- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
I can consider acceptable for the kettles to be connected to the internet if, and only if, they answer always with a 418 status code.
I’m perfectly fine with enabling a connection, just not requiring one.
For example - my lights are automated. They have a switch though. If they went offline (or my server does), I can press the entirely local switch and have light.
As a reminder though, 418 is supposed to be the response for requests of the teapot to brew coffee.
I can press the entirely local switch and have light.
Are you sure about that? Is it a local connected smart switch (still fancy electronics, just local) or a plain old power switch?
If it’s a power switch, and If you turned your lights off by app over the internet, and then the internet went out, then your lights’ ability to come back on when you flick the physical switch depends on somebody having thought about this need and programmed a “oh, the switch was flicked so I better ignore the internet settings” mode.
And if they did that, it also probably means your lights all turn on after a power outage since the light can’t tell the difference between power outage and light switch flipped off.
Any smart lights I’ve seen always turn on when going from no power to power. It’s a little annoying when the power blinks and half the house lights up, but it means physical switches always work.
Smart lights should be used rarely because they have a failure state. Smart switches are the answer here for most lighting. These are light switches that also have radios in them to connect to zigbee/zwave/matter/whatever to control the switch if the connection is available.
Lutreon sells high quality, but somewhat expensive ones that work flawlessly.
I like the color temperature and brightness of my lights responding to the time of day too much in order to go with smart switches over smart lights
For most people, the thought of replacing an outlet or switch is daunting to say the least. My IKEA smart bulbs are going on 7 years old and still working great.
I did replace every single outlet and switch in my house when I moved in, but that was before I knew about ZigBee or Zwave, and well before matter existed.
I don’t feel the need to replace most of my switches and half of my outlets again.
Feels like you don’t even understand why people use smart bulbs.
Are you sure about that?
Lol yes. Its a relay with a secondary control via mqtt with intermittent status reporting.
it also probably means your lights all turn on after a power outage since the light can’t tell the difference between power outage and light switch flipped off.
Not how that works.
But… Teapot!
There’s nearly as much reason for those to be internet-connected.
Home assistant everything is a yaml away
The fact that everything is controlled through “The Cloud” and some godforsaken subscription service is so terribly sad, funny, and horrifying at the same time. We’ve literally found every conceivable way to gather and sell people’s data while simultaneously milking them out of every last cent with the whole FOMO mentality driven through every piece of hardware and software now sold. It is just absolutely fucking preposterous. We’re living in a virtual hellscape that doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
People have other options, but the easiest option is always going to be to let someone else do it. Their price is, almost always, your private data and a subscription.
Or, you can DIY and self-host. Home Assistant is free and supports many different standards so you can use just about any hardware. It runs on your own hardware and doesn’t report to anyone unless you tell it to. It requires more effort than swiping a credit card and installing an app, however.
Day 3,801 of thanking God I was born a Luddite
Anyone who thought their toilet would be improved by having an internet connection deserves this
I mean, it could be. Imagine getting a push notification when it overflows. The lowest pipe in my house is a toilet. Luckily my wife was nearby but it could’ve gone worse if we didn’t see for a bit.
“oNe dAy wE wiLL aLL livE iN a sMaRt hOmE. tEcHnOLoGy aLwAyS iMpRoVeS”
This is why I go the extra mile to keep iot out of my life. Especially in cars , which is getting hard, but I figure my future cars I’ll likely retrofit something old. Newest I’ll tolerate is 2014, with no touchscreen.
Yea I’m not using anything that requires an app. If there’s an app I can host myself I might use it but I won’t rely on anything that can’t be controlled manually. The place I rent now has ceiling fans that are controlled by remote and I fucking hate them. It uses a shitty up/down button that has a horrendous delay or both the light and fan. It’s all the frustration of using a pull chain with no improvement. I can’t even figure out how to get it to switch directions for winter.
My car is probably going to die soon and I’m going to have trouble replacing it with something that actually has physical controls, doesn’t have a massive annoying touch screen, doesn’t have LED headlights set blinds everybody driving towards me or walking their dogs, isn’t a compact crossover bloated to the size of an SUV from 20 years ago, and can fit 8 ft length of raw material in it.
Or rather I’m going to have trouble replacing it with something that I like for a decent price that isn’t too old and isn’t a van. Not necessarily because vans suck, vans are great. But the good ones are expensive, even used
In complete agreement. I hate crossovers so much.
Have you looked at this wagons or Volvo wagons ? Or just a good old tacoma or tundra long box ?
Not many wagons left. Will probably end up looking at Volvos. Hopefully more reliable than Subaru, and they’re actually shaped like wagons.
Was looking at old Rangers/B2000s for a while, but it doesn’t make any sense. And I know Tacomas are out of budget lol
The difference between an IT person and a tech enthusiast
Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!
Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.
Security technicians: takes a deep swig of whiskey I wish I had been born in the neolithic.
Why would a programmer own a printer? I almost never print anything and when I need to I just go to a library.
In-person TTRPG games (instance checks out, yes)
Shipping labels are about all I use mine for.
Im studying the security stuff. The more you think about it, the more paranoid you become until you notice that your level of paranoia is far too high and try to ignore things.
Firmwares everywhere are definitely spying on us. Or at leasty they could, and we wouldn’t really know it.
Laughs nervously in self-hosted
“Routers using OpenWRT”
Every time I research this, it seems like nothing I can reasonably acquire can run it. Especially any WiFi 6 / AX devices. It’s infuriating.
Edit: Not the fault of OpenWRT, but how stupidly locked down everything is manufactured by design anymore.
You can get a glinet router. They have a WiFi 7 device coming out shortly as well.
Who buys a toilet you can only flush with an app??
sometime who buys a toilet and then finds out afterwards that they were sold a toilet that only flushes with an app
This. SO many devices, especially networking stuff. It seems like they should just do their thing after plugging in and setting a few settings. “It’s so EZ!” says the box.
Nope, “scan this code to get this app, make an account, agree to all the things, register for spam…”
It’s disgusting.
What do house guests do?
“Let me know when you’re done and I can flush the toilet though the app.”
Or
“Download this app to flush the toilet once at my house.”
I think it was voice activated.
The app was probably for additional stuff.
I think it was voice activated.
Well it is sound activated, it flushes when it detects the “aaaaaaaaaah” sound of relief after refuse vacation has completed.
If there is no such sound, obviously your work is not done, and there is no need to flush.
I would hope just motion activated. I really don’t want to have to yell at my toilet either.
Yeah. I’m absolutely opposed to unnecessarily “smart” devices.
I have a strong aversion to voice activated anything. Smartphones have had voice assistant’s since forever but whenever I’ve tried it I just find it to be a clunky awkward imprecise user interface.
Why do something in a few clicks when 10 minutes of miscommunication will do?
In-house toilet facilities are more or less a solved problem. These idiots un-solved it.
“Oh, SHIT!”
flush
Poker night: Read 'em and weep boys, straight flush!
From the other room: *flushing noises*
I hear this in the voice of Lindsay Lohan. Though I don’t think there was a toilet flush at that point in that movie!
the host just watches them through the built in camera and the house guest thinks it flushes automatically :)
“Ok, Richard, I’m done.”
“Yeah, I got the notification actually. Heavy dinner last night?”
“What the actual fuck, Richard?”
It’s like the forcefields in the brig on Star Trek. Extremely stupid to not also have bars as a backup in case they fail.
I don’t understand the idiots who insist on unredundant designs. Especially when it comes to handles. They’ve literally killed people with that decision.
Star Trek (at least from TNG onwards) is a dystopia who’s inhabitants have convinced themselves is a utopia.
Khan wrote this
“It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.”
Explain yourself
spinning up new tech startup: nah forget it. you don’t even have to watch videos
Well, shit.
Well put.
“Ok, so what you can see in the logs?”
“Sweetcorn.”
Didn’t ingest any, but it’s still there somehow
Must be a kernel issue
Has nobody else pointed out this is clearly not real?
Yeah, strong Doubt (X) on this one
Yeah first thing I did was search the web for more information. Zero results…
I bet most of these other commenters also complain about boomers eating up fake news.
Just searching around got me their link: https://t.me/ctobtch , and their channel posted this post a few days ago.
I have become the red shirt from my favorite SMBC comic
However, my feelings regarding smart devices remain intact
Telegram messages won’t show up search results, but sure we may expect some news article about it. The message is here
Oh we’re the idiots. Never saw that coming
Anything in my house smarter than the IKEA remote control light switch gets crushed with a hammer.
Have you tried our new Hammr and associated app? The smart tool that can analyze your work! Become more efficient! Compete with friends! Earn achievements! Track your heart rate! Now with several different modes…
Is that the new ifixit one?
Hell, no. ifixit products are quality and not over-engineered! I just have one of their basic kits, though…
How’s your family doing?
They were bonked with a hammer until they were below the proper “smart” threshold.
Yeah, they’re about pakled intelligence now.
You sent this message by manually sending radio messages, I presume?
No, it’s one of the few use cases of emacs.
Can you play DOOM on the light switch?
Reminder: never go have pancakes at wise_pancake’s house.
You’ll miss out on some primo maple syrup
Friends hate this one simple trick!
Same, the only thing talkings to the internet are my reverse proxy and the security cameras (only when viewing them from outside the local network, quite like what reolink does there)
This has the same energy as buying But Light to shoot.
I mean, you could just use smarter stuff that’s open source and has local API, or do what I do and build your own devices where you can ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I wish I was this smart. We really want to do a smart light show using Xlights but every time I try to learn it I feel so frankly dumb.
Even there though, what is the actual point of a phone app controlled smart toilet, even if you open sourced the whole thing? Unlocking one’s phone and tapping the app icon, and then presumably a button on the app, is going to take more time than one press of a lever that one is right next to anyway, and the latter doesn’t present as many points of failure.
The privacy issues are nasty, but a smart toilet could actually be an incredibly useful device.
Can you imagine if every time you went to the bathroom, your toilet could do some of the basic stool / urine tests you get at the doctor’s office? Certain diseases could be caught extremely early, and you wouldn’t have to do anything different.
And then there are bidet functions. Forget smearing poop all over your ass with paper, wash the poop off with nice warm water every time.
I wouldn’t want to have to use a smartphone app for that, but there’s no reason you couldn’t have a simple set of buttons on the toilet itself. You could keep the manual flush lever and only use that if you preferred, but if you wanted an even better experience and a better clean, that option would be available.
Ok maybe the flushing part is a bit overkill and mostly a joke, but a toilet that can deliver notifications like if it’s clogged for example before you use it and make it worse would have fantastic utility IMO
This makes zero sense. If it’s clogged, you’d know beforehand when you look in the bowl. Why the would anyone need a notification for that?
The ONLY utility that I could see here is if the notification logged who did the clogging so you could give them shit.
One word.
Toddlers
But in this scenario don’t the toddlers need phones? Wait do toddlers all have phones now?
Toilets can appear to have flushed fully, but still have…material…stuck in the U-bend that hasn’t completely evacuated the toilet. A subsequent flush won’t work, even though the water in the bowl is clean.
Ask me how I know.
That said, this could almost certainly be better-solved in other ways. Maybe by preventing the tank from refilling if there’s still something in the u-bend (then you’d know it needed attention because there’d be no water in it)?
A little display or indicator light somewhere on the toilet itself would be better than connecting it to some IOT app
Oh, absolutely. I was responding only to “If it’s clogged, you’d know beforehand when you look in the bowl.”
An app for a toilet is a stupid idea, full stop.
- We don’t know that the toilet has this sensing capability.
- If it does, the actual fix is the same as if it were a regular toilet.
This just isn’t an issue that needs technology as a solution.
125% agreed. I was responding only to “If it’s clogged, you’d know beforehand when you look in the bowl.” I think there’s potentially an engineering solution–a fluid dynamics engineering solution–but definitely not an app.
How do you know?
Let’s just say this happens a lot in my house.
I guess, but I’ve never heard of a toilet clogging before it’s used.
There’s other better examples, though. Smart thermostats get plenty of use from the people I know with them. A fridge that tracks how long stuff has been inside would be dope. Smart lights have uses.
Toilets can appear to have flushed fully, but still have…material…stuck in the U-bend that hasn’t completely evacuated the toilet. A subsequent flush won’t work, even though the water in the bowl is clean.
Ask me how I know.
Well, I suppose it is the kind of system where a lot of weird non-deterministic things can happen.
What kind of sensor are we thinking of here? Optical? I know it’s a real issue to find something that doesn’t foul or misread even in the simpler application of an RV septic tank.
I wonder if you could just put a window in the U-bend for manual inspection. It’s supposed to be full of “clean” water most of the time anyway.
Yeah, not to mention, adding any sort of electronic components to the thing would be dicey at best. A lot of bathrooms don’t even have power outlets anywhere near the toilet.
I’d prefer some sort of pressure-activated valve or something, but this is an engineering challenge that’s beyond my meager skills.
I have no interest in one, but playing devil’s advocate, some might consider it more sanitary since you don’t have to touch the toilet to flush and have the choice of not being near it, hopefully avoiding any spray.
Also, if your guests use the restroom, you can startle them at any time.
How do the guests flush the toilet without the app? They have to ask you?
Of course. My roof, my water, my rules! /s
That occurred to me while writing my comment, as well, and I don’t like the implications.
I would imagine they have to ask you, yes. If the toilet can be flushed without authentication, they’d probably still have to ask you how.
more sanitary
Foot pedal flush really needs to become a thing.
Wait, why isn’t it? There’s been so many weird flush designs over the years.
I assume lack of demand. In your own home, you’d be keeping the handle clean, and public washrooms often use the touchless sensor types.
and public washrooms often use the touchless sensor types.
Now. I’m guessing you only have to go back to 2000 for that to be a futuristic new thing, though, while the history of the modern flush toilet goes back to the Victorian era.
Designing foot-operated things tends to fly in the face of modern accessibility standards. Wheelchair users already have enough problems using public toilets.
Oh shit, I guess that’s true, yeah. Wheelchair bathrooms are there own thing but not every place has them, at least where I live.
They can still have both. A foot pedal for those who want it, a standard handle for those who don’t or can’t. In fact, retrofitting existing handle-flush toilets to add foot pedals could make a lot of sense.
Probably just the extra cost of linkage and maybe risk of tripping over it
The pullcord kind used to be pretty common, I think. This is just that with a pedal.
It is in campers, lol.
Huh, so they do exist then.
Yeah, wouldn’t want to get bacteria on your hands a few seconds before washing your hands.
Yeah I’d much rather spread poo particles all over my smartphone instead
Can you not go from the toilet to the sink without your phone?
Well if you read the product description it was to allow AI Bidet control. However they had not received funding for AI so it was outsourced to a team of laborers in India using cameras and joysticks.
It also logged the consistency, frequency and matter samples from all BMs so you could make informed dedication opinions.
Spoiler
/s
informed dedication opinions.
Hmmmmm
Damn was supposed to be defecation autocorrect got me.
Oooohhhhh, that makes sense.
I heard they sold a license for the camera feed and controls access to EA for their next pay-to-play iOS game. The shareholders are really excited for this synergy.
I asked for AI Biden control smh
Stuff like openWRT routers get a pass.
If it has a local host API I would use it because it never has to connect to the internet.
People also just need to be more selective about where and how they automate.
For example, I wanted my coffee to automatically start in the morning. So instead of buying a “smart” coffee maker, I bought the dumbest possible one and a smart switch. Now, no matter what happens with that switch, the worst that can happen is I have to manually hit a button to get coffee.
Yes, I don’t hate the idea of smart-ish devices, if they’re not cloud-dependent in any way and have some kind of manual override.
It’s kind of painful to have a kitchen full of devices each implementing their own half-assed OSs separately, or even more than once in one device.
I have a wifi-enabled garage door opener whose manufacturer discontinued the Google Home connection for so that you have to use their app and see their Amazon or Walmart ads. I also have a wifi-enabled alarm system whose manufacturer apparently doesn’t care about Matter integration or whatever. So leaving the house in my car requires the use of two different apps (three if I also need to turn off lights).
In actuality I just use the physical buttons. But there was a time that I had a beautiful dream of getting a smart lock and setting my house up to lock the doors, close the garage door, and arm the alarm when I pushed a button in the car–and, more importantly, undo all of those things in reverse when I got home.
with Home Assistant it doesn’t matter if your device adds a Google Home connection, Alexa, Apple Home, etc. Exactly what ‘smart homes’ should be.
I need to get on that, I guess.
What’s “Skynet” mode, lol?
They have knives, and you didn’t put them there
Flag Admiral Stabby earned that knife.
Footage from a robot in skynet mode:
!it’s from the movie Runaway 1984!<