I never understood the hype behind smart devices. I don't need my TV to be smart. We all know the TV manufacturers aren't going to spend a dime on security, g

I never understood the hype behind smart devices. I don't need my TV to be smart. We all know the TV manufacturers aren't going to spend a dime on security, give zero shits about privacy, and even performance is going to be lacking. Software updates are unlikely to be a thing, as they'd rather sell you a new TV. Just get a <$50 streaming device (ie, Amazon Fire TV stick) and plug that into your TV. I don't need my clothes washer/dryer, dishwasher, or even my fridge to be smart. For the former three, I have to physically be there to load them, so why not just start it while I'm there? Why would I want a phone app to control them? If I want a delayed start, that functionality is already built in. I don't need my light bulbs to be smart. Every room has the switch at the ingress/egress point. If I'm going to bed, switching off lights as I move to my bedroom takes zero effort. That leaves me to digital assistants like Alexa. Sometimes, in the kitchen, I suppose it would be nice to be able to just be like "How many grams is 1 cup of all-purpose flour?" (Why the hell kitchen scales never caught on in America, leading to ingredients like flour being impossible to accurately measure by volume is beyond me, but that's another topic) and get an answer and not have to pick up my phone, since if I'm cooking, I might have dirty hands. I don't tend to listen to music when I'm not at my computer, so I don't need something with voice control to change the song. My thermostat is the only "smart" device I use, and even that is a dumb one relative to the fancy learning ones like Nest. It has a phone app that lets me set the schedule and change the temperature temporarily. It's nice when I go on a bike ride, about 30 minutes before I expect to get home, I'll tell it to temporarily reduce the house temperature by a couple degrees to help me cool off when I get home. And I do have a Ring doorbell, but only because I didn't want to deal with a DIY solution. But since this topic was about privacy, I will say that at this point, you'd have to be incredibly naive to think that device manufacturers aren't trying to harvest as much data about you as they can. This article should not be surprising to anybody, especially anybody here on HN.