4 ms·

My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen? I have this slightly panicky feeling that my perception of what's acceptable sharing of

by teh 11y ago

My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen? I have this slightly panicky feeling that my perception of what's acceptable sharing of private data is so disconnected from current popular sentiment that I'm becoming a bitter outsider. I'm sure it's technically well executed as expected from Google management but I do hope it bombs as a product for (to me) obvious reasons.

userbinator 11y ago
It even has a mic. IP cameras in my house recording to in-house server = OK IP cameras uploading data to external "cloud" servers I don't own = do not want
- ogrisel 11y ago
  We need a startup to build alternatives to nest products in the spirit of what lima [1] is as an alternative to dropbox & google drive. [1] https://meetlima.com/ https://meetlima.com/
  - userbinator 11y ago
    Do we? Nest Cam alternatives already exist - in the form of IP cameras and DVRs. Making it easier to setup one would be a good thing though.
    - soylentcola 11y ago
      I found the software that came with my Synology NAS to be pretty easy to set up. All GUI, does motion detection and recording, etc. The only real roadblock I could see for a tech-averse user would be having to buy the NAS enclosure and some hard drives, put it together, and make sure it's set up securely. Judging from the number of people who run their IP cameras with open ports to the WAN and no/default password, I could see people running into the same issues with a local solution. I think the big issue is that people say "oh cool, I can use this with my iPhone" and then just set up their camera, access it on their phone, and call it a day. They never set anything up or log in on their computer so they never see the "please change your password from the default" message you get on first access. But yeah, a package with one or two IP cameras that work with both wifi and ethernet, a modest NAS already configured with hard drives, and basic security settings in place would be nice. I just wonder how well it would sell since people seem to prefer "pay $200 now and then $10/mo with zero setup" over "pay $500 now and take 20 minutes to set things up".
disillusioned 11y ago
It's (functionally) a Dropcam. Dropcam's been around for several years now. They're owned by Nest/Google now, so this is the first branded product from them under Nest. You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose, but there are plenty of non-cloud-based options available. For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them, with a really nice mobile app and a really great recording/playback interface.
- jgrahamc 11y ago
  For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them Why did you need cameras?
- roghummal 11y ago
  >You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose, I believe they encrypt the video (and audio) between the camera and their servers but they deal with the unencrypted 'goods' when they stream it back to you in real time or as a DVR. You trust them. You can do that.
Andrenid 11y ago
Exact reason we went for an IP cam that stores a buffer to MicroSD for our baby camera. It runs its own WiFi server rather than being connected to our router (and therefore the Internet), so we can still monitor it from other rooms from laptop/tablet/phone. This is one thing (of many) that I definitely think should not be recording to remote servers.
- icelancer 11y ago
  What model did you use? Looking to add these to my home.
noir_lord 11y ago
> My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen? That about covers it really.
amirmc 11y ago
Popular sentiment isn't really a sensible thing to compare with. Most people have no idea how technology works nor a proper understanding of what they're actually exposing themselves to. Products like this would be great if they could somehow be plugged into a user's existing, personal ecosystem (cf. concept of distributed personal cloud). I'm working towards this but it'll take time before such things are fully baked [1] (and there's also the question of business models). Until then, we're just going to see more and more devices that require external back ends to operate and our homes/lives will become ever more porous, to (eventually) ever fewer companies. [1] http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/ http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/
k-mcgrady 11y ago
I had the same first reaction but would you have an objection if you only turned it on when nobody was home (purely to record intrusions)?
- dsr_ 11y ago
  I object. I object because turning it on and off by hand would be a real drag, so pretty soon it would be on all the time. I object because I have cats, so motion-based recording will get a lot of cat videos. I don't want to leave a statistical record of when I am likely to be out of my home. I don't want to have video and sound recordings of my home in a subpoenable format. I don't want Google to record my kids running around the living room naked -- instant child pornography charges. I don't want recordings of consenting adults having sex in the living room late at night. I don't want recordings of people having conversations that they didn't think were being recorded. I don't want my friends to stop visiting. I don't want my home invaded by Google.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    I don't want my home invaded by Google. But think of the benefits! They can see what you watch on TV and use that to tailer offerings and discounts. They can see what brands you wear. They can see what you read. They can transcribe what you talk about. All of this is about to immensely improve their ability to offer you relevant brands and services. Yay!
pjc50 11y ago
A side effect if you're going to use a video recording device as a baby monitor is that you then need to make sure that your children are clothed at all times while in its field of view. Otherwise you're committing a very serious offence, especially if you're uploading those images to the internet.
fit2rule 11y ago
Apropos acceptable sharing of private data, I too felt the bile rise in response to this product announcement .. the idea that there are generations of consumers who are perfectly willing to have days and days of video of their personal spaces available with little oversight to a third party, well .. its just too much to bear. I think that the reason its happening, though, is because of a failure of OS producers to solve a couple of problems: one big one is that people just don't like having to maintain a filesystem - and more often than not, don't understand how to do it, either. Another problem is that the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel and have let parties such as Dropbox and so on basically eat their lunch on area's that should really, arguably, have been features of the personal computer operating system world. Peer to peer should be a built-in feature by now. Distributed filesystems which allow full control by the end user: likewise. These should be up-front services of the OS, and not some back-end monstrosity which execution as a market force is leading, directly it seems, to people who just don't care where their data are stored, as long as they can see it now and then themselves .. I hope we will see some response to this soon - certainly actors like the IPFS group (http://ipfs.io/ http://ipfs.io/) have some interesting approaches to the problem. I'd love to see the expectation of built-in, de-centralized, peer-based-filesharing to take off, and we can put and end to all these inter-connected violations of human rights otherwise dressed up as fancy Web 2.0 operations of value ..

by teh 11y ago

userbinator 11y ago

It even has a mic. IP cameras in my house recording to in-house server = OK IP cameras uploading data to external "cloud" servers I don't own = do not want

ogrisel 11y ago
We need a startup to build alternatives to nest products in the spirit of what lima [1] is as an alternative to dropbox & google drive. [1] https://meetlima.com/ https://meetlima.com/
- userbinator 11y ago
  Do we? Nest Cam alternatives already exist - in the form of IP cameras and DVRs. Making it easier to setup one would be a good thing though.
  - soylentcola 11y ago
    I found the software that came with my Synology NAS to be pretty easy to set up. All GUI, does motion detection and recording, etc. The only real roadblock I could see for a tech-averse user would be having to buy the NAS enclosure and some hard drives, put it together, and make sure it's set up securely. Judging from the number of people who run their IP cameras with open ports to the WAN and no/default password, I could see people running into the same issues with a local solution. I think the big issue is that people say "oh cool, I can use this with my iPhone" and then just set up their camera, access it on their phone, and call it a day. They never set anything up or log in on their computer so they never see the "please change your password from the default" message you get on first access. But yeah, a package with one or two IP cameras that work with both wifi and ethernet, a modest NAS already configured with hard drives, and basic security settings in place would be nice. I just wonder how well it would sell since people seem to prefer "pay $200 now and then $10/mo with zero setup" over "pay $500 now and take 20 minutes to set things up".

disillusioned 11y ago

It's (functionally) a Dropcam. Dropcam's been around for several years now. They're owned by Nest/Google now, so this is the first branded product from them under Nest. You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose, but there are plenty of non-cloud-based options available. For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them, with a really nice mobile app and a really great recording/playback interface.

jgrahamc 11y ago
For me, this was the easiest way to get cameras up where I needed them Why did you need cameras?
roghummal 11y ago
>You can believe that they're actually encrypting the video as they say they are, or not, I suppose, I believe they encrypt the video (and audio) between the camera and their servers but they deal with the unencrypted 'goods' when they stream it back to you in real time or as a DVR. You trust them. You can do that.

Andrenid 11y ago

Exact reason we went for an IP cam that stores a buffer to MicroSD for our baby camera. It runs its own WiFi server rather than being connected to our router (and therefore the Internet), so we can still monitor it from other rooms from laptop/tablet/phone. This is one thing (of many) that I definitely think should not be recording to remote servers.

icelancer 11y ago
What model did you use? Looking to add these to my home.

noir_lord 11y ago

> My gut reaction is that I'll be paying money to install my telescreen? That about covers it really.

amirmc 11y ago

Popular sentiment isn't really a sensible thing to compare with. Most people have no idea how technology works nor a proper understanding of what they're actually exposing themselves to. Products like this would be great if they could somehow be plugged into a user's existing, personal ecosystem (cf. concept of distributed personal cloud). I'm working towards this but it'll take time before such things are fully baked [1] (and there's also the question of business models). Until then, we're just going to see more and more devices that require external back ends to operate and our homes/lives will become ever more porous, to (eventually) ever fewer companies. [1] http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/ http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/

k-mcgrady 11y ago

I had the same first reaction but would you have an objection if you only turned it on when nobody was home (purely to record intrusions)?

dsr_ 11y ago
I object. I object because turning it on and off by hand would be a real drag, so pretty soon it would be on all the time. I object because I have cats, so motion-based recording will get a lot of cat videos. I don't want to leave a statistical record of when I am likely to be out of my home. I don't want to have video and sound recordings of my home in a subpoenable format. I don't want Google to record my kids running around the living room naked -- instant child pornography charges. I don't want recordings of consenting adults having sex in the living room late at night. I don't want recordings of people having conversations that they didn't think were being recorded. I don't want my friends to stop visiting. I don't want my home invaded by Google.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  I don't want my home invaded by Google. But think of the benefits! They can see what you watch on TV and use that to tailer offerings and discounts. They can see what brands you wear. They can see what you read. They can transcribe what you talk about. All of this is about to immensely improve their ability to offer you relevant brands and services. Yay!

pjc50 11y ago

A side effect if you're going to use a video recording device as a baby monitor is that you then need to make sure that your children are clothed at all times while in its field of view. Otherwise you're committing a very serious offence, especially if you're uploading those images to the internet.

fit2rule 11y ago

Apropos acceptable sharing of private data, I too felt the bile rise in response to this product announcement .. the idea that there are generations of consumers who are perfectly willing to have days and days of video of their personal spaces available with little oversight to a third party, well .. its just too much to bear. I think that the reason its happening, though, is because of a failure of OS producers to solve a couple of problems: one big one is that people just don't like having to maintain a filesystem - and more often than not, don't understand how to do it, either. Another problem is that the OS vendors are asleep at the wheel and have let parties such as Dropbox and so on basically eat their lunch on area's that should really, arguably, have been features of the personal computer operating system world. Peer to peer should be a built-in feature by now. Distributed filesystems which allow full control by the end user: likewise. These should be up-front services of the OS, and not some back-end monstrosity which execution as a market force is leading, directly it seems, to people who just don't care where their data are stored, as long as they can see it now and then themselves .. I hope we will see some response to this soon - certainly actors like the IPFS group (http://ipfs.io/ http://ipfs.io/) have some interesting approaches to the problem. I'd love to see the expectation of built-in, de-centralized, peer-based-filesharing to take off, and we can put and end to all these inter-connected violations of human rights otherwise dressed up as fancy Web 2.0 operations of value ..