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Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

As this builds up there will be a wide open market opportunity for a privacy-conscious appliance manufacturer. Maybe combined with good/minimalist design like Nest - minus the forced cloud stuff. Plus some design work on the internals to make them easy to repair/replace parts.

Shenzhen and other places is full of talent capable of fulfilling this niche.

All it takes is a brave soul to go out and try it.

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>privacy-conscious appliance manufacturer.... like Nest

Nest is now owned by Google. Nest also had installed microphones in their units without telling consumers prior to being purchased by Google.

Yes... which I mentioned in the very next sentence. Way to take the Nest part completely out of context, which I was referencing only in regards to offering a clean/minimal designed home appliances.

I'm convinced privacy-conscious smart products which keep things as local as possible combined with good simple design is applicable to so many niches. Including routers.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel like your original comment left out the "Maybe combined with good/minimalist design...".

My fear is that the only way to get decent industrial design, like the nest, is to finance it with consumer spying.

My thermostat from 1990 still works fine. It will have to continue to work fine for a while longer until I can trust more modern ones. If you connect to the internet you have no business controlling my house's heat. I'm not paying $$$ to someone to get my heat back on.

Well that's the current standard model so that's understandable. But I think consumers, especially early adopters and even Apple execs, are becoming conscious of the need and demand for privacy.

If I was a VC I'd be looking for someone to invest in which offers both modern digitized equipment without the total privacy/security sacrifice.

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