17 ms·

Yes, I agree. I'm not a luddite per se - heck, I make a living out of making stuff talk to one another on a network. But I don't get the appeal, from a customer

by arter4 3y ago

Yes, I agree. I'm not a luddite per se - heck, I make a living out of making stuff talk to one another on a network. But I don't get the appeal, from a customer standpoint, of having all physical objects talk to you or to the Internet. Like, why? I get it when it comes to alarm systems. Being able to get a notification when someone breaks in is nice, because the alarm system is mostly doing its job when you're not at home. It makes sense. What it does not make sense, in my humble opinion, is pretty much everything else. Why do I need voice activated lights, outside of a cool party trick ("hey, I can turn the lights on with my voice")? Why should a vacuum cleaner, even if a robot one, be able to upload a picture of a woman on the toilet to the Internet (which has actually happened)? Why should the fridge talk to you? Ironically, this kind of stuff might become less and less appealing with remote working. If you're at home anyway, can't you just stand up and look at the fridge or turn that light on?

mewpmewp2 3y ago
If you have an image of the fridge you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing. I personally like the idea of smart home things and everything connected. It feels like it opens up so many possibilities or ideas. Do I need it for survival? No. But I do like the idea and how it triggers my imagination.
- arter4 3y ago
  >you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing What is missing and what I should buy are different things. If my fridge has yogurt, bacon and some hamburgers, you might say "well, you are missing eggs". Except maybe I don't want eggs. I may be even allergic. Or maybe I like eggs but I'm in some low-protein diet for whatever reason. The goal of a fridge is not to have literally everything, is to store everything you think you need for some days. As for recipes, yes, that's more creative, but I guess I would just actively Google that (or even use an old fashioned recipe book!) if I were looking for original recipes. Of course, you can also ChatGPT it, but the direct fridge -> ChatGPT interaction is a bit weird because maybe I don't want original recipes or maybe I'm going to eat out. So a hypothetical (?) app that sends me notifications about what recipes ChatGPT suggests by looking at my fridge wouldn't be very appealing unless you're always looking for new recipes. If you're mostly cooking ordinary things, continuous "You could cook X" would count as spam, much like a lot of people skip (or try to skip) ads on Youtube and ignore random "buy this at 70% discount" emails. And if you're that passionate about new recipes I guess you're probably interested in cooking and don't need the fridge to tell you what's missing.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    “You are missing Evards brand milk, buy Evards for that fresh taste, I’ve added it to your list for you” Any potential benefit from such a device would be destroyed by the cancerous advertising industry.
    - arter4 3y ago
      Exactly. This would turn a fridge into yet another thing serving ads. No thanks.
      - mewpmewp2 3y ago
        There would be alternative market for ads free for sure or open source alternatives where you could connect with your own selected LLMs.
        4RealFreedom 3y ago
        And major brands would force you to pay a fee to disable advertising.
        mewpmewp2 3y ago
        To me paying to disable ads is a fair deal.
        thfuran 3y ago
        I think that if the manufacturer is going to continue using the appliance for their own business purposes, they shouldn't be permitted to describe the transaction that causes you to possess it as a "sale", because you don't own it free and clear.
        mewpmewp2 3y ago
        I don't get why it matters so much to people. It's all just incentives aligning and how the deals work. Having a subscription can actually be beneficial in terms of incentive to keep up supporting the product in my view. If it's a huge problem psychologically for you, maybe you can just take the following 5 years or whatever time you estimate you will be using the product and calculate that into the base price to make your decision.
- rglullis 3y ago
  It also (literally) opens up your home for many ideas and possibilities for attackers. Not just for the "haxxor" types, but the far more sneaky, sweet-talking ones. It should not trigger just your imagination, but your paranoia.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Yes of course, but for example you already have your phone, laptops and computers with many things built in them. If you are ok with those, then it should be possible to build those smart devices with similar security and potential for attack.
    - arter4 3y ago
      Yes but while you can install Linux on your own, or even build your own computer if you're interested, you don't get to build a fridge or its operating system, and you most likely don't even have a valid way to see how it's configured (you may be able to hack it somehow, but it would probably void any warranty). So... do you upgrade your fridge OS? Maybe, maybe not. What happens if you do and an upgrade fails? does it talk to the Internet? If it has to (by design), then all bets are off. You could try to mirror traffic and take a packet capture, but a fridge OS could easily use HTTPS over a "smart.myfridge.com" domain and you wouldn't know what's going on. How does it even authenticate to whatever remote server they have? If it uses tokens or client certificates, what happens when they expire? I'm a sysadmin, I know things fail. Even laptops and phones. But, while I can see valid use cases for laptops and phones, I still fail to see the actual appeal of most "smart home" appliances, outside of security systems. And I don't want to have nightmares about my fridge certificate expiration or not being able to turn your light on because my fiber connection went down.
      - mewpmewp2 3y ago
        > Yes but while you can install Linux on your own, or even build your own computer if you're interested, you don't get to build a fridge or its operating system, and you most likely don't even have a valid way to see how it's configured (you may be able to hack it somehow, but it would probably void any warranty). You could install open sourced things to that fridge. E.g. the fridge could either come with sensors immediately available or just have convenient mounts to place your own cameras. Maybe the fridge could have a simple linux box, raspberry PI or whatever set up. There could be a market where you can flexibly pick how immediately available solution you want or if you want to put in everything yourself and control, depending on how concerned you are about privacy and how technical you are. If you want to have full control, you can just do that. > do you upgrade your fridge OS? Maybe, maybe not. What happens if you do and an upgrade fails? Most smart home devices in my experience update through a mobile app connected to your WiFi. > What happens if you do and an upgrade fails Fridge itself would still work, just the picture taking and ai guidance wouldn't. > How does it even authenticate to whatever remote server they have? If it uses tokens or client certificates, what happens when they expire? Through mobile app can update, reset everything. > And I don't want to have nightmares about my fridge certificate expiration or not being able to turn your light on because my fiber connection went down. These basic things like light and other base features you make sure can work even if smart software fails.
AndrewDavis 3y ago
Even appliances that aren't internet connected are going down this terrible UX path. My old washing machine had nobs (dials) you turn. You put the clothes and soap in, close the door and press the button. My preference of type of wash and water temperature were all "saved" by the nob position. My current washing machine, nob is type of wash, capacitive touch buttons for everything else. Keeping the nob "on" keeps the digital display on and consuming power. And the wash options like temperature, extra rinse etc are all controlled digitally with no memory. Want 60 degrees water? Press the water temperature button 8 times, each with a delay of about 3/4 of a second for it to register before a press works again. It's utterly terrible.
- asystole 3y ago
  Unrelated, but the word knob has a k in it. :)
  - hansvm 3y ago
    It's shrinkflation in action.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    ISMO on silent letters: https://youtu.be/dBpMlRmkV1Q https://youtu.be/dBpMlRmkV1Q
- yarekt 3y ago
  knobs are more expensive :(
  - account42 3y ago
    Yes, but we are talking about saving cents on hundreds of dollars here. We really need to come up with better ways to make companies bear the cost of their shitty cost cutting measures.
- nextos 3y ago
  Also you can't operate e.g. a dishwasher with kitchen gloves now, as those silly touchscreens won't cooperate. Few brands know how to keep it simple. Even Miele and Liebherr are falling into these absurd trends.
cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago
I control my lights with my voice practically all the time. It’s easily my primary mode of changing the state of my lights. Whenever I travel it only takes an hour tops after entering a hotel for me to get annoyed by whatever command I’ve yelled out being met with silence. I say this because maybe it goes to show that different people are different. Maybe someone gets use out of the silly camera that shows them the inside of the fridge. It sounds ridiculous to me, but evidently my lights sound ridiculous to you.
lelandfe 3y ago
> Why do I need voice activated lights My parents are getting older. Their knees appreciate being able to tell Siri to turn off the downstairs lights from upstairs.
- beebeepka 3y ago
  it would be easier to turn off the lights when leaving the floor/room. Sadly, that seems to be too much effort for modern humans
- alwa 3y ago
  This was what made me understand the voice-activated stuff too. I hadn’t appreciated, until hanging around with more people enduring the indignities of aging, how even trivial physical tasks become ordeals.
- ongytenes 3y ago
  My friends are getting old and I bought them remote control for lights this Christmas that don't require an internet connection.
brabel 3y ago
> Why do I need voice activated lights, outside of a cool party trick ("hey, I can turn the lights on with my voice")? It's actually very convenient :) I hated when I forgot to turn some light off and had to get out of bed just to flip it. And you don't need Internet for that, just a local hub with voice recognition (though most off the shelf stuff does everything it can for you to go with Google/Apple systems, which do need to be connected all the time - besides requiring you to be logged in at all times for no benefit to you, obviously just so they can either sell your data or to ensure you're properly locked in and can deny you service if you somehow get out of line). My heat pump does require Internet, though. Apparently the firmware must self-update continuously and you can probably be denied warranty if you don't let it do so. But at least there are genuine use cases: it can monitor the electricity prices with 1-day in advance, so it can "plan" the best time to power up and down to save electricity (at least they say it does it)... and it can control the temperature better as the temperature outside goes up and down, knowing it beforehand via weather forecasts. But of course, to actually control the machine via the app requires a paid feature :D no thanks.
EasyMark 3y ago
the only thing I see worth using "smart" appliances on are lighting, thermostat, and security system. Everything else in my experience is extraneous and useless.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  I hacked a few IKEA air quality sensors so, beyond their traffic-light color LEDs, they also log actual numeric measurements to Home Assistant. It's proving to be one of the more useful "ensmartiffication" for several reasons - including being able to check all the meters from one place on the go, and being able to position the device so its LED indicator isn't annoying my wife at night. But honestly, I wouldn't actually buy a smart device for this - soldering a NodeMCU into a cheap IKEA device is the sweet spot of relatively low skill required, and zero bullshit included. I can't stand vendor apps. They're always garbage. In fact, the main reason I set up Home Assistant, and the main reason my wife embraced it and uses it daily, is because hooking up our A/C to it made it infinitely more useful than having it operated over the vendor shit app. With HA, either of us can reconfigure all A/Cs and then go and make tea or whatever, in time it took the official vendor app to fully open. IoT is a disaster, Home Assistant and some tinkering is the only thing that makes it reasonable to have a smart device.
naravara 3y ago
The lights make some sense in that you may not want to walk to another corner of your house, or up and down stairs to be able to turn them on or off. Similar functions, like smart locks or blinds or ovens also let you have some peace of mind to make sure you’ve got everything in the On/Off state you need it to be in. Though personally I think we’re barking up the wrong tree by trying to smarten up every appliance. The objective of having remote control/sensing of all your stuff would be better achieved by having a single robot “butler” that can check on state and interface with everything, but the appliances themselves should be simple and easily controllable. As long as there’s a universal communications standard for all devices to be able to communicate with the “butler” the mechanical interfacing could basically be designed in as accessibility features. That way the software and smart capabilities are all in one package that can be upgraded or modified instead of scattered across a bunch of individual things that are expensive to replace or repair. I’m basically imagining a drone that runs around the house along a rail track on the ceiling and has a little dongle it can plug into devices to control them like Star Wars droids. Bonus points if the method of control is purely mechanical without needing much computing power in the appliance at all. The reason this will never happen, of course, is obvious. You’ll never get everyone to retrofit their houses for a robo-rail.
- Liftyee 3y ago
  Perhaps instead of rails you could go for a flying quadcopter-drone with some sort of manipulator arm. If it was light it could even land and charge from the same ports it uses to communicate with appliances. Of course if any big FAANG-company does this expect it to be beaming everything it sees straight up to the cloud. Amazon already tried this with their Ring security drone.
  - naravara 3y ago
    The issues with drones is it takes energy to stay aloft and you’ll be introducing weight limits. It’ll also become a target for pet owners. Cats, in particular, will swat them down.
darreninthenet 3y ago
Fridge/freezer one is handy for temperature and door open alarms
- iamacyborg 3y ago
  Probably easier and more efficient to just get a window/door sensor offered by all the home automation providers. It’ll integrate better into your home automation software of choice, be cheaper and much easier to replace.
- freetanga 3y ago
  My dumb freezer beeps like hell if left open. That is it’s only trick
- bell-cot 3y ago
  I'd say a temperature alarm - if I happen to feel I need one - should be a physically separate little thing. With it's own programmable temperature range. Usually it's in the fridge. But during a cold spell, I can adjust and move it to a spot where I'm worried the pipes might freeze. Or turn it into a "is the A/C working?" watchdog during a heat wave. Or, I can buy several to cover all those. But they're all one make & model, so I don't have to install/learn/use 5 different crappy apps for 'em. And that way the the fridge can't die...and quietly take its built-in alarm with it.
  - darreninthenet 3y ago
    I said it was handy not something I would go out of my way to get... the fridge has it so it's useful. I don't understand why so many people on here are so offended by a useful feature that from most people's perspective is just a feature the fridge has rather than one they shopped for.
    - arter4 3y ago
      I personally am not offended by a feature. I wouldn't march on the streets to denounce this or anything like that. What I am saying (though I cannot speak for anyone) is that I, on the contrary, would go out of my way to not get, not because I have thin foil hat or whatever, but because the reliability and privacy concerns this kind of thing carries far outweigh (in my scale) the benefit of having something that will come in useful once in a decade. Note that things like that have already happened. When an AWS region went down, things like doorbells and lights stopped working properly (https://financialpost.com/technology/personal-tech/pitfalls-of-a-smart-home-amazon-outage-left-people-without-working-fridges-lights-and-even-access-to-homes https://financialpost.com/technology/personal-tech/pitfalls-...). Which, if you think about it, is ridiculous. I cannot turn my lights on because somewhere, potentially thousands of miles away, some datacenters failed, even if those datacenters could, ostensibly, only give me ads and "improvements" and not any core feature. And when it comes to privacy, Roomba employees posted on Facebook picture of a woman on the toilet, a picture that was taken by the Roomba itself while cleaning (https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i...). Now, you might say that the Roomba algorithm has to train a lot to be able to work properly, but why take pictures? And why upload them to the Internet? Of course everyone makes their own judgement calls. I'm not offended if anyone gets smart fridges or voice activated lights.

by arter4 3y ago

mewpmewp2 3y ago

If you have an image of the fridge you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing. I personally like the idea of smart home things and everything connected. It feels like it opens up so many possibilities or ideas. Do I need it for survival? No. But I do like the idea and how it triggers my imagination.

arter4 3y ago
>you could have GPT vision interpret it and offer you recipes or what is missing What is missing and what I should buy are different things. If my fridge has yogurt, bacon and some hamburgers, you might say "well, you are missing eggs". Except maybe I don't want eggs. I may be even allergic. Or maybe I like eggs but I'm in some low-protein diet for whatever reason. The goal of a fridge is not to have literally everything, is to store everything you think you need for some days. As for recipes, yes, that's more creative, but I guess I would just actively Google that (or even use an old fashioned recipe book!) if I were looking for original recipes. Of course, you can also ChatGPT it, but the direct fridge -> ChatGPT interaction is a bit weird because maybe I don't want original recipes or maybe I'm going to eat out. So a hypothetical (?) app that sends me notifications about what recipes ChatGPT suggests by looking at my fridge wouldn't be very appealing unless you're always looking for new recipes. If you're mostly cooking ordinary things, continuous "You could cook X" would count as spam, much like a lot of people skip (or try to skip) ads on Youtube and ignore random "buy this at 70% discount" emails. And if you're that passionate about new recipes I guess you're probably interested in cooking and don't need the fridge to tell you what's missing.
- midasuni 3y ago
  “You are missing Evards brand milk, buy Evards for that fresh taste, I’ve added it to your list for you” Any potential benefit from such a device would be destroyed by the cancerous advertising industry.
  - arter4 3y ago
    Exactly. This would turn a fridge into yet another thing serving ads. No thanks.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      There would be alternative market for ads free for sure or open source alternatives where you could connect with your own selected LLMs.
      - 4RealFreedom 3y ago
        And major brands would force you to pay a fee to disable advertising.
        mewpmewp2 3y ago
        To me paying to disable ads is a fair deal.
        thfuran 3y ago
        I think that if the manufacturer is going to continue using the appliance for their own business purposes, they shouldn't be permitted to describe the transaction that causes you to possess it as a "sale", because you don't own it free and clear.
        mewpmewp2 3y ago
        I don't get why it matters so much to people. It's all just incentives aligning and how the deals work. Having a subscription can actually be beneficial in terms of incentive to keep up supporting the product in my view. If it's a huge problem psychologically for you, maybe you can just take the following 5 years or whatever time you estimate you will be using the product and calculate that into the base price to make your decision.
rglullis 3y ago
It also (literally) opens up your home for many ideas and possibilities for attackers. Not just for the "haxxor" types, but the far more sneaky, sweet-talking ones. It should not trigger just your imagination, but your paranoia.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Yes of course, but for example you already have your phone, laptops and computers with many things built in them. If you are ok with those, then it should be possible to build those smart devices with similar security and potential for attack.
  - arter4 3y ago
    Yes but while you can install Linux on your own, or even build your own computer if you're interested, you don't get to build a fridge or its operating system, and you most likely don't even have a valid way to see how it's configured (you may be able to hack it somehow, but it would probably void any warranty). So... do you upgrade your fridge OS? Maybe, maybe not. What happens if you do and an upgrade fails? does it talk to the Internet? If it has to (by design), then all bets are off. You could try to mirror traffic and take a packet capture, but a fridge OS could easily use HTTPS over a "smart.myfridge.com" domain and you wouldn't know what's going on. How does it even authenticate to whatever remote server they have? If it uses tokens or client certificates, what happens when they expire? I'm a sysadmin, I know things fail. Even laptops and phones. But, while I can see valid use cases for laptops and phones, I still fail to see the actual appeal of most "smart home" appliances, outside of security systems. And I don't want to have nightmares about my fridge certificate expiration or not being able to turn your light on because my fiber connection went down.
    - mewpmewp2 3y ago
      > Yes but while you can install Linux on your own, or even build your own computer if you're interested, you don't get to build a fridge or its operating system, and you most likely don't even have a valid way to see how it's configured (you may be able to hack it somehow, but it would probably void any warranty). You could install open sourced things to that fridge. E.g. the fridge could either come with sensors immediately available or just have convenient mounts to place your own cameras. Maybe the fridge could have a simple linux box, raspberry PI or whatever set up. There could be a market where you can flexibly pick how immediately available solution you want or if you want to put in everything yourself and control, depending on how concerned you are about privacy and how technical you are. If you want to have full control, you can just do that. > do you upgrade your fridge OS? Maybe, maybe not. What happens if you do and an upgrade fails? Most smart home devices in my experience update through a mobile app connected to your WiFi. > What happens if you do and an upgrade fails Fridge itself would still work, just the picture taking and ai guidance wouldn't. > How does it even authenticate to whatever remote server they have? If it uses tokens or client certificates, what happens when they expire? Through mobile app can update, reset everything. > And I don't want to have nightmares about my fridge certificate expiration or not being able to turn your light on because my fiber connection went down. These basic things like light and other base features you make sure can work even if smart software fails.

AndrewDavis 3y ago

Even appliances that aren't internet connected are going down this terrible UX path. My old washing machine had nobs (dials) you turn. You put the clothes and soap in, close the door and press the button. My preference of type of wash and water temperature were all "saved" by the nob position. My current washing machine, nob is type of wash, capacitive touch buttons for everything else. Keeping the nob "on" keeps the digital display on and consuming power. And the wash options like temperature, extra rinse etc are all controlled digitally with no memory. Want 60 degrees water? Press the water temperature button 8 times, each with a delay of about 3/4 of a second for it to register before a press works again. It's utterly terrible.

asystole 3y ago
Unrelated, but the word knob has a k in it. :)
- hansvm 3y ago
  It's shrinkflation in action.
- em-bee 3y ago
  ISMO on silent letters: https://youtu.be/dBpMlRmkV1Q https://youtu.be/dBpMlRmkV1Q
yarekt 3y ago
knobs are more expensive :(
- account42 3y ago
  Yes, but we are talking about saving cents on hundreds of dollars here. We really need to come up with better ways to make companies bear the cost of their shitty cost cutting measures.
nextos 3y ago
Also you can't operate e.g. a dishwasher with kitchen gloves now, as those silly touchscreens won't cooperate. Few brands know how to keep it simple. Even Miele and Liebherr are falling into these absurd trends.

cqqxo4zV46cp 3y ago

I control my lights with my voice practically all the time. It’s easily my primary mode of changing the state of my lights. Whenever I travel it only takes an hour tops after entering a hotel for me to get annoyed by whatever command I’ve yelled out being met with silence. I say this because maybe it goes to show that different people are different. Maybe someone gets use out of the silly camera that shows them the inside of the fridge. It sounds ridiculous to me, but evidently my lights sound ridiculous to you.

lelandfe 3y ago

> Why do I need voice activated lights My parents are getting older. Their knees appreciate being able to tell Siri to turn off the downstairs lights from upstairs.

beebeepka 3y ago
it would be easier to turn off the lights when leaving the floor/room. Sadly, that seems to be too much effort for modern humans
alwa 3y ago
This was what made me understand the voice-activated stuff too. I hadn’t appreciated, until hanging around with more people enduring the indignities of aging, how even trivial physical tasks become ordeals.
ongytenes 3y ago
My friends are getting old and I bought them remote control for lights this Christmas that don't require an internet connection.

brabel 3y ago

> Why do I need voice activated lights, outside of a cool party trick ("hey, I can turn the lights on with my voice")? It's actually very convenient :) I hated when I forgot to turn some light off and had to get out of bed just to flip it. And you don't need Internet for that, just a local hub with voice recognition (though most off the shelf stuff does everything it can for you to go with Google/Apple systems, which do need to be connected all the time - besides requiring you to be logged in at all times for no benefit to you, obviously just so they can either sell your data or to ensure you're properly locked in and can deny you service if you somehow get out of line). My heat pump does require Internet, though. Apparently the firmware must self-update continuously and you can probably be denied warranty if you don't let it do so. But at least there are genuine use cases: it can monitor the electricity prices with 1-day in advance, so it can "plan" the best time to power up and down to save electricity (at least they say it does it)... and it can control the temperature better as the temperature outside goes up and down, knowing it beforehand via weather forecasts. But of course, to actually control the machine via the app requires a paid feature :D no thanks.

EasyMark 3y ago

the only thing I see worth using "smart" appliances on are lighting, thermostat, and security system. Everything else in my experience is extraneous and useless.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
I hacked a few IKEA air quality sensors so, beyond their traffic-light color LEDs, they also log actual numeric measurements to Home Assistant. It's proving to be one of the more useful "ensmartiffication" for several reasons - including being able to check all the meters from one place on the go, and being able to position the device so its LED indicator isn't annoying my wife at night. But honestly, I wouldn't actually buy a smart device for this - soldering a NodeMCU into a cheap IKEA device is the sweet spot of relatively low skill required, and zero bullshit included. I can't stand vendor apps. They're always garbage. In fact, the main reason I set up Home Assistant, and the main reason my wife embraced it and uses it daily, is because hooking up our A/C to it made it infinitely more useful than having it operated over the vendor shit app. With HA, either of us can reconfigure all A/Cs and then go and make tea or whatever, in time it took the official vendor app to fully open. IoT is a disaster, Home Assistant and some tinkering is the only thing that makes it reasonable to have a smart device.

naravara 3y ago

The lights make some sense in that you may not want to walk to another corner of your house, or up and down stairs to be able to turn them on or off. Similar functions, like smart locks or blinds or ovens also let you have some peace of mind to make sure you’ve got everything in the On/Off state you need it to be in. Though personally I think we’re barking up the wrong tree by trying to smarten up every appliance. The objective of having remote control/sensing of all your stuff would be better achieved by having a single robot “butler” that can check on state and interface with everything, but the appliances themselves should be simple and easily controllable. As long as there’s a universal communications standard for all devices to be able to communicate with the “butler” the mechanical interfacing could basically be designed in as accessibility features. That way the software and smart capabilities are all in one package that can be upgraded or modified instead of scattered across a bunch of individual things that are expensive to replace or repair. I’m basically imagining a drone that runs around the house along a rail track on the ceiling and has a little dongle it can plug into devices to control them like Star Wars droids. Bonus points if the method of control is purely mechanical without needing much computing power in the appliance at all. The reason this will never happen, of course, is obvious. You’ll never get everyone to retrofit their houses for a robo-rail.

Liftyee 3y ago
Perhaps instead of rails you could go for a flying quadcopter-drone with some sort of manipulator arm. If it was light it could even land and charge from the same ports it uses to communicate with appliances. Of course if any big FAANG-company does this expect it to be beaming everything it sees straight up to the cloud. Amazon already tried this with their Ring security drone.
- naravara 3y ago
  The issues with drones is it takes energy to stay aloft and you’ll be introducing weight limits. It’ll also become a target for pet owners. Cats, in particular, will swat them down.

darreninthenet 3y ago

Fridge/freezer one is handy for temperature and door open alarms

iamacyborg 3y ago
Probably easier and more efficient to just get a window/door sensor offered by all the home automation providers. It’ll integrate better into your home automation software of choice, be cheaper and much easier to replace.
freetanga 3y ago
My dumb freezer beeps like hell if left open. That is it’s only trick
bell-cot 3y ago
I'd say a temperature alarm - if I happen to feel I need one - should be a physically separate little thing. With it's own programmable temperature range. Usually it's in the fridge. But during a cold spell, I can adjust and move it to a spot where I'm worried the pipes might freeze. Or turn it into a "is the A/C working?" watchdog during a heat wave. Or, I can buy several to cover all those. But they're all one make & model, so I don't have to install/learn/use 5 different crappy apps for 'em. And that way the the fridge can't die...and quietly take its built-in alarm with it.
- darreninthenet 3y ago
  I said it was handy not something I would go out of my way to get... the fridge has it so it's useful. I don't understand why so many people on here are so offended by a useful feature that from most people's perspective is just a feature the fridge has rather than one they shopped for.
  - arter4 3y ago
    I personally am not offended by a feature. I wouldn't march on the streets to denounce this or anything like that. What I am saying (though I cannot speak for anyone) is that I, on the contrary, would go out of my way to not get, not because I have thin foil hat or whatever, but because the reliability and privacy concerns this kind of thing carries far outweigh (in my scale) the benefit of having something that will come in useful once in a decade. Note that things like that have already happened. When an AWS region went down, things like doorbells and lights stopped working properly (https://financialpost.com/technology/personal-tech/pitfalls-of-a-smart-home-amazon-outage-left-people-without-working-fridges-lights-and-even-access-to-homes https://financialpost.com/technology/personal-tech/pitfalls-...). Which, if you think about it, is ridiculous. I cannot turn my lights on because somewhere, potentially thousands of miles away, some datacenters failed, even if those datacenters could, ostensibly, only give me ads and "improvements" and not any core feature. And when it comes to privacy, Roomba employees posted on Facebook picture of a woman on the toilet, a picture that was taken by the Roomba itself while cleaning (https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-irobot-robot-vacuums-artificial-intelligence-training-data-privacy/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/19/1065306/roomba-i...). Now, you might say that the Roomba algorithm has to train a lot to be able to work properly, but why take pictures? And why upload them to the Internet? Of course everyone makes their own judgement calls. I'm not offended if anyone gets smart fridges or voice activated lights.