TFW your internet goes down and takes your smart home with it

[FlyingPenguin]

http://mashable.com/2016/07/05/smart-ho ... H0IT.PUaqz

[wvjohn]

Yep. I have a friend in CA who got an internet thermostat....she gets home and it's 95 degrees in her house (no AC) and the help line wants her to play with wires connected to her AC compressor....

[Pugsley]

I can understand the IOT for getting set up but relying on cloud shit 24/7 for simple switches and lightbulbs to work is just stupid. I refuse to buy stuff that REQUIRES an internet connection to work.

[reno]

smart electronics are everywhere - we have gotten so dependent on them it is becoming a problem world wide . from are cell phone to your home electrical power meters that your power company uses to bill you . in my condo in Florida they are starting to install computerized water meters . makes me wonder what will happen if the units get a glitch they the power or water company's get a crazy reading one month after the signal sent to them . i know what happens there computers generate the bill and your told pay it . every now and then you read story's were people are told they owe thousands . there calls that there has to be a major mistake fall on death ears for months . (are Equipment been tested and you must pay up) even do there normal billing charge was only like $50.00 per month on avg.
make one wonder how many year's away are we from having a IRobot' in every household ? were even your toaster is controlled by a voice command ?
can see it now it get a glitch and is popping out slices of toast all day while your away . you walk into your house and there a mountain of burnt toast to the ceiling

[wvjohn]

"HAL, open the door!"

"Sorry Dave, I can't do that."

[Err]

I don't get why these switches, thermostats, etc. don't have manual overrides. Even HAL could be overridden.

[FlyingPenguin]

I saw a commercial the other day for a fridge that had what looked like a 19" LCD in portrait mode built into the door and they were showing all the stupid internet based crap you could do with it.

I need a lot of features from a fridge (water, ice, big freezer drawer) but the one thing I do NOT need is Internet connectivity. Just stupid.

It'll probably become like TVs. You almost CAN'T find a TV that isn't SMART. I hate smart TVs.

[Pugsley]

Its turning into Brazil (the movie).

[Err]

I saw a commercial the other day for a fridge that had what looked like a 19" LCD in portrait mode built into the door and they were showing all the stupid internet based crap you could do with it.

I need a lot of features from a fridge (water, ice, big freezer drawer) but the one thing I do NOT need is Internet connectivity. Just stupid.

It'll probably become like TVs. You almost CAN'T find a TV that isn't SMART. I hate smart TVs.

My wife saw the commercial and thought it was cool. I flat out said No. There's no reason to have a refrigerator with an LCD. If you want to know what's inside, open the door. I get that the gimmick is being able to know what's in your fridge when your away, like at the store, but the premium and the chance of it not working in the first place are very high. I'd just love to come home to find that my refrigerator has been hacked and turned off or now displays tranny-pron.

[FlyingPenguin]

And you KNOW that LCD will stop working someday and because you need it to do something stupid like change the ice cube dispenser to water, it'll cost you a fortune to fix it.

The real issue with all these IOT devices is that they are rushed out so quickly they have zero security. There's dozens of white hat hackers that have shown that you can leverage security flaws in these things to create massive DDOS attack networks, or use them to compromise something else on your own network.

Just say no to IOT until they get to the 4th of 5th generation, and the government steps in and imposes some minimum security requirements or some manufacturer's consortium comes up with their own security guidelines to avoid federal mandates.

People love to rail about "too much government" but who else is going to set standards for all this crap? It's the wild west out there right now, and smart people should not be first adopters OR, if you want to be one, take precautions like creating an isolated network for your IOT stuff.

[EvilHorace]

I don't get why these switches, thermostats, etc. don't have manual overrides. Even HAL could be overridden.

They do. If the wifi goes down, you're not screwed. You can still control things "the ol' fashioned way".

Now sure, if you have an Amazon Echo and use it to control things via voice command and the wifi isn't working, Alexa won't work but any rocket scientist should know that. It'll tell you that it can't connect as well. Yeah, you'll have to get out of your recliner and turn something on/off until you resolve your wifi problem.


BTW, that article's not exactly spot-on.

[FlyingPenguin]

Agreed. The guy was being a bit over the top, although I do think he was screwed with the lights. It sounds like the wall switches were on but the bulbs were turned off and unless he can access the bulbs over the local LAN he's dead in the water until the Internet comes back on.

[EvilHorace]

"HAL, open the door!"

"Sorry Dave, I can't do that."

That's exactly what Alexa, the Amazon Echo does. Mildly amusing but still not perfected but they keep improving it and soon they'll have competition as Google's coming out with their version later this year.

[EvilHorace]

Agreed. The guy was being a bit over the top, although I do think he was screwed with the lights. It sounds like the wall switches were on but the bulbs were turned off and unless he can access the bulbs over the local LAN he's dead in the water until the Internet comes back on.

They are controlled by both wifi and internet but also are manual switches. I have yet to see any of this stuff that can't be controlled manually.

I do agree on opinions here on Smart refrigerators. I can't see the need. I have yet to see one in any store and I've been looking 'cause I just want to see one, plus the $$$. Can't be cheap.

[EvilHorace]

Yep. I have a friend in CA who got an internet thermostat....she gets home and it's 95 degrees in her house (no AC) and the help line wants her to play with wires connected to her AC compressor....

Some are better than others but someone's giving your friend very bad advice. They're t-stats, replace an existing t-stat and so at no time should anyone w/o experience mess with any other wiring.