Did users change their Wi-Fi password, or did they see the nature of IoT privacy?
Appliance makers like Whirlpool and LG just can't understand. They added Wi-Fi antennae to their latest dishwashers, ovens, and refrigerators and built apps for them—and yet only 50 percent or fewer of their owners have connected them. What gives?
The issue, according to manufacturers quoted in a Wall Street Journal report (subscription usually required), is that customers just don't know all the things a manufacturer can do if users connect the device that spins their clothes or keeps their food cold—things like "providing manufacturers with data and insights about how customers are using their products" and allowing companies to "send over-the-air updates" and "sell relevant replacement parts or subscription services."
"The challenge is that a consumer doesn't see the true value that manufacturers see in terms of how that data can help them in the long run. So they don't really care for spending time to just connect it," Henry Kim, US director of LG's smart device division ThinQ, told the Journal.
[...] While the manufacturers blame technical constraints, some customers may simply not want to provide companies with vague privacy policies or bad histories with security access to their networks.
[...] Appliance makers are eager for buyers to connect their smart devices, but at least some may think they've done the smart thing by letting them work offline.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 04, @05:00AM (10 children)
That is a feature - how? Either you sold me a working appliance, and I'm happy. Or, you sold me a POS, and I'm unhappy. Your quality control should take place at the factory, not in my home.
OTA updates that disable features? There is a long list of "updates" that took away features that consumers wanted. How 'bout a gaming box that would run Linux - until an update disabled it? How about Tesla disabling paid-for features on their cars because the car was resold? How about John Deere disabling functions on their tractors because someone did "unauthorized" work on the machine?
Don't want you updates. I expect the appliance to just work. If it stops working, I'll be making a warranty claim. kthanxbai
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday February 04, @05:06AM (6 children)
Exactly. About the only appliance that could actually provide a useful benefit to the *owner* by being internet connected is a smart TV. And most manufacturers demonstrate to anyone paying attention why you should never actually connect their smart TVs to the internet.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Saturday February 04, @06:57AM (3 children)
Nah. I specifically do not connect my TVs to the network. I have my Roku and Nvidia Shield for content. I still don't trust TV manufacturers not to listen in, hide a video camera behind the screen, or capture screen data to send to themselves of whatever comes into the HDMI ports.
The only appliances I've actually connected are my LG washer and dryer because I like to check the time left on the cycles. Everything else is not interesting to me. If LG would give me local API access, then I'd block those from outgoing connections too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 04, @03:46PM
I have an ecobee thermostat and a connected garage door opener and a bunch of WiFi relays to switch 110v power. None have implemented a local network API, and I swear on a stack of $20 bills I would pay double for a "cloud enabled" device that did implement local network connectivity first before relaying through the cloud.
I also have a couple of Raspberry Pi and a couple more Pi Pico devices on my local network, their HTTP interfaces respond about 10x faster than the "cloud connected" devices do. For something like a light switch or music player, that speed is very much appreciated.
Flip side: it's annoying as hell when the garage door won't respond due to something on the internet or their server and I have to get out and go operate it manually.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday February 04, @04:34PM (1 child)
That's what I said... *could*, but can't be trusted.
Tough, I've actually heard good things about TCL - they do high quality (for the) budget TVs, and apparently they just run stock Roku software. But I've still never connected mine to the network.
I'm totally down with local network "smart home" friendly devices. But internet connected device manufacturers can just fuck right off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 04, @09:20PM
How 'bout cloud security cameras, including those from Amazon and other big-name tech companies. Amazon is foremost in my mind, because there was a story about police looking for someone, so they switched on all the Amazon cameras in the neighborhood to help in the search. Seriously, WTF? I'm going to put a security camera up, that the police, or someone impersonating the police, can eavesdrop on my business anytime? No freaking way!
CCTV has worked just fine for decades. Just hook up some dumb cameras, run ethernet to them (WIFI seems too insecure) and have your DVR or whatever record for a week or so at a time. A month, if you think it necessary. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, none of them get the keys to the palace that way.
Oh, the recording device can be as dumb or as smart as you like. No internet connectivity at all, right up to the device messaging you via SMS when an alarm goes off. Key word is "message you", not "message Amazon".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday February 06, @03:32PM (1 child)
No, because No!
What they're building into your "smart TV" is planned obsolescence. They're taking cheap computer components and creating a very dumb media station inside your TV. Generally, it will be a laggy, buggy, unsupported mess in the near future. No, we don't want "smart TVs", you're likely paying more for it than it's worth and will be paying for a new "smart TV" sooner than a plain old TV. Not saying that you can't have nice new features on a TV. They should just be TV specific features, not *insert latest app*.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday February 06, @09:40PM
Where does everyone keep getting the idea that I'm in favor of what Smart TVs actually are? Does nobody read my second sentence?
To correct a misunderstanding though, as a rule SmartTVs don't add any extra hardware compared to a "dumb TV" - instead they're dual-purposing hardware you need anyway. A "dumb TV" already needs a considerable amount of processing power to re-scale a 4MB image (720p) to 8MB(1080p) or 32MB(4k) sixty times a second, especially with any sort of decent upscaling (Which is pretty much required for the non-integer scaling from 720p to not look terrible). To say nothing of also having to be able decrypt those images first for HDCP compatibility, not to mention re-scaling HDR images which contain considerably more data per pixel.
If you're using it at it's native resolution though, then almost all of that processing power is sitting completely unused, and is very much up to the task of instead running a web browser, music player, video streaming interface, or any other modestly demanding app. And adding that capability is purely a software change with near zero per-unit incremental cost. The only difference is a bit more internal storage to hold the software, and that's probably less than $1/unit difference.
The problems are simply that
1) Most manufacturers exploit having an internet connection to get up to all sort of evil shit - monitoring your usage, replacing commercial breaks with their own ads, etc.
2) Anything connected to the internet needs good security to prevent the device from becoming a beachhead for hackers within your home network. And as a rule virtually all hardware manufacturers are completely incompetent when it comes to security, and completely uninterested in releasing security updates for hardware that they're no longer actively selling (like last year's models).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Saturday February 04, @07:18AM
Want the consumer to see the true value? Connect up your employees (hell, shareholders too) first, get the data from them for a few years, and show them the value of an over-the-air update halting their use of the device while they're trying to start a load of laundry before getting back to the home office to confcall into your company's own all-hands. Then publish your dogfood results, and maybe the consumers won't think you're using them as alpha-testers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday February 04, @05:28PM
Typical cocaine cowboys in the boardrooms these days, morons who think they're geniuses and think everyone else is stupid.
Hooking your stove to the internet has no value whatever for the device's owner! How fucking stupid are these brain dead idiots?
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday February 04, @05:31PM
OTA updates that disable features?
Like Sony's OtherOS, and just lately they changed their TVs so Android's "mirror" function only works in Sony phones.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Saturday February 04, @05:03AM (7 children)
One issue: I don't have numbers, but maybe landline WiFi is declining? People are using phones more and more for everything Internet. I don't have land-based 'net. It might be nice, but the two providers in my area are bad and worse. I bought a good phone plan and run it as a "hotspot". No washing machines are getting my WiFi password. (I have _no_ IoT things.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EJ on Saturday February 04, @07:02AM (5 children)
This seems to be a more common thing with the younger generation, from what I've seen. Perhaps it's by choice or simply by necessity.
The 20-somethings either don't care about having land-connected stuff, or perhaps can't afford it. A phone is pretty much a necessity, but other things are luxuries in the budget.
I'm old-school, so everything in my home with a network jack is plugged into a cable. Very few things use my WiFi.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Saturday February 04, @08:02AM (1 child)
Yeah, I'm mostly old-school- car is 20 years old, for example, and I'm itching to go back to 1960s cars.
I prefer some kind of landline, Ethernet when there's an Ethernet port. But again, the 2 major landline providers are horrible. One insists on doing the install, and I've several times had to deal with their atrocious screw-ups, so I refuse to let them in my house.
One example- I was installing a customer's PV inverter. Very large (4x8 or so) plywood that main breaker panel and a few other things were on, plenty of room, but Verizon moron installed the fiber into the interface box with NO strain reliefs. Fat plastic jacket cable hanging by 0.25mm fiber core. Of course it broke because I tried to move it a couple of inches because the idiot had mounted the thing in the very middle of a large empty area of wood panel.
Another example- I'm (the only) admin for a small hosting setup, which is in a small office building. One day I get a call- all servers are offline. Turns out one tenant ordered some voice lines added, which just connect to the RJ-11 copper ports on the fiber interface. Yet another Verizon moron disconnected many Ethernet lines in telco closet! He had NO business touching Ethernet! Routers, Ethernet switches, a few other things, all unplugged, wires hanging.
The other corporate giant Comcrapst is known to keep charging your card even after you try to cease service. My aunt has them, was paying $160/month for TV, 1 phone line, Internet (that she barely uses) and 2 weeks ago she told me she's now paying $260 / month. They just raise the rate randomly whenever they feel like it.
You can buy cell hotspots with Ethernet jacks. A friend has a T-Mobile 5G one. It works extremely well, no problems, and it's portable! I forget the price- he's in their 55+ discount program- it's not much- maybe $20 - 30 or so / month.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Saturday February 04, @11:03AM
I feel you.
I'm blessed with access to Google Fiber, and the techs here haven't been morons so far.
I just hope you can withstand the mind control rays from those hotspots ;)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, @02:04PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by owl on Saturday February 04, @04:40PM
More likely simply not knowing (or wanting to know). Some of them may never remember a day when things were tethered by Ethernet cables to wall jacks or router/switch input jacks. So the whole concept of being "tethered" to a wire seems alien to them.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday February 06, @12:01PM
I'm in my 40's, work in IT, I have no landline.
I lived 4 years in a rented apartment without a landline recently - and bear in mind that I do have IoT stuff, multiple CCTV cameras, etc. but it's on an isolated VLAN and can't talk to my network.
I used a 4G stick so that I didn't have to install a landline. The landline was dead when I moved in, and the previous guy hadn't used it either by the look of things. I wasn't going to pay to re-activate it on top of a broadband DSL subscription, when I could get a 4G stick, an unlimited data SIM for cheaper, and everything ran.
The only concession I had to make was that I couldn't "open ports on the firewall" because it's 4G and it all uses CGNAT. Instead, I poked holes out via a VPN, and configured an external server I rent (for £10 a month!) to port-forward down the VPN. It worked perfectly, never had an issue.
The 4G speeds were better than the advertised DSL speed. I never had a traffic issue. It worked during power-cuts still. And I was on a rolling monthly contract so I could stop and change my SIM at any time without incurring a cost, if another provider had a better deal. I did that twice.
When I bought a house again, I brought across the 4G with a spare 4G USB stick, another SIM, and it worked flawlessly. I could check cameras on either house from anywhere.
I did get a landline but I honestly don't know what the "number" is for it. I don't care. I don't even have a phone to plug into it. I even threw away the ISP router and got the login details from them so that I could continue using the same router as I'd been using for years (on 4G, cable and DSL).
I now pay £22 a month (yes, more!) to get comparable speeds to 4G, and I get a telephone line that I literally can't plug a phone into without buying adaptors (I didn't bother wiring it properly, so unless I want to keep a phone in the porch where the master socket is, I wouldn't use it like that).
I seriously considered continuing with 4G (I would like a hard-wired connection with a 4G backup, so that's how I operate it, but nothing to stop me operating it the other way around), moving to 5G (routers are too expensive and all just Wifi routers, useless to me) or even Starlink (too expensive, but I'm quite rural, so I was bracing myself to having to do that).
I don't care about the landline being a cable - they're all crappy cables installed by a company decades ago and that company still considers 45Mbps to be "super-fast" once you're not living in London, as far as I can tell. It doesn't provide me any greater reliability or resiliency. I run two SIM cards on 4G on two different networks. That's automatically more resilient before I even start, and often faster, and not dependent on the dodgy old lines that blow in the wind and get caught up by tractors to stay intact.
Internally - wifi for stuff I don't care about. I flood 2.4GHz with IoT and unimportant cameras (e.g. looking at my weather station) and junk. I don't care. My phone/laptop/consoles have 5GHz for convenience, I have Ethernet for my laptop (purely to reduce latency for gaming) and for important stuff (connected fire alarms, CCTV cameras - PoE, NAS etc.).
I'm not attached to cables particularly, except where it matters. I'll happily bring my laptop to the kitchen on Wifi, etc.
But externally? I'd actually consider landlines inferior, even if I had a faster one. My DSL has gone off entirely (because of the ISP killing sessions or changing routing, the sync is always still active) more times than I can count. I know because everything complains when it does, including the fire alarm. But now the 4G kicks in, I carry on browsing (but I might get kicked out of my game because of the IP change) and the IoT devices don't care so long as they can get to the cloud.
A fixed line gives me nothing that I can't get elsewhere cheaper, and still requires the exact same resiliency preparation as a cellular line.
Last time I went into London, I recorded 250Mbps on 4G while travelling through a town at 80mph on a train. Stupendous speeds when I was static in the city itself. The young generation couldn't care less about your fixed lines because of that. A router in their home, maybe an antenna poked outside, and they're set.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, @06:59PM
Same here. I don't have a hardwired internet right now, because they are so expenssive.
We don't have wired phone lines anymore, they want to put in fiber, but it costs so much, that i have no interest in paying that money just to be able to browse the net a little bit faster and i don't need that speed anyway. Previous place where i lived, they wanted money to put in the fiber, but few months forward they put it in for free. Doesn't seem to be happening where i live now.
(Score: 4, Touché) by krishnoid on Saturday February 04, @05:12AM
How about they give me access to the data first, then I can decide what to upload? I understand what they want, but I've got a little trouble working up sympathy [youtu.be] for their sadness.
(Score: 2) by owl on Saturday February 04, @05:49AM (2 children)
The correct report would have been:
Appliance makers sad that no internet connected appliances are selling, anywhere, to anyone.
The best way to stop the onslaught of "IOT everything that does not need it" is to simply not buy anything that was needlessly given an IOT makeover.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday February 04, @05:40PM (1 child)
So, when all dishwashers are internet-connected, start washing your dishes by hand? When all clothes washing machines are internet-connected, go back to the washboard? When all TVs are smart TVs do without television? When all furnace thermostats are internet-connected, do without heat in the winter?
The local gas company, Amerin, has been GIVING GOOGLE NEST THERMOSTATS AWAY. How fucking lazy do you have to be to not get up to adjust the heat? And why would I want to adjust it from across town, or have some Chinese crhacker shut it off when I'm visiting St. Louis and it's twenty degrees below freezing to burst my water pipes?
They're so stupid they think "Field of Dreams" was a true story and if you build it, they will buy it. IOT is the 21st century Edsel.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday February 04, @07:07PM
Some of those devices used to have a timer so that you could start the wash while you were at work, and then switch it to the dryer when you got home. For those that work 12 hour days in apartments with noise restrictions it's a good sense.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by billbellum on Saturday February 04, @06:33AM (1 child)
Guess I am a toaster, or a fridge, and I have been banned from moderating, for no reason, for two months? I have no idea what the standards are here on Janrinok News, but it seems that my contribution is not desired. Perhaps SoylentNews would prefer posts from my washing machine? Or my thermostat? Moderations from my home survellience system? I fear, this time, Ncommander is gone for good. And we have nothing but janrinok. Oh, the lesser humanity that is military retirees.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Sunday February 05, @09:23AM
You created 2 accounts with almost identical usernames - "William Bellum" and" billbellum". When you created the former you all but told us who you are while you were so busy explaining the Latin derivation of your username (bellum Noun = (1.) war, warfare (2.) war (3.) war, warfare.). Now, for the time being, just be a good community member.
You have a moderation ban because you were abusing the moderation system. The length of the bans that are issued follow the pattern that we have always used. Each ban is approximately twice the duration of the last one, rounded to days, weeks, or months. You are currently on 2 months.
This is not for further public discussion here where it is off-topic. If you wish to email me then please do so. If you have a genuine, serious, and intelligent point to raise then I will consider it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by deimios on Saturday February 04, @06:54AM (5 children)
I don't connect anything to the net that could damage my property. Most of my stuff is connectible, but I choose not to connect them.
That means my washing machine, oven, refrigerator, boiler etc... I doubt they could be hacked to do serious damage but the possibility exists.
Lights are OK for now unless I start hearing about hackers making RGB lights explode.
With the TV I am already considering disabling it since updates regularly break things or introduce ads. I've yet to see an update that actually fixes something. So I'm probably 2 updates away from getting a 4k chromecast and disconnecting my TV from the net.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday February 04, @05:44PM (3 children)
There's no point whatever in a 4K TV if it won;t be on the internet. Thet's the only place with 4K content, and AFAIK it's just Disney and Netflix, and Netflix's 4k isn't any better than 1080 and they charge a premium for 4k content, the greedy bastards.
It will be a few years before OTA is 4K.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tekk on Saturday February 04, @07:26PM (1 child)
4k blurays are actual 4k, not overcompressed garbage like Netflix serves (usually.)
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday February 05, @07:06PM
DVD is 720, BluRay is 1080. 4K is to BluRay what BluRay is to DVD. Use of compression and what type is a completely different issue that's independent of your TV's resolution. Disney's 4K is actually impressive, incredibly detailed. Netflix's is no better than a 1080 resolution.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Touché) by owl on Saturday February 04, @09:44PM
Not at all. Just about everything 4k is plenty available, you just have to use the "non-Disney" and "non-Netflix" method of obtaining the 4k content. But it is all available on the 'net for you to watch. Oh, you do need a playback head end connected to the TV that can handle playing 4k content. But those are not too terribly expensive to put together from parts and a Linux distro.
Just checked, 4k version of Mad Max Fury Road (first 4k movie that came up from a search for "movies in 4k") is available. It is a 10.8G download, but once downloaded it won't "switch services" or "be locked in the vault without warning" or otherwise force you to sit through 25 minutes of ads to see the movie.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday February 06, @12:19PM
I have remote-control sockets. But for any devices that could "do damage", I require a second way of turning them on. For instance, I can turn on the socket to my heater in my living room, but until I also turn it on from its own app, nothing happens.
I get that peace of mind knowing that I have to explicitly turn these things on myself.
I even have an outside socket, that's remote-controlled from inside. It was funny once to watch a worker who was working on a neighbours house, on cloud-storage CCTV (but only exterior cameras), open my exterior socket and plug in his tools, thinking he'd get some free power. 30 minutes later, he realised that the socket wasn't on.
If he'd asked, or even if the neighbour had known that's what he was doing, I could have turned on that socket for him from the other side of the world if need be. But the "2-factor" system meant that he still had a dead battery (and a talking-to when I drove home!).
Everything I have is on its own VLAN and SSID. Nothing touches the network. That means I'm going half-way round the world to turn on my lightbulb, but I don't care. It works.
I don't connect anything to the network just for updates, and I don't do "smart" devices like TVs. I ditched TVs about 10 years ago when they started that nonsense. They now even sell TVs that ONLY work online and don't even have an HDMI input or anything. It's a con. A TV to me is a display device and nothing more. I watch content on my devices from whatever system I want (laptop, Plex, etc.) on whatever display I want (projector, laptop, mobile phone).
I have toyed with the idea, however, of getting a IoT water mains control. Purely because then if I notice a leak (I have a water leak alarm!), then I can shut off the water remotely. The worst those things can do is shut off the water, or turn it on. So I'm tempted to buy one, put a second stopcock in, and have it activate that second stopcock. Because, obviously, when I'm working on the water, I don't want it to suddenly decide to open the valve, so I'll have a manual stopcock in the process still.
But my washing machine is dumb. It stays on one program, and can't connect to anything. My fridge is dumb. It has no capability at all beyond a small manual thermostat. My oven is dumb. My boiler is dumb.
The closest I get is a slow-cooker that I've put a remote control socket on. It does *not* stay plugged in. Whenever I use it, I plug it in, set it up, put food in it, make sure NOTHING is near it, and that even if any part of it caught fire, there's nothing for it to spread to, and I turn it on a couple of hours before I'll get home that evening. I literally have a camera in the kitchen - my only internal camera - aimed at it that sees nothing else. It's there so that, before I turn on the slow cooker, I can check I didn't leave a tea towel on it, that the light comes on when I turn on the power remotely, and that it doesn't start smoking or boiling over.
I love smart things and technology. But I won't even upgrade my robot vacuum to come on by himself. I guarantee he'll find that one loose cable and tug on it until he causes damage or starts a fire.
The first job of any kind of human-servant android should be to stay home, and randomly check everything in the house. Door is locked. Cat is sleeping. Sockets are off. Kitchen is safe. etc.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by darkfeline on Saturday February 04, @07:45AM (9 children)
I don't think most of SN has much original to say about this, since most of the people here are flat out against IoT and smart appliances.
Most consumers don't give a shit about privacy, data, security, whatever. The reason for the low adoption rate is shitty OOBE (out-of-box experience), simple as that.
The general experience is like this:
Open box.
Find which app to install hidden in the instruction papers.
Install app.
Go through convoluted set up process to connect app and appliance.
This involves setting up an account (which mean remembering yet another password, going back to your email/spam folder to verify, going back to the app and going through the login process again), weird bugs, errors, and retries. Probably a crash or two.
Assuming the user got this far, get an app with shitty UX, buggy, and also crashes occasionally. App requires user to re-enter their password every time they open it.
These companies need to actually hire some competent modern software dev teams (which includes good UX and PM):
Include a single, prominent paper with QR code.
QR code links directly to app store.
App setup uses bluetooth/scan a QR serial on the appliance.
Ideally no account setup. Definitely don't require picking a new password. Instead, SSO with Google/Apple/whatever.
General app UX/stability improvements.
Include a quick tutorial of key features.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Saturday February 04, @01:01PM (1 child)
I guess many people are aware of the implications. When Facebook got big I got often asked for my Facebook contact. My standard reply line was "I don't have Facebook. I work in IT." The reply were overwhelminlgy implying "Oh, with your IT knowledge you are able to understand how evil it is. Then it is fine to avoid it."
With your first line, you're right, of course, and I too still take pride in and am glad that I managed to get a 40-something inch TV for my mother from what must have been last model year of NON-smart TVs from Sharp. :)
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Saturday February 04, @01:27PM
I have a number of IT contacts who all use friendface (and are slightly grumpy that I don't, because they have to use email which for some reason is bad).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday February 04, @03:28PM (3 children)
I'm not entirely against smart connected appliances, but I want the access to be LAN only and absolutely not dependent on external resources (especially not a manufacturer's server). How about just building a mini web server into the thing. Preferably one using a simple REST API in case I want to automate.
I absolutely don't want the manufacturer to have any ability to "update" the firmware without my participation in the process. I don't want the thing to depend on their continued interest in support or even their continued existence to keep the net access features, much less to function at all.
There is zero reason that can't co-exist with a dumbed down (and disable-able) world accessible server like they do now just in case someone may feel the need to start a load of laundry while vacationing in Fiji.
(Score: 2) by owl on Saturday February 04, @04:36PM (1 child)
They can't do this. Because they (the makers) are not adding these IoT interfaces an "phone apps" for you. They are adding them so they can continue to profit, long after the initial sale, on marketing your data the app slurps up to advertisers.
Indeed, way too may examples already of a "firmware update" that removed features (or moved something that was available behind a subscription paywall). Also way too many instances of a product that absolutely depends upon the makers servers becoming a brick when the maker decides to dismantle the servers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Saturday February 04, @04:58PM
And there is the crux of it. I really don't object to connected devices, I object to lock-in and spyware. Calling those connected, as if that is the distinguishing feature of what they do is a lie. It's about the same as calling the supermax a "gated community".
They really shouldn't be so surprised that I won't willingly handcuff myself in their dungeon and that I don't care to provide free support to their marketing department or their data harvesting business.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday February 04, @07:09PM
I'd love to have a thermostat that could be programmed by Bluetooth with a switch to disconnect the antenna when not being programed.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday February 04, @05:46PM (2 children)
It doesn't matter, since most IoT offers zilch to the end-user. Idiots who think they're geniuses and think their customers are morons.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 04, @10:28PM (1 child)
"Idiots who think they're geniuses and think their customers are morons."
In other words, APP designers. :-) ....ducks behind desk....
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday February 07, @08:01PM
Depends whether you mean "app" as in "smartphone app", or "app" as in "application is my word for program".
People online are always asking "do you have an app for this?" "It's a website. Why do you need an app?" "Because I like the app interface better." "It's a website. We can serve it to you differently on mobile; you don't need it to be an app!!"
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zzarko on Saturday February 04, @09:46AM
Recently I moved to new apartment, and my wife and me bought all new appliances. After reading year after year about various problems people had with "smart" appliances, we decided to buy everything that explicitly has no WiFi (sellers in stores tried hard to sell WiFi stuff, but to no avail). And, I must say, I have none of the problems I regularly read about when it comes to "smart" stuff...
C64 BASIC: 1 a=rnd(-52028):fori=1to8:a=rnd(1):next:fori=1to5:?chr$(rnd(1)*26+65);:next
(Score: 4, Insightful) by crafoo on Saturday February 04, @11:39AM
what an insane way to live. I can't imagine spending actual real-world time and my life energy on internet connected home appliances. The only thing internet appliances are for is teaching your young children to operate wireshark and to practice their MITM attacks. Maybe an introduction to public/private key crypto.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday February 04, @02:14PM (4 children)
"The challenge is that a consumer doesn't see the true value that manufacturers see in terms of how that data can help them in the long run."
Ok, so what is true value to me, the consumer?
...
I'm waiting....
Right. None.
A washer? What does that do for me? Let me know if it is off kilter via a smart phone? Yea, I could already hear it was off kilter. But, oh, SMARTPHONES! Oh, I can "subscribe" for extra long, extra high spin cycles.
A dryer? Yea, I can monitor how dry my socks are via a glorious smartphone. It can also tell me if the dryer has caught on fire via a smartphone while I am out shopping, leaving the dryer alone like an idiot. Oh, and the washer is off kilter too, I had better head back and perhaps I will see the washer dancing across the street from the charred remains that used to be my house.
A fridge? Oh, keep track of shopping lists, but it still has to send it to a smart phone (desktop PCs somehow aren't good enough!). Doing otherwise is "old" and unthinkable. Let's use all this complex tech that has to be thrown out, replaced, and re-learned every couple of years instead of a piece of paper and a pencil. See, smart fridges are green and good for the environment! Somehow.
Oven? Uh, because I need to see the kitchen timer from some glorious smart phone? Does it have a built in web camera that automatically posts steaming videos of what I am cooking on Facefuck? Everyone absolutely needs that.
Thermostat? Right, so it can automatically limit how high I can turn up my heat in an energy shortage. Because it knows better than me, right? Uh, no, fuck that. Ah, but only the vendor's smart thermostat will allow access to the air conditioner's proprietary dehumidifying features. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Meanwhile, they all remove features when they "update", spy on us, move standard stand-alone features to a bullshit subscription model, eventually start showing advertising, and open all kinds of possible security hazards. Like I am going to go to the trouble to give some shit like that access to my network in any form. Not only would I have to bother giving it wi-fi info to connect, the correct thing to do would be to firewall it all to prevent any kind of access to the real machines on the network. Aaaand, if I don't, the stupid gadgets will constantly bitch and whine until I bend over and take it up the ass. I don't even own a smart phone.
So, what is the benefit again?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Saturday February 04, @03:50PM
None. I can see what the value(s) to them are. Data-harvesting, knowing more about how their products work out in the real world and all that. But as noted what is the value to me? The customer. Beyond trivialities like running my various appliances from my phone etc there just isn't any. Even that as noted is at best trivial in value. Is it so on the cold morning I can hit a button on my phone to pre-heat my car seat and things like that? Until the time that they pay me to connect it to share data with them, on my dime, then I don't see the value to me. There is none. It's only value to them. That they think that it somehow gives value to me just shows how deluded they are.
Pretty much all the things that they think offer value to me somehow was previously solved by something even more trivial, that didn't snoop on me, consumed my power or tried to fuck me over on a regular basis. The washer and dries tells me when I put things into them when they'll be done, fine. I don't need second by second updates how the washing is going. I sort of know how long it takes to make the various dishes I like. The oven doesn't need to tell me. I know what I have in my fridge. I set the temperature in there. I don't really adjust that very often. No need to. It's more or less constant. A shopping list? Their smartphone app was defeated by having a piece of paper on my table where I jot down the things I need to buy. Defeated by ancient paper tech and a pencil. I still don't really see what the value is that they are offering me by connecting devices to them that didn't previously work or how what they provide for me is somehow better then what I had. If they don't understand that they are are the stupid once. To stupid to be selling me appliances.
If they by know have concluded that people are not connecting their devices to share data with them. Perhaps it's time to start to offer actual incentives to do so? Or just remove them from the product. If they can sit around figuring out how much they can save if they remove some screws and bolts per device and that adds up if you build millions of them just imagine how much they'll save if they don't have to include wifi antennas, build smartphone apps etc. Sure some of them might actually make money for them in the end ... if only they could make their customers give them free sh** valuable data ...
(Score: 1) by wArlOrd on Saturday February 04, @04:41PM (1 child)
"The challenge is that a consumer doesn't see the true value that manufacturers see in terms of how that data can help them in the long run."
Ok, so what is true value to me, the consumer?
...
I'm waiting....
Right. None.
... Well, ...
If you CHARGE the appliance maker $100 a day UPFRONT (90 day minimum trial period), they might be able to explain the true value.
If no value is shown, return for a full refund to place of purchase.
Change manufacturer, repeat...
This is like requiring $100 before telling the clerk at the register your phone number.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Spook brat on Saturday February 04, @06:56PM
(emphasis added)
Just here to point out that the antecedent for "them" in this sentence is "manufacturers". The manufacturer's frustration and the customers ignorance/apathy make much more sense with that in mind.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday February 05, @05:11AM
I live in Montreal.
My IP number is issued by an ISP in Toronto.
So lots of websites look at my IP number and guess that I'm in Toronto.
So when there's an energy shortage in Toronto I'd have to have my heat turned down in Montreal?
Not interested.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday February 04, @04:58PM (2 children)
If I buy a chair and it has a power cord, I'm not plugging it in because I just want to sit down, I know things to sit down on don't require power, and a power cord on a chair is suspicious.
Likewise, a washing machine washes clothes and has no business being on the internet, Therefore, if I power it and it washes, it's fully installed as far as I'm concerned. And if it refuses to work without my Wifi password, it's going back to the store.
(Score: 4, Informative) by BananaPhone on Saturday February 04, @11:27PM
I have a wifi/Data blocker app on my phone and I block all apps but those I use that need Internet.
It also show notifications of which apps TRY to access the internet.
Here a list of apps that have no business calling the Samsung mother-ship but still try:
-Calculator app
-phone app
-Texting app
-Camera app
I have many of these WIFI-capable appliances. No F-n way those are going to get access..
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 05, @03:09AM
Or why I just paid a guy $120 to fix my 20 year old washer.
And will do so again, if it breaks again.
Oh, and it's entirely mechanical.
If there's a power cord on a chair, it had better include a massage unit.
From current manufacturers, I'd be more expecting a painful jolt.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MIRV888 on Saturday February 04, @09:47PM
Going forward all the new iterations I have seen are only controllable via wireless app. Neato dropped the lcd control years ago. I will not be letting my robo vacuum give the floor plan of my house to some 3rd party.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 05, @02:40AM
....that appliance manufacturers are such flaming idiots.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Touché) by SpockLogic on Sunday February 05, @03:30PM
I have my garage door opener connected to the net so I can check if I forgot to close it. Its the only IOT appliance connected to my guest network and NO Amazon, I'm not giving you access.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday February 06, @02:14AM (2 children)
Yesterday I saw a Whirlpool commercial that showed a person putting a turkey in their oven and then a quick cut of "installing updates" on the oven's display. That's exactly what I don't want.
Don't get me wrong, I am amiable to smart devices. Asking Alexa to turn on the TV, the fan, and the lights is delightful. Asking her to save reminders, set alarms, and timers is fantastic too. Using her intercom and broadcast functionality has reduced our yells/day ratio significantly. I would like the ability to ask her to preheat the oven to 350 degrees, set the oven timer, and turn off the oven, but candidly I don't trust my oven manufacturer not to screw it up. Appliances are expensive, and the manufacturers are too worried about banging out new models every year to support old models. There is zero chance they will responsibly maintain secure and reliable software for the decade or more one should reasonably expect an appliance to last.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday February 06, @03:37PM (1 child)
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-colossal-failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/ [arstechnica.com]
^^ That makes me believe that while some of the conveniences may be useful to you. It's certainly costing Amazon a pretty penny as they've not been successful at monetizing their user base, effectively.
An always on, pretty much always listening, "smart speaker" seems more like a device for some future techno-dystopia than a modern convenience. It's not local based, either. It's tied into one of the biggest commercial enterprises on earth. How about we just say no.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Monday February 06, @04:37PM
Amazon's failure to plan for profit isn't my concern. I appreciate their decision to sell the devices at cost, but that only pays off if you can build an ecosystem around it. I contributed my nickels to that ecosystem by buying smartplugs and switches, but it wasn't enough.
If I think about the larger problem, I don't think you can chase home automation as a profit center for this. Doing cool stuff has an extremely high nerd requirement. To be able to say "Alexa, please increase the TV volume by 10" I had to install the alexa app on my phone, install the Vizio skill, connect the TV to the internet, go through the TV's digital registration on a PC, and sign-in to the vizio skill in the alexa app using those creds. The Amazon branded smart switches were less of a hassle, about on par with pairing a bluetooth device. My chinesium "Gosund" smart plugs were an absolute ass to configure. I had to disable the 5.8 ghz wifi on my AP long enough to set the kit up, then turn it back on. (blech). Maybe one person in 100 (1000?) can set kit like this up, so Amazon will have to monetize it some other way.
The other problem is marketing. People have to see what it can do, and (with the caveat that I adblock vigorously) I haven't seen that. The only commercial I can recall was a TV spot with an old guy dancing with somebody while Alexa played music? A radio plays music. So does my phone. :/ Why should someone pay a nerd to set this kit up just to listen to music? I haven't seen the day-to-day useful stuff of "Alexa, please help me find my phone.", "What's the weather today?", and "Please add dill to my shopping list.". That's kind of a shame.
I would like more local connectivity. Right now everything goes through a cloud event broker service. I understand why it's built this way, but I don't like it.
I would like more ability to customize skills and responses.
I would like if my damn cat wouldn't pee on the thing. What the hell stripes?
I would like it if I could feed it my Outlook calendar.
I would like it if the digital assistant app on my (admittedly low-end android) phone wasn't so slow to launch as to make it unusable.
... but it works well enough for now.