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For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These were always useless mis-features and
by devney 5y ago
For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These were always useless mis-features and we can hope some of them can get pared down now with the shortage. Bring back old style dumb appliances!
- mhh__ 5y agoConnected devices are a good thing - i.e. I should be able to make the washing machine scriptable from my computer, but I bet these solutions are always crap because they are implemented in a hurry by engineers who don't understand either the hardware or software well enough to make it work, so you end up with quasi-useless boss-pleasers like we have now.
- tolbish 5y agoWhy should you be able to connect to run a script on a washing machine? Don't you need physically be there anyway to move the clothes around? The only use case I can see is a notification when the cycle is done, but I think there are better ways to go about that than using an SoC.
- slver 5y agoThe world isn't driven by "I should have all the nice things I can imagine". How are you gonna script the washing machine to take the underwear off your bottom and put it in the drum? You'll have to do that yourself. And when you do it, you might as well "script the washing machine" by pushing the buttons on it. I'm a programmer and honestly I can't wait for this IoT fad to die down a little. Sure, maybe it's cool to have LAN connected lightbulbs as a novelty product. But this kind of shit will never ever be the norm, simply because it makes no damn sense in terms of value proposition.
- mhh__ 5y agoWhat? I want to make the washing machine starting drying after a specific amount of time after the wash stage has finished. And guess what mr programmer, they didn't bother letting me do that with the front panel...
- slver 5y agoMost (all?) washing machines have a delayed start. Why would you want your clothes to sit wet, collecting mold, before the drying begins? See, part of being a good programmer is figuring out a solution using the tools you have. Which includes figuring out how existing machines address your issues without requesting they come with a fully programmable API and wi-fi, just so you can delay the drying cycle.
- mhh__ 5y agoI get the best drying if the machine washes, drains for a bit, then starts drying after that. If I were to do this it would take 4 trips to the washing machine because they didn't think to make it tick over from even washing to drying.
- slver 5y agoWhat we've learned here is you need to buy a new washing machine, or maybe before that, read carefully the manual of the one you have. Thinking you can dry your clothes better than the people who engineered the entire machine and wrote its programs is honestly cracking me up. Do you think the vendors were like "you know what, we don't need this washing machine to dry well". Even more, what kind of a marketing campaign would such a scriptable machine even have? "Our washing machine dries really poorly, but we hope every stay at home mom can script it to dry better, so we included a web server and a REST API with it". They'll go bankrupt, man.
- mhh__ 5y agoWell they decided not to have any modes that automatically dry after washing at all so I'm going with yes. And thanks, I'll just spend this months rent on a new washing machine.
- techdragon 5y agoI’d argue that on average the engineers working on these things understand things just barely well enough to implement these things in whatever hardware/software combination is selected. Any more understanding than that would be sub-optimal for shipping consumer products where cost optimisation is a primary concern as the salaries for more competent engineers would cost the company more. You can see this effect in action with the explosion of “smart home” devices after commoditised internals were made available by the likes of Tuya. Suddenly your company only needed junior engineers who could skin the whitebox turn-key solutions and product designers who could design a moulded plastic enclosure around a standard set of postage stamp sized circuit boards.
- slver 5y agoSo your default assumption is that a company whose entire division may be selling washing machines, doesn't give a damn about the programs that make those machines useful. Great.
- mhh__ 5y agoHave you ever used Windows...
- techdragon 5y agoYes and no, my assumption is that the company only cares about the programs being useful enough to sell the washing machine. There is no incentive to be any better than that. When the average washing machine lives long enough that the majority of consumers will come back to their next purchase without feeling annoyed about software related issues. Extra frills that pushed them over the line into purchasing a particular model didn't quite work out how they hoped, the iPhone app didn't get updates and looks bad on their new phone, etc ... these things wont factor into their next purchase. It's a psychological time horizon thing, enough water passes under the bridge and the customer stopped caring long enough ago. So as long as it was otherwise a solid washing machine that didn't have mechanical issues mechanically or wash poorly they aren't likely to hold the manufacturer to account for their poor software quality breaking the "nice to haves".
- azornathogron 5y agoYou're the first person I've ever seen who says they want a connected washing machine. I'm curious: what will your washing machine script do?
- mhh__ 5y agoNot require me to have to go up and down the stairs about 5-10 times to see how it's getting on, and then switch to dry, then check on its progress, etc.
- dwighttk 5y agoDoes this machine both wash and dry clothes?
- sime2009 5y agoWhy does it require so much babysitting?
- mhh__ 5y agoThe timer has a mind of its own (i.e. it displays an estimate of when it thinks it's going to be finished), and the option to automatically start drying after finishing the wash cycle is either not present or extremely well obfuscated (The model that shows up on Google definitely has the option on the rotary encoder, the one I have has no such option).
- kiddico 5y agoConnected washing machines continue to make little sense to me. The only benefit I can think of is a notification when it's done. Otherwise all the interactions with it are done in person. (loading/unloading etc) What would you want to script?
- mhh__ 5y agoMy washing machine doesn't automatically starting draining or drying after finishing, so I have to go up and down the stairs, and it has a mind of its own as to when it finishes. An ESP-32 is about 2 quid last time I checked, I have many, and I would happily attach it to the machine if not for the fact that it doesn't belong to me.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoI have a washing machine from year 2000, and it has that functionality built in. Are you sure you read the manual?
- mhh__ 5y agoI don't think so. I can't work out how the washing machine isn't obviously just an example. Also, the thing that's more annoying is actually that the machine's alarm is extremely quiet and the timer very inconsistent (e.g. I made a Pizza oven that sends me an email, and it wasn't hard to do at all).
- PeterisP 5y agoThe common use case is to want to set the time so that it runs not right now but later - either because for noise reasons, or so that it finishes when you're back home to unload. Also, of course, there's the "internal scheduling" of various different activities that the machine is doing; you can do that mechanically but IMHO it's simpler now to do that with a cheap microcontroller.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
- readflaggedcomm 5y agoWithout the hardware to script moving wet clothes to a dryer, and possibly folding and sorting dry clothes, is there a point, other than to set an alarm to prevent a moldy forgotten wet load?
- mhh__ 5y agoThat would be a start (the alarm sounds like a chain smoking mouse)
- clownpenis_fart 5y agoAaaaah. Yesss. Finally my dream has come true and I can start laundry by pressing a button on my computer wait what do you mean I still need to physically walk to the washing machine to load it this is bullshit
- ta988 5y agoOne can also do the choice to not buy any of these. I have no trouble finding non IoT toothbrushes, fridges and so on.
- f6v 5y agoFinding a dumb TV is a lot harder.
- markus_zhang 5y agoOne does not need to watch TV. I haven't watched any TV program for more than 20 years. I might purchase a radio in the near future though.
- postpawl 5y agoIf I go to “shop all” in the refrigerators section of Home Depot’s site and look at the count next to the filter for “smart” features - Only 97 out of 798 refrigerators they sell have smart features.
- dralley 5y agoThat was, at one time, true for "smart TVs" as well.
- postpawl 5y agoThe first smart refrigerator came out in 2000. The first smart tv came out later in 2007-2008. I think smart appliances just aren’t as popular as their dumb appliance counterparts. But yeah, maybe someday they will be.
- frenchy 5y agoYeah, though I would argue that smart kitchen appliances have a lot more going against them than smart tvs. - Historically, the TV has been used for playing media transmitted on radio waves, so an internet connected TV isn't a big surprise. - Television media formats seem to completely shift every decade or 2, so people are very used to buying something they'll throw away soon. - People usually take their televisions around with them when they move houses, but not appliances. Transfering "smart" things between owners is generally a pain and a security hazard.
- dopidopHN 5y agoNot in the US, but back home I clearly remember moving countless fridges of friends to new apartment. But true that appliance seems to be attach to the houses here. And correct, smart things are private things because of the nature of their work. I have a fridge that my grand father used. And I’m not specially young. I love that fridge, simple and frugal in energy. I suspect the smart fridge and the like will come with incentive from large comglomerate that also sell food. The « two day delivery » of the smart fridge. I guess a coupon. Oh well.
- nnamtr 5y agoI'm always very sceptical when electronics and chips are used as a solution to problems that nobody had. Reliability seems to suffer most of all. When I hear from my parents how long their products lasted back then ...
- bluedino 5y agoAppicances with cheap membrane control panels are the worst. Mechanical dials lasted forever and when they broke you could at least still work them with some vise grips
- throwaway29303 5y agoI agree. Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? Analytics etc; to get "relevant" ads. That's all this IoT and data syphoning etc is mostly about. How often do you brush your teeth? What toothpaste do you use? Maybe your dentist needs to know that or, at least, someone from some (big) (tech) company doing data science about it for whatever reason (mostly to show you ads). Knowledge is power.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoSure. That's what's in it for some "them" out there somewhere. What's in it for me, the consumer who just wants to brush my teeth? (Crickets.) So don't hold your breath for this stuff to take off. Most people won't spend more money to buy something that will benefit someone else.
- CRConrad 5y agoThat's why they build it into everything, so you won't have a choice but to buy it.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoDollars. Somebody's going to follow the dollars. If it costs less to build a toothbrush without bluetooth (and it absolutely does), and if the most of public doesn't care enough about bluetooth to pay more for a toothbrush, then the one who makes bluetooth-less toothbrushes will make more money. Somebody will do that.
- rsj_hn 5y agoI have never owned a toothbrush that connects to bluetooth. Spend less if you find that spending more comes with features you don't want.
- perardi 5y agoThere are still lots, and lots, and lots of dumb appliances. I think you’d have to go out of the way to buy a toothbrush with Bluetooth, and I see many a non-smart fridge in the best sellers at Home Depot. (https://www.homedepot.com/b/Appliances-Refrigerators-Side-by-Side-Refrigerators/N-5yc1vZc3q0 https://www.homedepot.com/b/Appliances-Refrigerators-Side-by...) For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread and Merlin Mann screaming about HomeKit and blah blah blah…most people have dumb lightbulbs, dumb garage doors, and dumb fridges. The obvious exception is a smart TV, which are effectively mandatory now. And…after years of being a contrarian…guess what? I like my Roku-enabled TV. The apps are nice. I don’t have to have an external box. It’s fine. More than fine, even—I am kinda shocked at how good this Amazon-special TCL TV is.
- anonymousab 5y ago> For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread and blah blah blah…most people have dumb lightbulbs, dumb garage doors, and dumb fridges. For now. The profits to be made on microtransactions and subscriptions from internet-requiring features are too gargantuan to pass up, to not become the new norm. And, of course, unblockable ads and tracking. A fun recent example is a motorcycle emergency vest that stops inflating when you stop paying the subscription. An outlier for now, but the average tomorrow; The slope is real and it's coated with vaseline.
- perardi 5y agoOr BMW’s attempt to sell subscriptions to CarPlay and heated seats. https://www.thedrive.com/news/34547/bmw-is-planning-to-sell-heated-seats-and-more-as-a-subscription-no-really https://www.thedrive.com/news/34547/bmw-is-planning-to-sell-... But still…that’s high-margin subscriptions on top of a high-margin product. I am, currently, skeptical we will end up with low-end Internet of Shit for everything, because running that subscription service requires a big up-front investment that’s hard when you’re selling, I don’t know, toaster ovens.
- nitrogen 5y agoThere was recently a subscription dishwasher featured here. It turned out to be easy for the author to hack theirs, but it will get harder over time, just like ink cartridges.
- smt88 5y agoChips in cars are decades old and are useful for things like managing fuel injection, increasing fuel efficiency. "Dumb" cars have chips too.
- drzaiusapelord 5y agoand for all we know, if cars were still made with carbs and solenoids and old fashion-y tech, that manufacturing might be impacted by a pandemic as well. I don't think there's anything fundamental about chips that are causing this delay. A lot of it has to with cancelling orders and manufacturers winding down and then restarting a major supply chain takes time, especially if demand shuts down fast and then starts up again faster than expected.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoThere's a wide space between connected and dumb appliances. For instance my espresso coffeemaker is fairly dumb : I'm not even sure that it has a chip that turns the light green when the resistor is hot enough, it might be just some "dumb" sensor. (Still, because of this, it's not completely dumb.) In comparison, my electric kettle is much smarter, and most likely requires a chip to make all the logic around the various buttons and the screen and the water temperature settings work. Still, it has zero connectivity.
- octorian 5y agoIn this day and age its easy to forget that even "dumb" appliances still use microcontrollers. Yes, even functions like monitoring temperature, turning a compressor on and off, and beeping if the door is left open for too long... are probably more easily and cheaply done with a low-end microcontroller than some sort of electromechanical contraption.