort of open hardware system, where instead of someone manufacturing and selling for a profit, the design includes a standard set of parts you order, and then there's a very simple assembly, Ikea-style.
  - viraptor 6y ago
    > You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Home automation was just an example. I take IoT to mean networked not-general-purpose devices. The internet part is meaningless. If you use that IoT device in the same server room as the controller does it become strictly LANoT? What about private overlay networks? It was never about the internet as in public accessibility.
  - cesarb 6y ago
    > IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Those who are old enough remember that the Internet is just one example of an internet. Quoting Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The_Internet_versus_generic_internets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The...): "The Internet standards community historically differentiated between an internet, as a short-form of an internetwork, and the Internet: treating the latter as a proper noun with a capital letter, and the former as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any set of interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The distinction is evident in Request for Comments documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, to the Internet, with broad commercial support, was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity." So an IoT is an internet of things, not necessarily the Internet of all Things.
clajiness 6y ago
You do know that you can prevent IOT devices from reaching the internet, right? Our Wemo gear, cameras, etc, get blocked by my firewall. Problem solved while still benefiting from their convenience.
- milankragujevic 6y ago
  I hope you do know that most consumers don't even have their own router, let alone anything that can isolate devices or block certain traffic.
- extrememacaroni 6y ago
  What an amazing solution, so simple and accessible to the average consumer. What's the next revelation, that you can prevent the IOT devices from reaching the internet by reverse engineering and rewriting their software?
  - greyw 6y ago
    An even easier and more accesible solution to move your boot with a high enough acceleration towards the IoT device thereby totally disabling the internet functionality! Doesn't even need any technical skill.
    - JKCalhoun 6y ago
      I know you're being humorous but.... If only there were a big sign on every such device saying "We are spying on you!". Otherwise how is the average consumer to know which ones to apply boot to? (Also, the boot needs mass and velocity, acceleration is orthogonal :-))
- laurent92 6y ago
  This is where Sigfox has a lot of added value: It is like a simcard, but you only pay per million packages instead of per SIM, and you save the trouble of customers trying to disable your hardware. If you build electronic components and the TV integrator doesn’t want to bother providing ethernet to the power unit, at least the power unit can self-report its location to the grid.
adriancr 6y ago
It's difficult to even find non-internet-vendor-locked in sensors/controls/lights... (sensors/controls ideally running on batteries with sane local network API) So far I've been lucky with cheap zigbee devices but these seem to be getting phased out in favor of locked in items... and before people suggest - no, I don't have the willingness to build/maintain my own devices with raspberry pis or ESP etc
- Macha 6y ago
  How hard have you looked for the lights? Or are you specifically looking for the whole "customisable rgb lighting with ecosystem with apps etc."
- pradn 6y ago
  Electronic lights seem like a small convenience for a high price, not to mention how they require even more use of smartphones and such.
  - thebean11 6y ago
    Disagree, as a renter smart bulbs are by far the easiest way to get dimmable lights in my apartment. Being able to dim the lights in the evenings while I watch TV is amazing.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      We simply switch to string lights and "bedtime bulb" in the evenings, no dimming or internet needed. (Although, I did install a dimmer into the dining room wall switch, but it's worth it I think if you'll be there at least a year.)
      - thebean11 6y ago
        No internet needed for my setup either, local network only.
      - tekromancr 6y ago
mtgx 6y ago
Good luck buying a TV that isn't a "smart" (aka a really slow, hackable, and generally quite dumb) TV.
crazypython 6y ago
I can't imagine letting non-free software– the proprietor can modify it, but I can't, and under the control of someone else– hexing a piece of property I have bought. It's my property, yet it's cursed by the proprietor.
- simias 6y ago
  I would be willing to compromise if at least there was a widely adopted set of standard protocols that I could use to interface these devices with my own favourite controller. Instead it's a mish-mash of bespoke proprietary smartphone apps that have terrible security and privacy practices.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  The Venn diagram of IoT devices with reasonable default security and IoT devices that are not proprietary does not overlap at all. Apple makes IoT devices with reasonable default security, but they're also as proprietary as proprietary gets.
baxtr 6y ago
I use an old Philips TV from 10 yrs ago. It works fine, has HDMI and all that. No WiFi and other shit of course. I am totally worried about the day it will break down.
- dmarlow 6y ago
  Same here. I have a plasma LG that I absolutely love. It has an amazing picture, but it's heavier than wet sand. My friend recently got a new TV and I was appalled at the controls, picture (soap opera effect), "smart features" (how it instantly goes into this app like experience that you can't ever get out of). So many things bother me about modern TVs. If my TV ever dies, I don't know what I'll do.
  - loloquwowndueo 6y ago
    Replace with a projector :) you don’t watch OTA channels, do you? So any other media source should be hookable to a projector. Sure you need a dark room to watch stuff, but that’s a plus as it’ll induce you to watch less tv ;) Also - the soap opera thing can be turned off in decent newer TVs and as discussed in other HN threads you can just deny the TV an internet connection so it behaves dumbly. You might still need to contend with clunky UI but really - just select your video source and start watching, so the pain is minimal.
    - Filligree 6y ago
      I replaced mine with a computer monitor. It's a bit more expensive, but that's the price of not being spied on.
    - dmarlow 6y ago
      I wouldn't be surprised that by the time I buy a projector, they're all "smart".
    - hatch_q 6y ago
      Soon all 'smart' TVs will just come with 5G connection. Will make it much harder (if even possible) to deny them internet connection.
Robotbeat 6y ago
Doubt that electronic gizmos have much to do with climate change unless you’re running kilowatts for Dogecoin mining or whatever. It’s heating and cooling, transport, and food. Maybe cement as well. If you buy a new conventional car, I have more to question you on climate change over.
- MikeKusold 6y ago
  Electronics require lots of metals that are sourced through mining. Mining is an essential but dirty business that often leaves pools of toxic heavy metal water behind. These pools are damned up, but inevitably leak out into the surrounding environment. It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    You know what requires a lot more metals? Cars and houses and apartments and railroads and highways. When we’re trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we’ve got to not waste time on the small fry while ignoring the elephants. Problems should be attacked proportional to their impact. Don’t think that using metal straws but driving a new gasoline powered SUV is making an improvement.
    - coldpie 6y ago
      We are now at the point where everything matters. Industry is responsible for about 21% of GHG emissions globally (more than transportation!)[1]. Reducing that by using simpler technologies is a good thing to look into. Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
      - Robotbeat 6y ago
        Using an incandescent light bulb is not “better” than an LED bulb, even though the latter is a “pile of electronics” while an incandescent bulb is just a little tungsten wire. So I really don’t think this is a good rule to follow. Simpler technologies are often far less efficient and often have a far larger ecological impact. LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”
jrm4 6y ago
For better or worse -- "Buying stupid disposable junk" the absolute central driving force and core of this economy and perhaps our culture and society. I'm with you on the idea, but there's a LOT of work to do...
soheil 6y ago
I don't understand why hate like this gets so many upvotes. IoT devices are in their infancy, it's not fair to constantly berate their inadequacies instead of focusing on the technological marvel that they are, what they can achieve and how they can be made more whole. The resistance to change on HN is real.
- simias 6y ago
  Home automation is really not particularly novel. Quoting Wikipedia: >In 1975, the first general purpose home automation network technology, X10, was developed. It is a communication protocol for electronic devices. It primarily uses electric power transmission wiring for signalling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts of digital data, and remains the most widely available.[4] By 1978, X10 products included a 16 channel command console, a lamp module, and an appliance module. Soon after came the wall switch module and the first X10 timer. Of course electronics have progressed immensely in 45 years, so we can now do a lot more with a lot less. I still feel like very little has change in practice though. I find myself actively avoiding "smart" equipment, both because it's overpriced and a bit of a pain to use in my experience. They all have their own software stack, their own apps (which are often cloud-based instead of running locally, adding all sorts of privacy issues) etc... On top of that you never know when the company is going to go under or stop supporting your device, leaving you with a not-so-smart device in the best case, or a useless plastic brick in the worst.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Not only IoT devices aren't on their infancy, the device makers keep using C to program them, and don't provide any kind of updates on top of that.
  - f1refly 6y ago
    Can't wait for my javascript powered IoT kettle that has a cpu more powerful than my laptop and includes 4gb of ram to load half of npm into memory! The future looks ever so much brighter!
    - 6y ago
hackeraccount 6y ago
Check out Home Assistant and mqtt. If motivated you can actually go pretty far with just on-prem. If home automation floats your boat that is. I'm thinking maybe it's not just the surveillance part that you don't care for but that the whole thing does nothing for you. Which is cool.
ryandrake 6y ago
I remember when the primary threat you considered when setting up your firewall was hackers trying to infiltrate your network. Increasingly I find myself using my firewall to sandbox devices already on my LAN and preventing them from phoning home to exfiltrate.
- walton_simons 6y ago
  My thoughts exactly. And even this seems to be getting harder. I keep reading about "smart" TVs which barely function if they're not allowed to phone home, and IOT devices which query their own hardcoded DNS servers, ignoring whatever your DHCP server has told them to do. I think it's only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more of these things with built in cellular modems which can't be disabled. Makes me want to start stockpiling older technology in order to prepare for a time when every single available lightbulb, washing machine, TV, or vacuum cleaner has to be online all the time and controlled by some privacy destroying app. I'm only half joking when I say that I can imagine a future where something purely mechanical is considered the height of luxury. Look at this! A door lock with a metal key which doesn't log and transmit the comings and goings of your family and friends. Incredible! If only we could afford such a thing, but there are only a few artisans left in the world who can make them...
fortran77 6y ago
> I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. Your hearing must be better than mine! I didn't hear Todd Weaver, the author of this blogpost, complain about climate change.
rglullis 6y ago
One of my "please steal my idea" projects is to get any of these Youtube personalities that are famous for commentary on consumer tech (such as Linus from LTT, MKBHD, mrwhosetheboss) and convince them to create a company that would mix together something like drop.com with a "design studio" focused on coming up with high-quality kits for consumer gadgets, with the twist that every kit is open source and freely available. Every month or so, they would make a video about the ongoing projects and show what kind of features are already available. Partner with manufacturer companies that can provide pre-assembled systems. For those that don't care about the DIY part, offer a subscription-based option where they can get early review units, prioritize their change requests, troubleshoot support, personalization options, discounts for bulk buys, etc. The revenue from these subscriptions should be more than enough to fund the team of open source developers/designers and to make up for the "lost" revenue of a video made that is sponsored by any of the big tech companies. The most interesting though would be to see if this could lead to a change in consumer demand: could an influencer changed the public's perception of what is really "hot"? Would we start seeing things like "/r/mechanicalkeyboards" for all sorts of products like TV panels, wireless speakers, home automation light systems, F/OSS-based smartphones?
- mkoubaa 6y ago
  I had a similar idea where devices are all just a bunch of input and output devices that declar themselves via zeroconf on wifi/5G. And you can have a portal on your PC where you choose which software to use one which device and control it all from there.
pengaru 6y ago
> I also can't imagine letting an internet connected anything in my home, and I keep all internet electronics in one room. Sure, other people can live in a surveillance zoo, but I prefer to keep mine limited. Out of curiosity, how often is your smartphone resting on a surface within reach @home?
- motohagiography 6y ago
  Alerts have been 95%+ off for years. Sometimes it's nearby, but it doesn't go to the 2nd floor where bedrooms are. I don't do social media or slack either. It's just a way of living where you don't give other people a free 24h real time option on your attention.
  - pengaru 6y ago
    Notifications/alerts have zero bearing on surveillance capabilities.
    - motohagiography 6y ago
      Keeping your phone on you or at your side to respond to notifications and alerts means you are generating surveillance data the whole time via the accelerometer, mic, camera lighting changes, reachable bluetooth devices, signal changes, wifi availability, and every other onboard sensor. Having alerts off means you relate to the device differently. Would be curious what you suppose I misunderstand about surveillance and security though.
kgin 6y ago
Say what you will about Apple's Homekit but every Homekit device can be set up with local-only control.
Dylan16807 6y ago
> The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." The joke is that there is no S, which means you're saying we shouldn't stop buying.
coldtea 6y ago
>The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. ...but you can order your IoT to "set a mood" from your phone or speaker and have 5-6 lights in your house change color and some Barry White to start playing like some cheesy 70s playboy's penthhouse. Who wants to go back to physically walking to close a light? Walking? We've got expensive tredmills we've bought for that purpose!
mkoubaa 6y ago
I'm with you but I made an exception for a baby monitor
wiremine 6y ago
> Stop buying stupid disposable junk. I get the frustration, but this is a narrow perspective. _Consumer_ IoT is still waiting for some good use cases. But IoT touches a lot more industries than that: medical, earth science, manufacturing, heavy industrial, logistics, energy... they are all being improved with useful IoT solutions. And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home. I'd also note that privacy and security, while related, are separate issues. Most IoT solutions don't factor in either concern well.
- bsder 6y ago
  > And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home. Who is we who need solid security? I haven't met them. They don't sign a check for security. They don't do anything other than put "Security" on a PowerPoint slide and forget about it. We make our shipping IoT stuff secure because it's a point of pride and point of competence. But we built the whole architecture around that idea, and it definitely slowed us down at the start. Until people start cutting checks for actually secure IoT, it's going to remain a giant field of cow dung.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
    They really do exist. Believe it or not, just last week I had an actual meeting with an actual paying client who took IoT security seriously because "we've got some hydraulics on this machine that can cause real damage if someone hacks into it." Unfortunately, I think this is going to be the perspective for a long time: if the customer sees real liability (read: a lawsuit for physical damage) as a possibility, that's probably going to be the only motivating factor to take security seriously. Whatever. One step at a time!
  - paranoidrobot 6y ago
    > Who is we who need solid security? Anyone with a modern medical device is the 'we'. My grandmother got a new pacemaker installed a while back. She now has a device sitting beside her bed with a 4G modem in it, that talks to her pacemaker at night and sends the data back to some service, which in turn her Doctors can access. This is apparently the normal thing to do. What level of security is there in either of those devices? How do you ensure that there isn't open ports? Does it get security updates pushed to it? (I wouldn't be money on that) How does one ensure that this can't send malicious commands to the pacemaker? This isn't just an issue with pacemakers, either - plenty of other medical devices are coming with various wireless chips in them.
ChuckMcM 6y ago
I get the sentiment. That said, consider that "iOT" is sometimes simply re-implementing something that used a different moniker before. A printer that connects to Wifi to print is "iOT" but the link is just replacing the bulky copper printer cable (or the USB cable). Security cameras on WiFi replace installing labor intensive (expensive) hard wires between cameras and base station. It goes on and on. Basically re-implementing the same things that have sold before but with "improved" logistics that lower cost, add capabilities, or both.
cma 6y ago
>I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. IoT thermostats can save an ton of carbon emissions, and spying seems to have nothing to do with climate change. Just put it all on a separate subnet and you can solve a lot of the spying/vulnerability issues though not all.
nkingsy 6y ago
I’ve begun thinking of plastic landfill crap as carbon capture. We don’t call electric cars coal cars, do we now? Helps me sleep (not really. I can’t sleep. Help.)

viraptor 6y ago

There's a lot of IoT stuff which doesn't reach out to the internet. You can also reflash some commercial solutions with open firmware. Also, there's quite a few local only solutions using ZigBee / zwave that you can manage from Home Assistant.

chrisBob 6y ago
I think the I in IoT is really for Internet, so I am not sure if it counts if it is local only.
- tehlike 6y ago
  Vpn
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  Literally yes, but come on. "connected home" and IoT are so close in use case, and _because_ most connected home things are Internet-only, let's not pick at terminology too much. I would love to have a connected home that did not require _any_ external connectivity or web accounts. Why did I need to login with my Google account and enable location services to set up a Chromecast Audio?
  - 8note 6y ago
    I imagine it enables Google to enforce location based licensing for where you can listen to certain songs at a given price point. Listening to a song in the forest is free, listening to it in a bustling street costs 10¢ per play because you're performing it to people walking by
- NegativeLatency 6y ago
  Intranet?
  - Mordisquitos 6y ago
    Surely it would be IntranetS of Things.
prower 6y ago
Or you could just flip the switch with your actual thumbs. There's a discussion to be had to on placing every basic action on our daily lives on a finicky smartphone.
- tehlike 6y ago
  Automation is what you are missing. I love that my light turns on in the hallway when sun sets. Or the lock locks/unlocks as I leave or approach the house. Or that I can see my camera over vpn.
  - prower 6y ago
    I totally understand it for security, as ironic as it is (given the topic). For everything else though, I feel like there's a "honeymoon" effect in place, where the theoretical and immediate convenience overshadow the implications. To make a silly comparison, it's like buying digital videogames on a console instead of their physical versions, knowing you're trading immediate convenicence while giving away control, ownership and future availability. I would have much less problems processing IoT if the "I" was scrapped and optional by default. I guess I have an hard time understanding people relying on the internet at all.
    - tehlike 6y ago
      Correct. Most people like myself go with no cloud versions of smart home gear. And use vpn to have a lot more control. A camera that works only locally (dafang hacks + wyze), home assistant, zigbee/zwave for example.
      - jabroni_salad 6y ago
        That's definitely a popular stance in the community of people who care enough to join the home automation and general electronics community, but if 'most people' is a factor, Amazon's best sellers are all "works with alexa" and "no hub required", and all of those products will surely die when their cloud tenancy is turned off.
GuB-42 6y ago
You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Home automation is a mess, IoT or not. There are standards like KNX, but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. As a result, I can't buy any A/C unit, rolling shutter, light fixture and thermostat and just connect them to my home network, the selection of "smart" appliances is actually very limited. I mean, home installation is thought out on the scale of decades, because renovation is a pain. People want something simple and reliable, that is the reason why some taps, switches, sockets, etc... are 10 times more expensive than others while looking the same and people still buy them. It is the complete opposite from what Silicon Valley is pushing.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  >but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. I think the "solution" to this is some sort of open hardware system, where instead of someone manufacturing and selling for a profit, the design includes a standard set of parts you order, and then there's a very simple assembly, Ikea-style.
- viraptor 6y ago
  > You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Home automation was just an example. I take IoT to mean networked not-general-purpose devices. The internet part is meaningless. If you use that IoT device in the same server room as the controller does it become strictly LANoT? What about private overlay networks? It was never about the internet as in public accessibility.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > IoT is connected to the internet by definition. Those who are old enough remember that the Internet is just one example of an internet. Quoting Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The_Internet_versus_generic_internets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The...): "The Internet standards community historically differentiated between an internet, as a short-form of an internetwork, and the Internet: treating the latter as a proper noun with a capital letter, and the former as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any set of interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The distinction is evident in Request for Comments documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, to the Internet, with broad commercial support, was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity." So an IoT is an internet of things, not necessarily the Internet of all Things.

clajiness 6y ago

You do know that you can prevent IOT devices from reaching the internet, right? Our Wemo gear, cameras, etc, get blocked by my firewall. Problem solved while still benefiting from their convenience.

milankragujevic 6y ago
I hope you do know that most consumers don't even have their own router, let alone anything that can isolate devices or block certain traffic.
extrememacaroni 6y ago
What an amazing solution, so simple and accessible to the average consumer. What's the next revelation, that you can prevent the IOT devices from reaching the internet by reverse engineering and rewriting their software?
- greyw 6y ago
  An even easier and more accesible solution to move your boot with a high enough acceleration towards the IoT device thereby totally disabling the internet functionality! Doesn't even need any technical skill.
  - JKCalhoun 6y ago
    I know you're being humorous but.... If only there were a big sign on every such device saying "We are spying on you!". Otherwise how is the average consumer to know which ones to apply boot to? (Also, the boot needs mass and velocity, acceleration is orthogonal :-))
laurent92 6y ago
This is where Sigfox has a lot of added value: It is like a simcard, but you only pay per million packages instead of per SIM, and you save the trouble of customers trying to disable your hardware. If you build electronic components and the TV integrator doesn’t want to bother providing ethernet to the power unit, at least the power unit can self-report its location to the grid.

adriancr 6y ago

It's difficult to even find non-internet-vendor-locked in sensors/controls/lights... (sensors/controls ideally running on batteries with sane local network API) So far I've been lucky with cheap zigbee devices but these seem to be getting phased out in favor of locked in items... and before people suggest - no, I don't have the willingness to build/maintain my own devices with raspberry pis or ESP etc

Macha 6y ago
How hard have you looked for the lights? Or are you specifically looking for the whole "customisable rgb lighting with ecosystem with apps etc."
pradn 6y ago
Electronic lights seem like a small convenience for a high price, not to mention how they require even more use of smartphones and such.
- thebean11 6y ago
  Disagree, as a renter smart bulbs are by far the easiest way to get dimmable lights in my apartment. Being able to dim the lights in the evenings while I watch TV is amazing.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    We simply switch to string lights and "bedtime bulb" in the evenings, no dimming or internet needed. (Although, I did install a dimmer into the dining room wall switch, but it's worth it I think if you'll be there at least a year.)
    - thebean11 6y ago
      No internet needed for my setup either, local network only.
    - tekromancr 6y ago

mtgx 6y ago

Good luck buying a TV that isn't a "smart" (aka a really slow, hackable, and generally quite dumb) TV.

crazypython 6y ago

I can't imagine letting non-free software– the proprietor can modify it, but I can't, and under the control of someone else– hexing a piece of property I have bought. It's my property, yet it's cursed by the proprietor.

simias 6y ago
I would be willing to compromise if at least there was a widely adopted set of standard protocols that I could use to interface these devices with my own favourite controller. Instead it's a mish-mash of bespoke proprietary smartphone apps that have terrible security and privacy practices.
pwinnski 6y ago
The Venn diagram of IoT devices with reasonable default security and IoT devices that are not proprietary does not overlap at all. Apple makes IoT devices with reasonable default security, but they're also as proprietary as proprietary gets.

baxtr 6y ago

I use an old Philips TV from 10 yrs ago. It works fine, has HDMI and all that. No WiFi and other shit of course. I am totally worried about the day it will break down.

dmarlow 6y ago
Same here. I have a plasma LG that I absolutely love. It has an amazing picture, but it's heavier than wet sand. My friend recently got a new TV and I was appalled at the controls, picture (soap opera effect), "smart features" (how it instantly goes into this app like experience that you can't ever get out of). So many things bother me about modern TVs. If my TV ever dies, I don't know what I'll do.
- loloquwowndueo 6y ago
  Replace with a projector :) you don’t watch OTA channels, do you? So any other media source should be hookable to a projector. Sure you need a dark room to watch stuff, but that’s a plus as it’ll induce you to watch less tv ;) Also - the soap opera thing can be turned off in decent newer TVs and as discussed in other HN threads you can just deny the TV an internet connection so it behaves dumbly. You might still need to contend with clunky UI but really - just select your video source and start watching, so the pain is minimal.
  - Filligree 6y ago
    I replaced mine with a computer monitor. It's a bit more expensive, but that's the price of not being spied on.
  - dmarlow 6y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised that by the time I buy a projector, they're all "smart".
  - hatch_q 6y ago
    Soon all 'smart' TVs will just come with 5G connection. Will make it much harder (if even possible) to deny them internet connection.

Robotbeat 6y ago

Doubt that electronic gizmos have much to do with climate change unless you’re running kilowatts for Dogecoin mining or whatever. It’s heating and cooling, transport, and food. Maybe cement as well. If you buy a new conventional car, I have more to question you on climate change over.

MikeKusold 6y ago
Electronics require lots of metals that are sourced through mining. Mining is an essential but dirty business that often leaves pools of toxic heavy metal water behind. These pools are damned up, but inevitably leak out into the surrounding environment. It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  You know what requires a lot more metals? Cars and houses and apartments and railroads and highways. When we’re trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we’ve got to not waste time on the small fry while ignoring the elephants. Problems should be attacked proportional to their impact. Don’t think that using metal straws but driving a new gasoline powered SUV is making an improvement.
  - coldpie 6y ago
    We are now at the point where everything matters. Industry is responsible for about 21% of GHG emissions globally (more than transportation!)[1]. Reducing that by using simpler technologies is a good thing to look into. Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes. [1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      Using an incandescent light bulb is not “better” than an LED bulb, even though the latter is a “pile of electronics” while an incandescent bulb is just a little tungsten wire. So I really don’t think this is a good rule to follow. Simpler technologies are often far less efficient and often have a far larger ecological impact. LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”

jrm4 6y ago

For better or worse -- "Buying stupid disposable junk" the absolute central driving force and core of this economy and perhaps our culture and society. I'm with you on the idea, but there's a LOT of work to do...

soheil 6y ago

I don't understand why hate like this gets so many upvotes. IoT devices are in their infancy, it's not fair to constantly berate their inadequacies instead of focusing on the technological marvel that they are, what they can achieve and how they can be made more whole. The resistance to change on HN is real.

simias 6y ago
Home automation is really not particularly novel. Quoting Wikipedia: >In 1975, the first general purpose home automation network technology, X10, was developed. It is a communication protocol for electronic devices. It primarily uses electric power transmission wiring for signalling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts of digital data, and remains the most widely available.[4] By 1978, X10 products included a 16 channel command console, a lamp module, and an appliance module. Soon after came the wall switch module and the first X10 timer. Of course electronics have progressed immensely in 45 years, so we can now do a lot more with a lot less. I still feel like very little has change in practice though. I find myself actively avoiding "smart" equipment, both because it's overpriced and a bit of a pain to use in my experience. They all have their own software stack, their own apps (which are often cloud-based instead of running locally, adding all sorts of privacy issues) etc... On top of that you never know when the company is going to go under or stop supporting your device, leaving you with a not-so-smart device in the best case, or a useless plastic brick in the worst.
pjmlp 6y ago
Not only IoT devices aren't on their infancy, the device makers keep using C to program them, and don't provide any kind of updates on top of that.
- f1refly 6y ago
  Can't wait for my javascript powered IoT kettle that has a cpu more powerful than my laptop and includes 4gb of ram to load half of npm into memory! The future looks ever so much brighter!
  - 6y ago

hackeraccount 6y ago

Check out Home Assistant and mqtt. If motivated you can actually go pretty far with just on-prem. If home automation floats your boat that is. I'm thinking maybe it's not just the surveillance part that you don't care for but that the whole thing does nothing for you. Which is cool.

ryandrake 6y ago

I remember when the primary threat you considered when setting up your firewall was hackers trying to infiltrate your network. Increasingly I find myself using my firewall to sandbox devices already on my LAN and preventing them from phoning home to exfiltrate.

walton_simons 6y ago
My thoughts exactly. And even this seems to be getting harder. I keep reading about "smart" TVs which barely function if they're not allowed to phone home, and IOT devices which query their own hardcoded DNS servers, ignoring whatever your DHCP server has told them to do. I think it's only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more of these things with built in cellular modems which can't be disabled. Makes me want to start stockpiling older technology in order to prepare for a time when every single available lightbulb, washing machine, TV, or vacuum cleaner has to be online all the time and controlled by some privacy destroying app. I'm only half joking when I say that I can imagine a future where something purely mechanical is considered the height of luxury. Look at this! A door lock with a metal key which doesn't log and transmit the comings and goings of your family and friends. Incredible! If only we could afford such a thing, but there are only a few artisans left in the world who can make them...

fortran77 6y ago

> I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. Your hearing must be better than mine! I didn't hear Todd Weaver, the author of this blogpost, complain about climate change.

rglullis 6y ago

One of my "please steal my idea" projects is to get any of these Youtube personalities that are famous for commentary on consumer tech (such as Linus from LTT, MKBHD, mrwhosetheboss) and convince them to create a company that would mix together something like drop.com with a "design studio" focused on coming up with high-quality kits for consumer gadgets, with the twist that every kit is open source and freely available. Every month or so, they would make a video about the ongoing projects and show what kind of features are already available. Partner with manufacturer companies that can provide pre-assembled systems. For those that don't care about the DIY part, offer a subscription-based option where they can get early review units, prioritize their change requests, troubleshoot support, personalization options, discounts for bulk buys, etc. The revenue from these subscriptions should be more than enough to fund the team of open source developers/designers and to make up for the "lost" revenue of a video made that is sponsored by any of the big tech companies. The most interesting though would be to see if this could lead to a change in consumer demand: could an influencer changed the public's perception of what is really "hot"? Would we start seeing things like "/r/mechanicalkeyboards" for all sorts of products like TV panels, wireless speakers, home automation light systems, F/OSS-based smartphones?

mkoubaa 6y ago
I had a similar idea where devices are all just a bunch of input and output devices that declar themselves via zeroconf on wifi/5G. And you can have a portal on your PC where you choose which software to use one which device and control it all from there.

pengaru 6y ago

> I also can't imagine letting an internet connected anything in my home, and I keep all internet electronics in one room. Sure, other people can live in a surveillance zoo, but I prefer to keep mine limited. Out of curiosity, how often is your smartphone resting on a surface within reach @home?

motohagiography 6y ago
Alerts have been 95%+ off for years. Sometimes it's nearby, but it doesn't go to the 2nd floor where bedrooms are. I don't do social media or slack either. It's just a way of living where you don't give other people a free 24h real time option on your attention.
- pengaru 6y ago
  Notifications/alerts have zero bearing on surveillance capabilities.
  - motohagiography 6y ago
    Keeping your phone on you or at your side to respond to notifications and alerts means you are generating surveillance data the whole time via the accelerometer, mic, camera lighting changes, reachable bluetooth devices, signal changes, wifi availability, and every other onboard sensor. Having alerts off means you relate to the device differently. Would be curious what you suppose I misunderstand about surveillance and security though.

kgin 6y ago

Say what you will about Apple's Homekit but every Homekit device can be set up with local-only control.

Dylan16807 6y ago

> The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." The joke is that there is no S, which means you're saying we shouldn't stop buying.

coldtea 6y ago

>The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. ...but you can order your IoT to "set a mood" from your phone or speaker and have 5-6 lights in your house change color and some Barry White to start playing like some cheesy 70s playboy's penthhouse. Who wants to go back to physically walking to close a light? Walking? We've got expensive tredmills we've bought for that purpose!

mkoubaa 6y ago

I'm with you but I made an exception for a baby monitor

wiremine 6y ago

> Stop buying stupid disposable junk. I get the frustration, but this is a narrow perspective. _Consumer_ IoT is still waiting for some good use cases. But IoT touches a lot more industries than that: medical, earth science, manufacturing, heavy industrial, logistics, energy... they are all being improved with useful IoT solutions. And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home. I'd also note that privacy and security, while related, are separate issues. Most IoT solutions don't factor in either concern well.

bsder 6y ago
> And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home. Who is we who need solid security? I haven't met them. They don't sign a check for security. They don't do anything other than put "Security" on a PowerPoint slide and forget about it. We make our shipping IoT stuff secure because it's a point of pride and point of competence. But we built the whole architecture around that idea, and it definitely slowed us down at the start. Until people start cutting checks for actually secure IoT, it's going to remain a giant field of cow dung.
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  They really do exist. Believe it or not, just last week I had an actual meeting with an actual paying client who took IoT security seriously because "we've got some hydraulics on this machine that can cause real damage if someone hacks into it." Unfortunately, I think this is going to be the perspective for a long time: if the customer sees real liability (read: a lawsuit for physical damage) as a possibility, that's probably going to be the only motivating factor to take security seriously. Whatever. One step at a time!
- paranoidrobot 6y ago
  > Who is we who need solid security? Anyone with a modern medical device is the 'we'. My grandmother got a new pacemaker installed a while back. She now has a device sitting beside her bed with a 4G modem in it, that talks to her pacemaker at night and sends the data back to some service, which in turn her Doctors can access. This is apparently the normal thing to do. What level of security is there in either of those devices? How do you ensure that there isn't open ports? Does it get security updates pushed to it? (I wouldn't be money on that) How does one ensure that this can't send malicious commands to the pacemaker? This isn't just an issue with pacemakers, either - plenty of other medical devices are coming with various wireless chips in them.

ChuckMcM 6y ago

I get the sentiment. That said, consider that "iOT" is sometimes simply re-implementing something that used a different moniker before. A printer that connects to Wifi to print is "iOT" but the link is just replacing the bulky copper printer cable (or the USB cable). Security cameras on WiFi replace installing labor intensive (expensive) hard wires between cameras and base station. It goes on and on. Basically re-implementing the same things that have sold before but with "improved" logistics that lower cost, add capabilities, or both.

cma 6y ago

>I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them. IoT thermostats can save an ton of carbon emissions, and spying seems to have nothing to do with climate change. Just put it all on a separate subnet and you can solve a lot of the spying/vulnerability issues though not all.

nkingsy 6y ago

I’ve begun thinking of plastic landfill crap as carbon capture. We don’t call electric cars coal cars, do we now? Helps me sleep (not really. I can’t sleep. Help.)