5 ms·

Be glad it doesn't (yet) shame your eco-ignorance on Facebook, doesn't tell your insurance company you occasionally buy bacon and doesn't call the police for yo

Be glad it doesn't (yet) shame your eco-ignorance on Facebook, doesn't tell your insurance company you occasionally buy bacon and doesn't call the police for you infringing their intellectual property by refusing to buy new genuine filters often enough. "Smart" home devices which are not open-source and not under your full control are a horror. I would break it open and remove the WiFi antenna if I had no choice of buying a non-connected one. I've bought a robo vacuum cleaner recently. Luckily there still are 100% offline models available. Unluckily they all are overly stupid, can't have lidars and map your home (while I can see no reason why this has to require Internet access and can't be implemented an autonomous way).

cirrrrrrus 5y ago
> can't have lidars and map your home (while I can see no reason why this has to require Internet access and can't be implemented an autonomous way). This is a great comment. I would love smart appliances (e.g. Lidar-equipped robot vacuum cleaner) that are 100% offline. If anyone has a list of smart yet offline appliances, I’d love to shop there.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  It's not limited to just offline products, but Mozilla makes a shopping guide every year where it rates the privacy impact of products including, it seems, robo vacuum cleaners: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  I can remember someone mentioned an old model (supposedly possible to find on eBay) which could be hacked to run a vendor-imitating server on itself and connect to it via localhost.
  - dugite-code 5y ago
    A few of the Xaiomi's and Viomi's are rootable. I have a Gen1 Xaiomi and it's brilliant. I got ssh access to the ubuntu install and installed https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo and run it 100% local via my home-assistant install. dgiese is a proficient vacuum security researcher and has most of that stuff available here: https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > Xaiomi's and Viomi's Not sure I'd connect a device from these vendors to my home network.
      - dugite-code 5y ago
        One of the first steps when rooting is usually to block outgoing and incoming in iptables (it's a fairly standard ubuntu install after all) so you don't lose root at any point, so the risk is minimal. Not to mention I have a dedicated non internet routable IOT network specifically for this reason.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  > I’d love to shop there. If I had enough time and money I would start a company specializing in just this: home and office hardware (from kitchen appliances to smartphones and players) designed with care and focus on offline-friendliness, autonomousness, durability, ease of repair, configurability, hackability, upgradability and privacy without compromise in features and the UX. I believe the potential market, although niche, already is big enough and the lack of competition is intriguing.
  - cascom 5y ago
    This would be great - it’s such a sad state of affairs that there is a need for products that “just fo what they’re supposed to do - without acting against my best interests”
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > the lack of competition is intriguing Not really. Mass-produced barely acceptable quality is enough for the majority of consumers in Western markets (especially given that something about half of the population has no meaningful cash savings), and people in developing countries can't afford anything else anyway. On the other hand, the problem is the upfront cost. Plastic and metal molds cost a lot of money (which means you need large scale to recoup that investment), anything with software will need the entire chain from developing the hardware and software to a secure way of delivering software updates, some stuff has extensive certification requirements (anything with radio interfaces, HDMI and other licensed connectors or to be used on/in vehicles) if you want to do it legally, some things are impossible to manufacture in an "open" sense while still being usable (physical media players, due to copy protection schemes), many parts have ridiculous MOQs making small scale manufacturing impossible to extremely expensive, and then you will need some sort of logistics chain to get your product to the customer and in case of warranty claims back from the customer.
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      > enough for the majority of consumers But I think, in absolute numbers, the minority already is big enough to make this profitable and is growing. Targeting the majority is not the only profitable/optimal strategy, targeting a specific group which is just big enough to sustainably cover your expenses (salaries included) and is not targeted by a lot of competitors also is great. I would pay up to twice the price (or even more) of an any mainstream appliance for a really great (prioritizing privacy/auotonomy, repairability/durability and hackability/customizability) one. And I believe I'm not alone.
mysterydip 5y ago
There's still time. In another tweet he had a picture of the fridge updating firmware. Who knows what would happen if this process failed, or the company mistakenly sent out a bad one.
jve 5y ago
I have an old Neato D75. It is offline, lidar equipped, does it's job OKayish. Maybe you can ask @NeatoRobotics are there any offline models available for them?
escalt 5y ago
Vacuums from Dreame and Roborock can be rooted with some effort and be used completely offline with Valetudo. It's getting harder and harder though.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Why do they invest effort in making this harder? They could just make it easy for at least a single model they keep producing and capture the whole niche of customers (and also get free advertisement by "the word of mouth" on HN and alike places) with no additional investment.
  - kortex 5y ago
    The most charitable interpretation: Rootability tends to be inverse to hackability. There's incentive for companies to increase security, to prevent their IoT stuff from getting turned into botnets. But there's nearly no incentive to preserve rootability. So it's just locked down to an increasing degree. Less charitable: they don't want you to root it for various corporate reasons
technothrasher 5y ago
I'm just near the end of a kitchen remodel, with all new appliances. They are all "Wifi Enabled" and push like crazy to make sure you know it. I briefly looked at it and there doesn't appear to be any way to use the Wifi features without signing up at some remote website and allowing all your interactions with your appliances to flow through their servers. Yeah, no thanks. The FAQ on one site actually says not to worry about privacy, since they use the latest greatest encryption when they send your data to their partners! I'm all set, I don't really need to control or monitor my kitchen appliances through wifi. But it did make me suspect that in another few years the newest appliances will simply not function at all if you don't log in, and pay the monthly subscription fee.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > But it did make me suspect that in another few years the newest appliances will simply not function at all if you don't log in, and pay the monthly subscription fee. That's the dream. Every appliance maker wishes it was a SaaS company.

cirrrrrrus 5y ago

> can't have lidars and map your home (while I can see no reason why this has to require Internet access and can't be implemented an autonomous way). This is a great comment. I would love smart appliances (e.g. Lidar-equipped robot vacuum cleaner) that are 100% offline. If anyone has a list of smart yet offline appliances, I’d love to shop there.

Vinnl 5y ago
It's not limited to just offline products, but Mozilla makes a shopping guide every year where it rates the privacy impact of products including, it seems, robo vacuum cleaners: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/
qwerty456127 5y ago
I can remember someone mentioned an old model (supposedly possible to find on eBay) which could be hacked to run a vendor-imitating server on itself and connect to it via localhost.
- dugite-code 5y ago
  A few of the Xaiomi's and Viomi's are rootable. I have a Gen1 Xaiomi and it's brilliant. I got ssh access to the ubuntu install and installed https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo and run it 100% local via my home-assistant install. dgiese is a proficient vacuum security researcher and has most of that stuff available here: https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud https://github.com/dgiese/dustcloud
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > Xaiomi's and Viomi's Not sure I'd connect a device from these vendors to my home network.
    - dugite-code 5y ago
      One of the first steps when rooting is usually to block outgoing and incoming in iptables (it's a fairly standard ubuntu install after all) so you don't lose root at any point, so the risk is minimal. Not to mention I have a dedicated non internet routable IOT network specifically for this reason.
qwerty456127 5y ago
> I’d love to shop there. If I had enough time and money I would start a company specializing in just this: home and office hardware (from kitchen appliances to smartphones and players) designed with care and focus on offline-friendliness, autonomousness, durability, ease of repair, configurability, hackability, upgradability and privacy without compromise in features and the UX. I believe the potential market, although niche, already is big enough and the lack of competition is intriguing.
- cascom 5y ago
  This would be great - it’s such a sad state of affairs that there is a need for products that “just fo what they’re supposed to do - without acting against my best interests”
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > the lack of competition is intriguing Not really. Mass-produced barely acceptable quality is enough for the majority of consumers in Western markets (especially given that something about half of the population has no meaningful cash savings), and people in developing countries can't afford anything else anyway. On the other hand, the problem is the upfront cost. Plastic and metal molds cost a lot of money (which means you need large scale to recoup that investment), anything with software will need the entire chain from developing the hardware and software to a secure way of delivering software updates, some stuff has extensive certification requirements (anything with radio interfaces, HDMI and other licensed connectors or to be used on/in vehicles) if you want to do it legally, some things are impossible to manufacture in an "open" sense while still being usable (physical media players, due to copy protection schemes), many parts have ridiculous MOQs making small scale manufacturing impossible to extremely expensive, and then you will need some sort of logistics chain to get your product to the customer and in case of warranty claims back from the customer.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    > enough for the majority of consumers But I think, in absolute numbers, the minority already is big enough to make this profitable and is growing. Targeting the majority is not the only profitable/optimal strategy, targeting a specific group which is just big enough to sustainably cover your expenses (salaries included) and is not targeted by a lot of competitors also is great. I would pay up to twice the price (or even more) of an any mainstream appliance for a really great (prioritizing privacy/auotonomy, repairability/durability and hackability/customizability) one. And I believe I'm not alone.

mysterydip 5y ago

There's still time. In another tweet he had a picture of the fridge updating firmware. Who knows what would happen if this process failed, or the company mistakenly sent out a bad one.

jve 5y ago

I have an old Neato D75. It is offline, lidar equipped, does it's job OKayish. Maybe you can ask @NeatoRobotics are there any offline models available for them?

escalt 5y ago

Vacuums from Dreame and Roborock can be rooted with some effort and be used completely offline with Valetudo. It's getting harder and harder though.

qwerty456127 5y ago
Why do they invest effort in making this harder? They could just make it easy for at least a single model they keep producing and capture the whole niche of customers (and also get free advertisement by "the word of mouth" on HN and alike places) with no additional investment.
- kortex 5y ago
  The most charitable interpretation: Rootability tends to be inverse to hackability. There's incentive for companies to increase security, to prevent their IoT stuff from getting turned into botnets. But there's nearly no incentive to preserve rootability. So it's just locked down to an increasing degree. Less charitable: they don't want you to root it for various corporate reasons

technothrasher 5y ago

I'm just near the end of a kitchen remodel, with all new appliances. They are all "Wifi Enabled" and push like crazy to make sure you know it. I briefly looked at it and there doesn't appear to be any way to use the Wifi features without signing up at some remote website and allowing all your interactions with your appliances to flow through their servers. Yeah, no thanks. The FAQ on one site actually says not to worry about privacy, since they use the latest greatest encryption when they send your data to their partners! I'm all set, I don't really need to control or monitor my kitchen appliances through wifi. But it did make me suspect that in another few years the newest appliances will simply not function at all if you don't log in, and pay the monthly subscription fee.

908B64B197 5y ago
> But it did make me suspect that in another few years the newest appliances will simply not function at all if you don't log in, and pay the monthly subscription fee. That's the dream. Every appliance maker wishes it was a SaaS company.