Samsung warns customers that Smart TVs are always listening (2015)
theweek.com
theweek.com
The point I was trying to make was that from a market efficiency perspective, this kind of thing should not be a problem.
So it might be more expensive to remove the feature altogether, including the advertising revenue it would generate. Such is the cost of privacy, apparently.
But once the HDMI input is up and delivering, whatever content you pick comes through it from the smart box(en) upstream that are the only thing(s) connected to the Internet.
Of course, I suppose that may not work with people who have cable TV -- those cable TV boxes probably don't or will be made to not cooperate, as much as possible. Don't know -- don't have one, right now.
Maybe TV's will become like Windows computers, at least for some of us. Buy the "smart" version because it's the only one available or has a price break, and then "throw out" / don't use the OS that comes with it (well, except to display whatever the upstream box is putting out).
I think a lot of people who say "What's even the point?" in this context don't really mean that in the end, they just don't think it's worth it given the current security / privacy / obsolescence issues involved with IoT devices. And of course those are all real issues that can absolutely weigh against any benefits. But just imagine if smartphones and tablets today were in the same poor state the IoT ecosystem is currently in. There would be a non-trivial amount (more) people wondering if they were worth the trouble.
tl;dr: Potential benefits of IoT, while they certainly have to be weighed against the potential issues that currently exist, are still potential benefits.
But you have to worry about this and weight cost and benefit, it's just not worth the hassle most of the time,
> But just imagine if smartphones and tablets today were in the same poor state the IoT ecosystem is currently in. There would be a non-trivial amount (more) people wondering if they were worth the trouble.
I don't need to imagine, security, privacy, or out-of-date hardware and software is a huge problem there, too.
Perhaps you missed that I said, "And of course those are all real issues that can absolutely weigh against any benefits." The point still stands: "tl;dr: Potential benefits of IoT, while they certainly have to be weighed against the potential issues that currently exist, are still potential benefits."
> I don't need to imagine, security, privacy, or out-of-date hardware and software is a huge problem there, too.
Sure, that certainly crossed my mind, but it's just not as bad at a technical level as IoT is right now, though as far as final impact that has to be weighted by market penetration.
I probably could have come up with a better example, but I was dead tired when I wrote that. :)
No I don't. Well I kind of do, but the cool features you'd want it for are the things everyone stops using after a day or two.
The reason the get included is to drive sales, manufacturers need a way to differentiate themselves in a saturated market, they know hardly anyone uses the features and that even if they do then they get the bonus of planned obsolescence.
And as I said, you might not, which is a totally valid opinion; and I agree with your last sentence. My point was just that the costs of IoT don't erase the benefits, even if you believe that they outweigh them.
As an aside, just off the top of my head, and not to say that you necessarily said anything to the contrary: ignoring potential costs, do you (or anyone else who wants to respond) see the benefits of a fridge that can tell you (or, if you want, the grocery store, or the delivery company) what you're running low on, or a coffee pot that automatically turns on when you're about to wake up or get home, even if that's not at a certain time every day, or a dishwasher/etc that can wait for off-peak prices before running, or a sprinkler system that won't water your lawn when there's rain expected later in the day, or a security system that let's you monitor your home and be alerted if there's anything unusual going on (e.g. movement when no one should be home), or an armed defense drone that can monitor the Internet for signs of an incoming zombie horde?
To take the coffee pot as an example. I'll hit the snooze button between zero and 10 times a morning, so automating the coffee machine would often result in cold coffee. Other times, if I've get a bit to drunk the night before, I'll skip the coffee, so the automation would be a waste. There's also some introduced mental overhead of having 2 workflows for the same thing, if I want a coffee, I go make a coffee, but now I'd have to think about if this was one of the automatic ones or if it requires manual intervention.
I may be atypical in this, but I have largely automated the process myself. I wake up and while I'm still on autopilot fill and turn on the jug (we don't do coffee pots here) go pee, come back and put the instant coffee in and the jug is boiled by then. There simply isn't room to optimize much further than that. I'm also a bit of a stickler for fresh water (incident with a cockaroach ~25 years ago), so I don't like the idea of filling the water the night before. If I wanted too though, I could automate turning the jug on in the morning with an electrical timer 30 years ago.
I think I could come up with a similar list of issues for all/most of your other examples considering most of them are more complicated, particularly the fridge one.
My zombie horde action plan is considerably lower tech ;)
So it'd be a more expensive, bulkier option which is certainly more uncomfortable to use.
Here's an example. I own a surface pro 3, and a smartphone. The SP3 is a tablet when I want it to be one, and a proper laptop when that's what's required. My brother, by contrast, has a Fitbit smartwatch thing, an iPod for music, a kindle for books, a Nexus tablet (just for flights!), a smartphone and a laptop!
And the industry seems to insist that even this is not enough. No, clearly, we must also own wifi connected anal probes, refrigerators that tweet, and coffee machines that need firmware updates before they can give you your morning cup. How do we end this madness?!
Then again, cell phones are more ubiquitous and close at hand, and are also always listening ...
Perhaps I can make a business out of this service.
I suppose that leaves the problem of not having a remote control for the 'TV'. However, if the inputs are from a cable-tv box or a media-box, they should have their own remote controls anyway.
Is there some simple reason to avoid doing this, which I overlook because of my ignorance?
50"+ computer monitors are rare (at least where I live).
Old games filling the whole wall is pretty jarring at first, but surprisingly you also get used to that.
I've used no features of my smart TV because ARC is awful and everything's (Kodi box, Sky and Chromecast) plugged into my home theatre system, so the TV's speakers are disabled.
Smart TV, however smart, won't be as good as a £30 Chromecast in a couple of years.
I noticed my satellite box trying to pull a web page from my computer. Malware is another problem.
I own smart tv (Sony) that has microphone on the remote which you can only use at Youtube search bar (then light lit on the remote when microphone is active), and I believe it's quite nifty as typing via remote is PITA.
On the other hand I don't know voice activation features on smart TVs. Do you tell your TV to "turn on" or "change channel", which is not practical IMHO.
It makes sense that personal assistants (amazon echo, apple siri, google whatever) listen all the time as you use trigger words to activate them but it's so useless for TVs.
> has an apple tv
it is the same thing.