FTC urged to make smart devices say how long they will be supported
Sudden subscription fees, lost features causing users "death by a thousand cuts."
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A big problem is things tied unnecessarily to an internet service. We need to educate people that there may be alternatives and we need our purchasing decisions to support that. For example, most home automation stuff should NOT require or use any internet.
The article calls it “software tethering”. If any support commitments encourage manufacturers to stop that, we’ll all be better off. Let’s start with requiring users be clearly notified of software tethering, so they know what they’re buying
Let me own my fucking device so I can use it. Please. We are creating so much waste cause some program can’t run. It’s absurd.
this is so infuriating
I have a Hatch, which i have programed for my babies bed time, just play white noise sound at this time, turn off this sound in the morning, play bird song when hes supposed to wake up
I specifically got the older model, since the newer model has a lot of these basic features locked behind a paywall, while the old one they are just free.
Went traveling, and without a wifi connection it wont even do this. Apparently making an alarm clock remember its settings without a wifi connection is too much work.
In October of last year my mom came home from the ICU, now unable to get out of bed. I replaced all the bulbs in the house with smart bulbs and put the fans on a little smart plug thing. It made me really like the idea of home smart home features, but I'm not techy. They're just Alexa enabled for her to use with the fire stick, and I use google home on my phone for em.
Can you offer any advice for ones that don't require internet? Every time our power goes out (any time there's a storm), I have to go around and reset them while they flash at me like the worst night club
but I’m not techy
That’s the entire problem. Automation products depending on the cloud do have fewer requirements, are simpler to get started with, even if they’re overall poorer choices. They’re a fundamental fact that something needs to control your devices: cloud devices means the company takes care of that for you.
Taking the cloud out of the loop means you need to manage some sort of automation hub. There are many choices but I don’t know which may be approachable for non-techies. The new Matter/Thread standard tries to solve this while making everything work together, but adoption has been slow so you may not be able to use it for much yet. Your choice of automation hub drives your choices.
Maybe some of what I do is applicable, but I AM techie, I love to tinker, and I own my home, so maybe not. I try for local control where possible plus make choices that are additive: things still need to work normally.
Personally, instead of smart bulbs, I'd use smart switches for automating lighting. There's no need for every bulb to be individually controlled and carry all of the overhead involved in that. On that note, I'd also love to see DC circuits that can take LED bulbs without needing a transformer for each bulb (which tends to be what causes it to fail IIRC).
Just tried looking at the state of the smart switch market and fuck Samsung for naming their app for transferring files from phone to PC "smart switch". Especially because there's plenty of ways to do that already that don't require a shitty Samsung app.
Excluding Samsung from the search, I'd suggest not looking for products directly but finding enthusiast communities that are building their own smart homes. There is more to it than just getting devices that don't rely on some specific company's web services. You'll need to also setup a controller/server, connect all of the devices to that, and then figure out how you want to interact with it (eg via phone, scheduling, voice commands, etc). I haven't done this myself, but I'm guessing all of these are solved problems, but doubt that anyone would call setting it all up easy.
Bulbs v switches is actually why it took me so long to get them to begin in. Having bulbs, inherently disposable things, full of tech seems... Less than ideal. But where I live, the electrical is rough. Like, we have 1 circuit, the light circuit. Everything else is messed up and turned off at the box, including all the 220s, except for the water heater. Run everything off power strips and have to turn everything off to cook. Lol. I don't want to mess with the electrical in this house. I want to move. Lol
Philips Hue have the ability to work without internet and it seems like a lot of people like them, though they are kind of expensive. I've used Sengled bulbs before and they were fine, not sure how well they work without internet. But I think for you the problem isn't the bulbs reliance on the internet, they just seem very forgetful. For both Hue and Sengled, when the power comes back on after being out, they just start working again on their own after about a minute. No need to reset anything.
The main non-techy issue even for locally controllable smart things is that the big voice assistants are all entirely internet dependent. So even though Hue bulbs are technically controllable locally if your internet is out, Alexa and Google Home both won't be able to do anything with them.
I believe some Echo devices can control Zigbee devices locally - however I didn’t really pay attention since I’m not interested in that
There are several competing protocol: zigbee, zwave, and the newest is matter. They just require a hub to be controlled.
I use all zigbee smart switches, and a conbee II usb stick. I have a old laptop running homeassistant os, and it has a one click addon for conbee II. I think amazon echo also have builtin zigbee controller.
If the power goes out, all the switch automatically connects back to the hub when the power is back. Obviously, this setup is not affected by google, amazon, even the entire internet goes down. As long as my router is functional, I can control everything using my phone, when I am at home.
To be pedantic:
At least make it required to not brick at EOS if it's a device that would otherwise run. Like a laundry machine.
There’s no reason a laundry machine requires an internet connection
When I got new machines about five years ago, I briefly considered connected machines. It would be really nice to get notifications on my phone but how can it possibly cost that much and why does the only option depend on a cloud service?
I think a LAN-connected machine would be good, if you could use an app or open-source, well-documented API to control the machine, but there is no reason a washing machine should need to connect to the outer internet. You can VPN into your local network if it's that necessary to control it away from home.
The new Thread/Matter standard is an attempt to bring together various home automation protocols for exactly things like this.
If were Matter/Thread, I can already ask Siri the status or configure Alexa to announce when it’s done or script my home automation hub to flash an LED indicator.
Can’t you just set a timer on your phone for 30 minutes
Although I do this, I do also have a counterpoint to this. I will set my machine to go and it says 60 minutes. Cool, set a timer for that long. Come back in 60 minutes, and it still has 5 minutes left. I ended up figuring out the machine is somehow determining that at 60 minutes, the clothes/blankets/whatever is still too wet, so it's adding time to the spin cycle to try and spin them more. Having it just ping me would be amazing, but also I do not want to have a machine that refuses to operate without WiFi or some crap.
I bought maytag washer/dryer oddly only the dryer is "smart" and it is just notifying when it's done, but it works just fine without internet as well. Looked around a good bit before we landed on Maytag and they've been great for the few years so far we've had them, however it's just my wife and I, not a ton of use compared to a whole family so ymmv
Yea but can you play doom during the wash cycle
I do set a timer on my watch according to what the machine estimates: 59 minutes for a standard wash and 1:15 for a standard dry. Sometimes the estimate is off, so it’s not perfect.
Then again, why do I have to remember to have my phone or watch in order to use the laundry?
An actual notification could be better because I don’t have to have my phone nor remember to do it. Sort of like in the olden days when the machines had that god awful buzzer you could hear throughout the house: it just worked at least if you’re home. Now the machines let out a pleasant little tinkle that I can’t hear from the living room, plus what if I want to be outside.
The laundry machine in my rental still has the buzzer, but I usually just set a timer on my phone or watch anyway. This thing will probably last another 20 years, and my landlord certainly won't replace it until it breaks.
What? Like some kind of primitive savage?
I don’t even set a timer for my washer or dryer although the washer I think can. Be hacked it’s way too electronic
I agree. But the people who have one should not need to buy new machines just because support ended. And it's my understanding that it's currently the case with several brands.
For real, 90% of AI is off-device on phones, and that is bullshit.
