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I have a similar feeling and I am quite pessimistic about the future in this regard. Currently, I have been able to avoid it pretty well, but appliances break and need replacing, and I suspect there will be a day where I cannot find a washing machine that isn't "smart", much less a car!

This is what I'm worried about.

Sooner or later we'll need regulation to prevent devices from requiring network connection.

I don't think we'll ever get it though.

More likely we will get regulation making smart, connected devices mandatory for one reason or another.

>for one reason or another.

energy consumption

I'd expect them to be more creative, but energy consumption's gonna do I guess

Let's set aside that regulation like that will come with a bunch of other stipulations which will capture the market for the incumbents...

There are unintuitive outcomes which could arise like: smaller companies might need to develop a product with access to the web to keep costs manageable, but larger companies, using their capital, are able to establish proprietary wireless connectivity (which is not the internet) that smaller companies are unable.

Peer to peer connectivity over public networks is a great asset for smaller companies with disruptive ideas, and this could destroy that.

> Peer to peer connectivity over public networks is a great asset for smaller companies with disruptive ideas, and this could destroy that.

I have no issues with a product having an option for internet connectivity, or even requiring it if it is a critical component of it's function.

Internet connectivity is not a critical component of my <dishwasher|washing machine|dryer|fridge|car>'s function however.

Yeah that wasn’t what I was arguing. There are some products which act based on real-time information from a network and without network access, would cease to function.

Big companies could also simply include their own networking equipment and data plan.

My understanding of the fake/non-mmWave 5G is it dramatically decreases cost for network operators. If that is true (please correct me if I am wrong), what stops tv manufacturers from including a tiny modem with its own gsm Internet connection that can do things like see if there is an update available or fetch weather information (based on included gps module)? Or the real reason, ads. They could even be simple text ads if network operators decide to charge a lot for data.

True, but I think the hypothetical from the GP was that internet connectivity must not be a requirement and I think 5G might be too close whereas something like radio clocks aren't. Perhaps a proprietary protocol and equipment would be different enough to allow companies to passively spy on their users. To stop TV manufacturers from including a tiny modem (proprietary or otherwise), language about what anti-consumer/anti-privacy behavior the network connection enables and why it shouldn't be a requirement for use, despite whether or not the network connection is fully funded by the manufacturer.

You should support organizations fighting for the user freedom, e.g., https://fsf.org.

Agreed.

But damn, that's a short list.

https://edri.org, https://eff.org. There are more.

>... and I suspect there will be a day where I cannot find a washing machine that isn't "smart"...

What's worse is you'll have to have a monthly subscription to their service or it won't work.

I bet there are people just salivating at the thought of all that MRR.

Our future is one in which we don't own a damn thing. We're all renters.

This is one of the topics of Cory Doctorow's sci-fi book "Unauthorized Bread."

I am already receiving targeted ads for what appears to be a roomba subscription

> just you wait until manufacturers of "internet of shit" things go really evil, and integrate low cost LTE radios into them with their own billing/centralized management/VPN system.

Why bother? They'll iust use your neighbor's wifi (at extra rf pollution cost to your house) or the surveillance system on the streetlamp outside being paid for by your tax money

or remove the opt out option from 'your' phone

> or remove the opt out option from 'your' phone

This is why we need viable open source phone OSes. Refuse to “just install the app”!

It's impossible to install fully FLOSS OS on a typical phone, due the proprietary hardware drivers. The latter force you to buy new hardware every few years. Consider a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5 or Pinephone, instead.

Doesn't help if your tv is using your neighbor's router to phone home and download ads

It's a reasonable way to live your life, but it's worth noting that most WiFi smart bulbs and switches can be liberated with a not-unreasonable amount of effort: https://blog.fosketts.net/2020/05/29/liberate-wi-fi-smart-bu...

Personally I benefit from being able to control the type of light and change it over the course of the day, and I've found a couple of uses for automatic switches which improve my life as well.

Point being, these things at least can be liberated from the IoT, where we all know what the S stands for.

Zigbee devices can be used in a closed mesh network, without an internet connection or any proprietary cloud or subscription. One needs a USB coordinator dongle [1], a small computer like raspberry pi, zigbee2mqtt [2] & Home Assistant [3]. It works perfectly. Devices implement various standardized "profiles" documented in an open standard ZCL/dotdot and a lot of devices from different manufacturers work right out of the box.

[1] https://sonoff.tech/product/diy-smart-switch/sonoff-dongle-p... [2] https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/ [3] https://www.home-assistant.io/

Eye opening that your vacuum cleaner or smart bulb wants you to directly embed your WiFi password for set up. Not to mention, usually the cheapest ones are subsidized by, at best sales of your data, and at worst espionage and security backdoors.

After my mom was bed ridden for some time, I reluctantly installed some Alexa enabled smart bulbs and switches, so that my mom could operate it by voice commands. But I made sure that I created a separate wifi guest network with low bandwidth to ensure Alexa / smart appliances don't waste the bandwidth unnecessarily (even if they leak the wifi password).

> note: I also have no smart doorbells, cloud connected security cameras, internet enabled lightbulbs, etc. They're nothing but riddled with bugs, incompatibilities, security holes, disgusting configuration options, obsolescence in less than a few years, etc.

Yeah how dare they call them smart when they're such shitty products. Totally inferior quality.

EDIT: Recently I saw a lightbulb that cost $20, you know why? Better light. That's it.

You know what I'd love to buy these days? Jammers for inside the home, just to make sure there is no incidental communication.

I think the cable companies really ushered it in, with their dual SSID setup. I refused to use their gear for a host of reasons, this being one of them.

To be fair, the "public" SSID on cable company wireless routers is using a separate DOCSIS service flow, so it's not actually using your Internet connection like Amazon Sidewalk would be.

It's still using the same wifi channel and TDD/CSMA half duplex rf/air media contention as your home wifi service, in the typical cable operator all-in-one DOCSIS/router/wifi device.

Meaning that if you have any appreciable portion of traffic on the public SSID it can impact your own speeds/jitter/latency/service. It's not like these devices have indepenent secondary 2.4/5.x GHz 802.11ac/ax radios for the public SSID operating in their own separate 20/40/80 MHz channels.

This is true, although the public hotspot speeds are usually fairly limited so it shouldn't impact your private network too much.

I use my own equipment for a whole host of reasons, but I also appreciate having WiFi I can connect to more often than not without having to drain my phone's battery using it as a hotspot.

Extra WiFi traffic, even if not coming from your AP or devices, will still interfere with your own AP and devices for the reasons walrus01 pointed out, that WiFi is half duplex and needs to share the same RF space as every other WiFi device nearby.

and even worse in the scenario where the associated wifi clients are kind of far away and at a weak signal (like -77), so they're using more air time for more rudimentary modulation vs. the devices in your house that are using at least 64QAM. there's only a finite amount of airtime in a half duplex system...

> note: I also have no smart doorbells, cloud connected security cameras, ...

If you want a CCTV camera you can still get 'old school' commercial grade IP cameras from eBay. Mercifully free of cloud attachment, but with ftp, email and http notification. Probably will have dynamic DNS, but that can be useful.