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Home assistant everything is a yaml away
Has nobody else pointed out this is clearly not real?
Okay, I get the idea of smart AC for example - be elsewhere, turn it on remotely so that it’s comfortable when you get home. Fine. But a toilet? You are physically present there, you can push a button to flush. Or are you telling me that you’re shitting remotely now too?
Hans free means you don’t have to touch the handle with dirty hands, but you can do that with a motion sensor too.
We’ve been ready for pedal activated toilets for decades now
Wait, so you’re not subscribed to shitme™? For a low monthly subscription they send you a sealed, self-addressed and postage-paid container to deposit your feces in, it gets sent to a sorting facility and distributed via drones or delivery drivers directly to your home toilet, where the feces are flushed in the privacy and safety of your own home! The peace-of-mind alone is worth the $39.98 a month. Up until now, the only challenge has been flushing the toilet while you’re still at the office, this way you NEVER have to go home!
Shit like a world leader
you’re shitting remotely now too?
Do we tell them about the remote shit technology that just landed from Uranus?
And yet I hear dumbshits bragging all time about how alexa controls my (insert thing that definitely does not need automation here).
These sort of people never think beyond tomorrow and it shows.
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
Douglas Adams
Adams’s law.
Why would you ever get a toilet that requires anything but the laws of physics to operate?
I can see some purpose in having a ‘smart’ toilet for monitoring health. Your pee and poo can have some value in seeing if there anything that needs to be dealt with medically. But even that is difficult to do. For one thing, it must still function ad a toilet first before anything. Meaning it uses the simple mechanical flushing and refilling and stopping when it is sufficiently full.
However for this the analysis and storage of data must be 100% at the user’s control. If they want it gone. It is gone. Irrecoverable. Any update must be done via USB or other connection. No wifi or internet.
And even then the analysis can be off for obvious reasons. People need to scrub their toilets and some keep it clean by having one of those pucks in the tank that sanitize the water. All of these can interfere with any results out of a medical setting.
You’re already @ the mf toilet too, or the sink. what is even the purported purpose of remotely activating something you have to stand there to use?
I mean… Electronics and the Internet are also following the laws of physics. But I get what you mean, levers should be the only activation, and gravity should be the only requirement.
That being said, electronics in our devices do tend to reduce the amount of water and power that appliances use. Dumb devices are extremely inefficient, even though there are fewer points of failure.
It sucks that a 1950’s fridge can still function just fine today, but it also is a bigger strain on the power grid, and a leak in the refrigerant would destroy the ozone.
> That being said, electronics in our devices do tend to reduce the amount of water and power that appliances use. Dumb devices are extremely inefficient, even though there are fewer points of failure.
I fail to see how electronics in these (unpowered) devices in any way reduce the amount of power that they use.
In theory you could have a system that monitors input and then uses a precise amount of water to vacate the bowl.
Oh sick, a toilet with bowl cameras
I figure a scale would probably work better.
I think that was just a general statement regarding old devices, since they brought up a 1950s refrigerator as an example of a powered “dumb” device
Sprinklers and all kinds of stuff are more efficient with sensors and electronic regulators
Yeah I think the meaning of the above comment boils down to “If it doesn’t have a simple fallback, it can’t be trusted”.
My new eFirepit is causing my family to die of hypothermia.
“Dumb” is the new “smart”.
I think that any electromechanical system that does not allow a mechanical override or at least a redundancy are doomed to fail. I don’t know why these IOT entrepreneurs don’t take in account that software and electronics are faulty systems, ignoring decades of experience in the subject.
Nah I’m an innovator! I’ll just innovate a better chip that’ll never fail and software that has no bugs!
Proceeds to put Linux on a common SoC and load it with shoddy software from a low paid contractor.
Terminally online, even for #2
Well, shit.
Well put.
I’ve put a few smart lights/switches/sensors/power points in at home. Definitely helps mum as we can have wireless switches for the lights, and motion sensors to turn the hallway lights on automatically as well.
For ALL of them, I make sure there is a manual control that will work as a backup regardless. Even if a smart light is “off” due to the motion sensor not detecting movement, all you need to do is turn the old regular light switch off then back on and the light will default to being back on.
Ye. I have all Ikea smart stuff, by default everything is running a local mesh network with physical remotes and that light switch backup.
You don’t even need to connect any of it to the net, buying a hub to get app & google home/alexa/etc control is entirely optional with the exception of a few sensors, like the moisture/water leak one. And even then, the app & hub work on local wifi with no internet anyway.
Same. I have TOPGREENER power monitors on all my major applications. Tracking kWh usage. Smart bulbs all through out the house and smart speakers located within speaking distance. Plus a hodge podge of cameras doing 24/7 monitoring.
I don’t think any of these people know what “smart” is supposed to mean cause these must be the dumbest ideas for any product I’ve heard so far.
Mostly to be more efficient and save water, though I couldn’t fathom how that would work with a toilet. Perhaps it’s part of a system to monitor your water usage to help you reduce your use? Maybe the app suggests to let it mellow when it’s yellow?
‘Smart’ means it can send your lifestyle data to the company, and make you dependent on their services.
You want to change your toilet provider? Best of luck holding your poo in for three days while the transfer is processed.
My sister’s new apartment’s front door has a “smart lock”, hooked up to Ring, naturally. No keyhole, you open it with your phone. It also runs on batteries.
Do I really need to say any more? We were baffled.
EDIT: Correction - there IS a keyhole but the actual tenants don’t have access to it. Only the property management. Creepy. :|
I was watching a friend’s dogs while she was on vacation when the batteries in her door lock died. I had to climb in a back window to get inside and feed them. Luckily, there was a back door with a dumb lock, but I had to get inside first and borrow her keys for that to help.
“Hello amazon I’m a police, I need you to unlock this door at 123 Rainy St, Arlen TX 76043”
“Ok Mr. Police right away!”
Sounds great!
LOL relevant meme attached:
Arlen TX
Weird coincidence seeing this right after finishing an episode of King of the Hill. LOL
“Yo man dang’ol smartlock open up man left my daggum phone in there tell ya what.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
I’ve seen landlords put these things on doors, too, and use them to allow entrance to anyone they think has a reason to be inside, whether the resident knows and consents or not.
I have a smart deadbolt that is keypad operated. It’s awful.
Never used the smart features, and there isn’t a bypass to unlock the door when the batteries die — which happens a lot, especially in the winter. I tried using rechargeable batteries in it, but they last less than half the time of normal batteries.
There is nothing more frustrating than punching in the key code and hearing the death of HAL9000 voice before the deadbolt fully unlocks. Luckily I have a back door that isn’t smart.
I’m replacing the lockset soon and this won’t be a problem anymore, but holy shit is it frustrating and wasteful.
Kwikset keypad works great for me. There’s a keyhole, a real button keypad, and the batteries last a while with quite a bit of warning before they’re actually dead.
I got a Proteus IV system. Now I’m dead and my wife is knocked up.
I have one too but it has an emergency physical “master key”. Also there’s a port to provide power to it through a battery bank, in case you really run out of juice though it’s potentially another point of failure. No internet connection
I have a Nuki this one still works with a normal key, since you install it on top of your existing double cylinder (you should only install it on one that can have two keys inserted at the same time or with a turn knob on one side). The Nuki just turns the key or thumb turn of the cylinder. Also means you can’t see that a smart lock is installed from the outside. Battery is not a problem since they last for about 5 months. And you get a warning when it reaches 20%.
What if there was no internet connection? Would they be able to get in their house?
What’s the brand?
Honestly I’m not sure, I only got a look at it when I was helping her move.
It’s tied to a wall panel on the other side that controls the whole unit’s lighting and thermostat and such though, and shows a doorbell cam.
Educated guess that it’s all tied to Amazon. Blegh.
Allegedly they’re just supposed to rely on maintenance to change the batteries so they’re not locked out of their home. Crazy.
SmartOne uses Schlage locks with some ecobee thermostats and sometimes a doorbell cam. Latch locks suck and I don’t know what panel is used there.
I’m in Toronto, I do high-rise construction. Post a picture I’ll tell you what it is.
There’s one guy in my department who does all the smart home shit, but I absolutely don’t see the point in it. Didn’t even connect the washing machine to the wi-fi as you can’t set it going without having loaded it first anyway.
I could see having lights on a somewhat sophisticated timer. Like having bedroom lighting that simulates dawn, fades on etc. Maybe making a thermostat a little bit more sophisticated. I’d like to live in a world where I could trust the power company to tell me when electricity is abundant and scarce but we’re gonna have to win Civil War 2 before we get that. My toilet and faucets do not need any digital technology at all.
Don’t put the gun within reach of the printer, come on
Recipe for disaster
I keep it in a voice activated safe plugged into the 110
I’m sure Canon has snuck in code that can replay your voice…
Hey now, don’t bring a gun into a Canon fight!
The more I hear from big tech companies the more I want to reject it. I don’t even own a printer.
Go for older laser printers. They’re bulletproof, cheap on toner, free of DRM, and even if they only come with an LPT port you can always build your own print server that gives you all the bells and whistles like AirPrint.
Can confirm. I’m a tech worker. No smart devices. Laser printer. Very close to going back to a flip phone.
I am looking at some smart locks, but they’re able to be used as dumb locks with PIN code and physical key also. And they have a usb power port on the outside you could plug a battery into.
I’ve gone down the smart home route a decade ago and only did non-cloud integrated devices with physical controls also. But it’s a part time hobby to maintain it.
usb power port on the outside you could plug a battery into.
Until someone with a flipper figures out that port transfers data too, lmao.
Ha yeah. I would absolutely confirm there is no data connection
flip phone
Almost all such phones are actually smart phones in a flip phone Edgar Suit. Especially if it has maps or YouTube or any kind of an App Store. I see a crapton of flip phones that run Android, which has all sorts of Google spyware piggybacking along.
I think there may be only two or three dumb flip phones or feature flip phones left on the market, and IIRC two are locked to specific networks.
If you want a bona-fide dumb phone, you might be limited to something like the rotary un-smartphone.
I had a Sharp SH-03L for a while, it’s a business version of one of their flip phones that didn’t even have a camera.
The OS was actually android 8.0 but really stripped down to basically only do the whatever apps a flip phone has.
I was able to sideload apks through ADB, but ironically, I actually wanted the google stuff to work since a lot of the apps required it to log in and other things.
The thing was pretty cheap though, paid like $15 for it
Go check in Aliexpress: there are tons of non-smart phones, especially the stuff marked as “senior phone”, and they’re pretty cheap too (like $15 for a mobile phone that just does calls and SMS).
If you want the stuff that’s not glitzy and heavy on marketing you need to get it from where the factories are, not were the brands are - basic mobile phone tech is a thoroughly solved problem and highly integrated nowadays and well within range for even smallish electronics manufacturers to design themselves.
Also check HMD, the Finnish mobile maker who bought Nokia’s mobile business, who also have several non-smart models (including old Nokia models).
Edit:
No idea if any are flip-phones though.Here’s an example flip phone
build your own print server that gives you all the bells and whistles like AirPrint.
…why? CUPS is print server. You don’t need anything else.
He’s talking about the hardware and you’re talking about the software.
Bulletproof? Sounds dangerous. What do I do if it makes a weird noise?
Keep a cannon by the canon.
Why would I get a laser printer? I don’t want a printer.
Because it shoots lasers
Because they are like two fifty on the flea market and will run on one cartridge for 10 years. I print all my tickets everytime, I’m that old
How else will I print out MapQuest directions?
literally so you can leave it unplugged in a box, and drag it out once a year to print a tax form or something. Toner should be shelf stable.
You guys have to print out tax forms?
I have a 70+ year old friend that paper files. She doesn’t trust the free file places available here (USA). I don’t blame her.
Ysk - You can order the forms for free on the IRS (& state) websites.
I print things for her on my 1999 laser jet if she needs something printed.
Many years I paper filed just to inconvenience them slightly for not offering free file.
I am British, most people don’t need to even think about taxes here as its all automatic. Only really something you might need to look at if you are self employed or its your job to deal with it.
No, printed just to keep a hard copy
What is the point of that?
That printer is a 2000’s HP LaserJet
Is there a community for those of us with late 90s early 2000 HP laserjets? Somewhere we can discuss maintenance, feeding, and overall care?
FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS
I will bulk purchase grey-market bootleg toner from shady overseas websites before I go back to a inkjet…
If you’re lucky it might be cut with something cheaper like pure cocaine
It’s fine, you only ever need to replace it like once a decade or so
About 3-4 years ago I took a bit of a dive into the firmware of IoT devices. The utter lack of security and the amount of information being hoovered up to the mothership made me swear to never build anything “smart” into the renovations of my current home. Sure, there will be automation. There will be CCTV. There will be solar with battery backup for essentials. There will be conveniences of all kinds. But virtually all will be air gapped, incapable of remote rooting, and under my full control.
Hell, even my laser printers are HP models over two decades old - an HP 4050DTN and an HP 5000DTN - that are totally devoid of any DRM or “smart features” and can trivially take generic overstuffed cartridges that can do 20,000 sheets at 5% coverage.
Remember, the “s” in IoT stands for “security”.
And the ‘p’ for privacy.
I worked for Cisco during the time IoT was being pushed into everything. You don’t want to know how bad it is. If I was malicious I could have easily written several backdoors into their products without anyone knowing. I wrote kernel code in their IOS operating system. There are no checks on that shit and the entire switching team does next to zero peer review on kernel security.
Yes, there products that (at the time) touched upwards of 95% of all packets sent over the Internet.
The only upside to this state of things is that it keeps alive my fantasies of one day being a Watchdogs-style techno-sorcerer that can wirelessly hack anything that runs on electrons and a WiFi signal.
… Although the nightmare is that people far more evil can probably already do that.
The only thing smart I want is a faucet that activates with button OR the knee / foot sensor, and gives water always with a precise programmed temperature and flow.
That and a temperature and timer controlled frying pan.
Well an incinerating toilet that just dries burns my shit using a 340W solar panel would be cool too.
Well an incinerating toilet that just dries burns my shit using a 340W solar panel would be cool too.
Gonna smell real bad
For that last one, why not shit in your microwave and set it to 340W. That would easily allow you to test the system without buying any new appliance, except for a microwave if you don’t have one.
Imagine cleaning the splatter after all the corn boils and pops in there
