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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I'd never allow the internet to turn on my oven.

I'm with you on that, but what I would want is the ability to know is the status of my oven.

My wife and I are always (excessively) concerned with whether we left our gas stove on/off, the doors are locked and that the garage door is closed.

For that stuff, I'd be willing to pay for the ability to check on that stuff that worries me. Having said that though, knowing that you left your stove on and not having the ability to turn it off would probably be kind of pointless.

But that would require your oven to be IOT-connected... which means remotely hackable.

Can't it be done with something like Z-wave with a hub that isn't exposed to the Internet?

You could use a VPN to connect to the home network to control devices when you have to.

Perhaps slantyyz was thinking that the IoT portion of the oven should be an isolated piece of hardware that is only capable of monitoring, and absolutely incapable of performing actions like turning on the oven.

However, this can still be hacked to say that the oven is off, while it is in fact on and you’re leaving for the airport.

All cooker controls should be timers.

I never want to turn on any part of the cooker for ever and ideally this should not be an option available to me when tired.

I'm with you on that. I once left the gas fireplace on for 6 weeks. Fortunately, nothing bad happened but a large gas bill.

Oh good point, cookers and heaters. Especially gas heaters.

You will get a much better ROI if you address excessive worriness. It has to affect more of your life than just the owen. Elevated Adrenalin can cost you a few years of your life.

Right now, we have partially addressed this with security cameras that can see the stove and some locks.

Suffering from that issue myself, one thing that helps is a checklist, and go through that when you leave.

Another way is to unplug them, because then one remembers doing that.

Ovens can also suffer failures where the gas is turned on, but it fails to ignite. This is no issue when you're there and notice the gas smell and the burners not going on. If you're not there, the house fills with gas and explodes.

We do the checklist thing, and I find it helps to say stuff out loud while you're going through it.

Fortunately, our range is a "dual fuel" stove, which means the oven is electric but the stove burners are gas. Having said that, stuff being left on is still a concern irrespective of whether a burner is electric or gas.

Verbal checklists are extremely effective. It's why flying is incredibly safe, and they're also used in some operating theatres (see the Checklist Manifest).

Works even better with two people as you're forced to cross-check every item.

It's important to keep it a sane length and at a suitably high level, otherwise users have a tendency to skip items that are "obvious".

Hah, I had a "Hotpoint" GE range until recently when it started having a fun issue. If you Google the reviews, well it randomly turns on the oven....at the best of times like when you aren't home example. Because the stupid potentiometer used for the oven control has a piss poor "off" position that goes bad over time and the oven either a.) refuses to turn off or b.) oscillates on/off over an extended period.

I would as it takes a longish time to do which is annoying to wait for. So if it could be remotely turned on when I’m at the store or on the way home that would be a big convenience. Likewise with most async things that I forget to do, like watering plants or cleaning the house. If I can throw money at it and reasonably expect it to work (sprinkler system, house cleaner) I will do it.

> I'd never allow the internet to turn on my oven.

not even with a 2 FA?

OP's example is reminding him to turn oven on or off.

> I could say “Alexa, turn on the oven to 450” and it would (a) turn the correct device to the correct setting

Nope, it's turning it on

Reading the entire comment will help in this case.

The paragraph after what you quoted:

[instead of buying a new oven]..

"Or I can walk over to the oven, turn it to 450, and say “Hey Siri, set timer for ten minutes” and wander off. When my wrist buzzes, I go stick a pizza in the oven and I say, “Hey Siri, set timer for thirteen minutes” and go do stuff.

I don’t need a new oven. I don’t need to worry that I’ll pick the wrong oven."

The second part is. The first part is about imagining telling Alexa to actually turn your oven on.

The second part is what he'd rather use. He didn't seem to want a smart oven, which is what he's being downvoted for.

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