Amazon shuts down customer’s smart home
forums.macrumors.com
forums.macrumors.com
Once you've sold it, it shouldn't be yours anymore. Inviting this kind of surveillance into your home, where we're being policed by profit-driven corporations, is the biggest condemnation of this sort of IoT crap. Imagine if my car stops working if Toyota disapproves of something I say. Imagine I can't pay for food because of something I said.
Pulling this sort of crap should be punished with heavy fines.
And if companies are at the same time held responsible for the stuff that goes through their servers and that creates an impossible situation for them, then maybe they shouldn't be creating these sort of dependencies at all.
Just because a person or group of people classifies you a certain way doesn't make it universally true.
Sure, but that doesn't mean those two guys are gay.
> On the racist bit: it can be hard to disambiguate why someone treats you in an unfavorable way -- it could be because they're actually racist or they could just be a pissy person who hates their job. Just because a person or group of people classifies you a certain way doesn't make it universally true.
It might not be universally true, but it is subjectively true. That's the difference: even if you think you're not being racist, you might be racist from the PoV of someone you were racist towards.
Racist behavior is a judgement call to determine state of mind (behavioral patterns). Gay is a term that describes attraction to a similar gender, despite the overlap with other classifications (eg bi), which again is a judgement call about state of mind (behavioral patterns). Black is a label that also occurs due to behavior. Black is also a label based on a visual cue, which is arbitrary based on a pattern from personal experience. These terms are alike as labels, in these ways.
You can't accurately talk about these topics without considering self identification.
> Racist behavior is a judgement call to determine state of mind (behavioral patterns).
That is one option, but it can also be a description of the results of someone's actions, without considering their state of mind.
> Gay is a term that describes attraction to a similar gender, despite the overlap with other classifications (eg bi), which again is a judgement call about state of mind (behavioral patterns).
Gay describes attraction only to the same gender, so the overlap with bi is only there if you ignore this. Since it's fundamentally self-identification I don't see how it's a judgement of state of mind.
> Black is a label that also occurs due to behavior. Black is also a label based on a visual cue, which is arbitrary based on a pattern from personal experience.
Black is a self-identification label which has overlap with visual cues, but isn't predicated upon them. It's a fundamentally different label from "racist".
To be fair, I'm talking about labeling, not the larger social structures groups inhabit.
> That is one option, but it can also be a description of the results of someone's actions
I don't believe pure actions are how humans derive intent. Actions are often used as an implication toward the state of mind. A child hitting another child is an action that does not connotate racist behavior under most conditions. Per your own statement: "even if you think you're not being racist, you might be racist from the PoV of someone you were racist towards" - the classification is arbitrary based on observation.
> Since it's fundamentally self-identification
That's an opinion. Given the existence of homosexual behavior in animals, I think there is a biological component that is separate from conscious decisioning.
> it isn't predicated upon them
I do not subscribe to the idea that "black" is a specific differentiation in humans. It's an arbitrary label based on observation.
I am also talking about labelling. But we as a society don't go around and say "you're gay, and you're gay , and you're gay" - we listen to what people identify as. This is fundamentally different from racism, which is rooted in behaviour, which we don't have to listen to self-identity for. That's my whole point.
> I don't believe pure actions are how humans derive intent. Actions are often used as an implication toward the state of mind. A child hitting another child is an action that does not connotate racist behavior under most conditions. Per your own statement: "even if you think you're not being racist, you might be racist from the PoV of someone you were racist towards" - the classification is arbitrary based on observation.
How are the classifications arbitrary if they are based on observation?
> That's an opinion. Given the existence of homosexual behavior in animals, I think there is a biological component that is separate from conscious decisioning.
No, it's not an opinion. You can't look at someone and accurately judge their sexual preferences. You can't even necessarily look at their actions - how many gay people had to live straight lives in the past?
The only way to properly arrive at someone's sexual preferences is to ask them.
> I do not subscribe to the idea that "black" is a specific differentiation in humans. It's an arbitrary label based on observation.
I don't understand how you're arriving at "black" being arbitrary based on observation, since it's an identification. Someone isn't black because they "act black".
> <<Gay> is fundamentally self-identification> is an opinion
> No, it's not an opinion.
I'm not sure I can follow some of these convolutions in logic anymore. GL with whatever.
Agreed, but note that "abuse" is the operative word here. It's possible to be racist and not be outwardly hateful, and it's also possible to be non-racist and horribly abusive to staff.
Something like a smart home starts to be a gray area I think, due to the indirect nature of it. Does shutting off some MQTT service count simply because it serves traffic? But if it becomes more common I guarantee it’ll become more regulated, so things like this can’t happen as easily.
Personally I think it’s foolish not to control the backbone your smart devices run on, home assistant gets better every year, but I also know that most people aren’t going to add that to their already busy lives.
In business, you deal with it.
So there is
1. surveillance/control techno-fascism
2. US-centric political zeitgeist
3. useless cloud garbage
all rolled into one. This is without a doubt the most contemporary story I've seen in a while.
Amazon is suddenly going to suspend someone because a random employee made a report?! With neither verification nor advance notice? Excuse me?
That seems like it could very well stand under racketeering laws--"Nice delivery service you got there--shame if something were to happen to it." I hope there is an ambulance chaser salivating over this.
I can't believe anyone would buy an Amazon product after this, it's crazy! Can your other IOT things be shut off? Can your AWS account be disabled?
especially the case for google. ex, with their anti adblock movement in youtube, there's a small chance you might find yourself locked from your emails, GCP, Drive and every other service if they decide to be more aggressive about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36747367
But yeah all of it is speculation really, right? There's no facts here you'd bet large sums on being as described - yet it's entirely possible some are too. Who knows?
And that's why we have laws and courts to deal with bad behavior.
Amazon and other Tech companies are Huge because they provide people what they desire instantly with no friction.
Why setup a HA instance and learn to manage things yourself when you can just outsource it
But people actually do want the kinds of features enabled by IoT devices on top of cloud infrastructure and they're reasonably priced. It's not idiocy, it's utility.
And you're free not to buy into it. It's no skin off your back.
> And you're free not to buy into it. It's no skin off your back.
Of course. It's absolutely no skin off my back. I'm just expressing that I don't understand why people choose to do this. It's also true that I don't need to understand! But I am curious.
The thing that bugs me is that there is no penalty for the delivery driver.
Also, while the US certainly has racism, I don't think it's fair to call that "US-centric". A lot of countries have a lot of racists.
What!?!? The description of the incident says " Amazon completely shut down the customer's account, locking him out of his smart home devices."
How is that "we will no longer send them to your house"?
If in order to not send a delivery person to a customer's house Amazon needs to shut down the customer's account it would seem that the one having difficulty separating these things that should be separate is Amazon and not anyone else?
One driver, made one accusation, and bam instant termination of the account. I can not support that as being the "correct action". Far too much room for abuse in such a system
in this case the person had to submit evidence of their innocence to amazon by way of other Camera's. what if no evidence had existed to refute the drivers claim? I will never a support a "Guilty until proven innocent" standard for anything
> in this case the person had to submit evidence of their innocence to amazon by way of other Camera's. what if no evidence had existed to refute the drivers claim?
Amazon is not a right. If they couldn't prove it wasn't true, Amazon doesn't owe them anything except possibly a refund on the smart devices (I could see that).
Is Amazon legally mandated to give their customers Due process? no and I never claimed they were.
The Comment I was responding to also did not make a legal claim or statement, they did not say "Amazon had the legal right to terminate their account" they claimed "Amazon made the entirely correct action" Which I disagree with, as I believe all companies even if they are not legally required to do so should apply common sense principles in their business dealings one of those being due process, and evidence based approaches before they choose to terminate business relationships
It is sad to live in a society where every action, every interaction, is guided by what is "legal" it is even sadder when people look to legislative bodies for their moral and ethical guidance
Do better.
This kind of condescension really doesn't help your point and in fact leads me to believe you're simply virtue signaling.
According to the customer, this was all a misunderstanding, and he never actually made any sort of insult.
The fact that it was a misunderstanding isn't relevant in my opinion. Had it been a real insult, Amazon might be justified in refusing to deliver there, but that's still not a justification to turn of all their devices.
But most importantly: we should stop making ourselves so dependent on these giant corporations that care nothing about us, only about profit.
These cloud providers should be regulated like utilities.
Until they don't. Often times it gets harder and harder to be a luddite or near one.
It doesn't help things if we blame others for their poor consumer choices.
I don't know about you but to me that point was reached and exceeded when it became clear the person making the claim was wearing ear pods and couldn't even claim an unobstructed listening experience to the event they complained about...
My door locks, light switches, and thermostats have simply never bothered me enough to consider the hassle of automating them, even assuming the automation works perfectly (it won't) and the "smart" devices are just as reliable as the things they replace (they aren't).
Houses and stuff installed in them regularly out-live these product lines, and many of them are proprietary and only work with their brand, possibly that one product line. If you're willing to consider them disposable and are alright with that, that might be reasonable and they do some neat stuff, but they're certainly not systems that last :\
I don't trust a SaaS to stick around for 6 months, let alone integrate into a 30+ year home.
Perhaps we can get IoT services regulated the same way.
In my setup I have some Wi-Fi connected outlets running Tasmota and some light bulbs and thermostats on Zigbee.
It’s been doing it for about 10 years and it still makes me happy every time I hear it.
I have since upgraded to Philips Hues since there was some connectivity issues (plus no Apple Home support) with the cheap-o ones.
I am real tempted with smart lock since I dismissed it as useless as well, but I simply don't trust that it will be secure.
As for thermostat, I live in a old building so I have no central AC/Heating, but if I had you bet I would have it remotely controlled. I am running one of those "tube out the window" style ACs and I have that hooked to Hue socket and it is pretty fucking lit.
I remember when I had an X10 setup, and I could get in bed, hit a switch and turn off ALL the lights. (note that this backfires when you have a partner in the bathroom)
But I balked at the cloud stuff, the intrusion and the snooping and have mindfully lived with less.
I think we just have to wait (like the amish¹) until we get socially acceptable technology to adopt.
X10 was exciting and unusual. It works by sending coded pulses through the household AC mains themselves. You have to set a "building code" in case your neighbors use X10, too, and their electrical system is closely coupled to yours. But obviously, it does not rely on the Internet, nor sends anything very far. I believe that once they hit a transformer, the code pulses will be neutralized.
I do have a smart bulb and it's nice for lazy me to just tell my phone to turn it off. But a single desk light is a bit less insidious than my house locks.
Turns out the best part of having a smart bulb is temperature control. “Hey Siri, evening light!” makes it a really very pleasant cool, 60% kinda bright. “Daylight” is full blue, 100%. I have a couple of others.
Of course when it doesn’t work it’s maddening. But it’ll get better. It’s obviously the future, there doesn’t seem much point fighting it.
The problem with IoT is that most of the products lose their shit and very ungracefully handle poor or intermittent internet connectivity, all so they can potentially route my button taps and commands through a random server outside my house and back to the internet connected device. When this company discontinued the product, goes bust, or they just change their servers without an update to “older devices”, your $xxx item becomes a paperweight. Some of this is likely data mining, but I would reckon most of this is simply poor or incompetent engineering and management with a slash of vendor lock-in. The company selling you cloud service does not care that it stops working when the go under, and we need to not buy this hot garbage either.
I'm hoping that Thread/Matter will change that, but most likely it'll still be the same walled garden - there are already some devices that use ZigBee but only work properly with their own hub.
My main requirement for my home is that everything had to “fail normal”. My non-geek family would not tolerate the lights not working if the internet connection failed. To that end, although everything is connected to a cloud service eventually (HomeKit), loss of internet or excommunication by a cloud service provider would simply disable app- and voice control, but stuff would still work normally otherwise. If a device manufacturer bricked a device intentionally then I am fortunate enough to be financially able to hire an attorney.
I am currently working with an electrical engineering firm to build my own line of smart home devices, that will be fully open (HW and SW) and will be based on Raspberry Pi (there’s an actual Pi Zero 2W in the light switches).
I’ll post here when I’m at the point where I have something to share.
It's also super frustrating that they all need their own servers and app and infrastructure. You'd think there'd be a standard by now. Last time when the power went out for several hours I had to resync the switch.
Even just pushing one of those IoT buttons tells them you are at home and is probably used for some ad placement or credit score or whatever.
Also, I think the spying has the potential for being more insidious and more passive. Im thinking of sound beacons, at human-imperceptible frequencies, sent by a TV or smart speaker that lets some data aggregator determine what is being played in a home or who is at home.
I have some bad news for you - what you describe as a dystopian future hellscape was up and running by 2015. If you want to so much as slow it down, stick to F-Droid or ditch your smartphone.
[0] https://www.wired.com/2016/11/block-ultrasonic-signals-didnt...
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-th...
[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/there...
Credit score? Seriously? Really?
> You'd think there'd be a standard by now.
I don’t understand, isn’t there a standard? All my smart stuff is on ZigBee, I can control everything locally (app via LAN to the machine running the automation, machine via Zigbee to switches and sensors) and I don’t need any cloud functionality at all. If the power goes out, everything reconnects in two minutes.
https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/smart-home/matte...
ZWave and Zigbee devices are currently the most vendor neutral but you have to really love smart home to stand up HomeAssistant or whatever and maintain it. And zwave in particular has lots of small but annoying compatibility issues and is difficult to troubleshoot and to keep a complex setup running.
I thought threads/matter was going to be great but it looks like latter just took a whole pile of standards and mashed them together and rebranded them. I dunno for sure; I tried to install the matter SDK on a raspberry pi and it was north of a gig download and difficult to figure out.
This is really the crux of the issue. First, from a business perspective, it makes sense: why sell a one-time hardware device when you can charge rent for its continued usage? From a consumer perspective, how can you justify buying a device that can’t operate without an ecosystem you have no knowledge about?
This is why we need free and open standards of interoperability. It would benefit hardware businesses that now feel compelled to create an ecosystem when they’re only good at making hardware and consumers can buy devices and only need to check if it works with some standard like we do with WiFi now when selecting personal wireless devices. Maybe a bad example, considering the backwards compatibility of WiFi and the fact that there is only one practical set of wireless network connectivity transports.
I tried my first switch this week and in one pass it was setup with Google Home and HomeKit. Home Assistant is my next test but I’ve been on vacation.
Radiator thermostats (TRVs) are for individual radiator control; they allow turning on/off zones when the heating is on, they don't control the heating itself.
Anyone I talk to doing this, seems to be using it as a toy first and last. Which is fine, but to me, not ready for anything other than wasting my time. I'm not wasting time of others in my house with it.
At Bond Home, we tell users how to disable or redirect the device’s MQTT connections, at which point our cloud no longer can monitor or control your home. Less convenient for the user, but makes this kind of shutdown technically impossible (without more advanced shenanigans).
I also will probably never trust a digital lock until they are known to be the most reliable and hassle-free option, which I assume will be never at this rate.
But, if you did want to play around with some stuff, there are non-corporate devices that don't have privacy issues and there's Home Assistant, a software package/OS if you want it that does all the home stuff. There's a learning curve going that way for sure, but what form of Freedom does not require something from you?
That light has its own switch. Unlike a normal light switch, there is no difference between the off position and the on position.
I do not ever intentionally turn that light on.† But it commonly turns itself on, at which point I have to turn it off, using its dedicated "switch". This usually takes between five and fifteen attempts. Sometimes I give up and go do something else for a while.
† Because it's so difficult to operate that switch, sometimes while attempting to turn it off I will turn it off and then on again.
You can have smart home stuff without exposing it to vendors who can shut it all down.
If this story is true, the Amazon customer was lucky that he didn’t have a Ring doorbell. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have been able to access the recording and would be in a Catch-22 situation. It could have taken much longer than a week to to get his home working again.
Alternatively, you could simply not have a "smart home" in the first place, saving money, hassle, and having to worry about issues like this.
Which, ironically, is a pretty smart choice.
A smart home is technology for the sake of technology, not solving a need as such.
The moment you make it clever past this you incur the overheads of the whole system production in the efficiency cycle. That means the manufacture and distribution of a complex computer system.
Mostly they're smart because they save on wiring. For a while I've had all of my living room lighting (ceiling, as well as standard lamps and a table lamp) all Hue so they get turned on and off together. Standalone and useful. I've been experimenting with HA running on a Pi because I want to do a slightly complicated combination of PIR and timing for some outside security lights and it'll be trivial with HA.
My Philips Hue bulb was replaced with a dumb one when it crapped out and I turn it on and off with a telescoping pointy finger that lives next to my bed ;)
Never know what will be normalized in the next generation. Or what will be considered crazy later on.
"Update: I was not truly in the dark for a week. My smart home runs mostly locally and Alexa really is just a polymorphic interface. I was just able to use Siri. Though out of habit I’d sometimes say “alexa” only for her to remind me she’s locked out."
So none of this home shutdown actually happened. It's fake news.
Could it have happened?
Put another way, does it matter whether fake or not to inform improvement?
Also, the power going out doesn't break your legacy door locks.
Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should...
It's like we have opened Pandora's box allowing technology (with poor security) into our homes.
Devices controlled and maintained by companies with questionable ethics who only care about the stock holder.
How far do I need to read into the thread to find the alternate story you're describing?
> ...an Amazon spokesperson said, "We work hard to provide customers with a great experience while also ensuring drivers who deliver Amazon packages feel safe. In this case, we learned through our investigation that the customer did not act inappropriately, and we’re working directly with the customer to resolve their concerns while also looking at ways to prevent a similar situation from happening again."
Seems like they kind of confirmed it? Or what dd you read that indicated otherwise?
"I was not truly in the dark for a week. My smart home runs mostly locally and Alexa really is just a polymorphic interface. I was just able to use Siri."
Even at that the only thing turned off was his Amazon Echo.
Initial reporting on this story, especially the right-wing press, made it out like he was physically locked out of him home, or his appliances were remotely disabled. Neither is at all accurate.
My thermostat automatically keeps the temperature at the temperature I set. How much smarter does it need to be? My doorbell rings so I can hear it an answer the door, like the fully abled person I am. My fridge keeps things at the temperature I set. Where are the problems these smart devices are solving?
I also have specific apps on my phone (eg Lutron, Yale, Samsung) that bypass voice assistant front ends. But the reason I use voice assistants at all is that I can control all my shades at once to raise and lower them (as well as turn all the living room lights on), basically bulk convenience.
"turn the outside lights on" -- I have two different structures with lights hung around the underside of the roofs. It's very dark where I live. Walking between buildings at night is really easy now because everything is illuminated between both places without installing a really long three-way switch.
"turn the outside lights off" -- Maybe I'm already outside looking at the sky and want a little more clarity. Now I don't need to go find all the light switches for everything that is on.
"turn all the lights off" -- I'm laying in bed, about to go to sleep. Did I forget to turn anything off?
"time for bed" -- It's time to dim the lights and start cooling my brain down. This sets the scene nicely from wherever I happen to be.
--
I don't trust it for things like locks/garage door openers/etc. Compromising my network shouldn't compromise my physical security.
Then it comes down to wifi security over the long-haul. If I do things properly, I need several different networks because I have old-hardware (eg: a solar inverter) that only supports up to a certain generation of WEP or WPA and will likely never get updates. However, good luck getting everything happy with multiple networks or any kind of partitioning. I think the average consumer case is a simple, all-encompassing network with everything on it and that's what many ecosystems assume. Either that or they assume that everything will talk through a cloud-provided endpoint... or both in some cases!
This all feels like the problem hasn't really been solved yet so I'll stick with physical-only locks for the time being. All of that being said, it sure would be nice to be able to check on the door+lock status from my Home app.
Sort-of. It's also a remote-capable front-end. I can turn my lights on/off from an arbitrary internet connection through it which means it's also a cloud service of some kind.
This is the issue though and it's the same issue we have with smart-displays/TVs. There are way too many ways to accomplish the same thing. You want to turn volume up with an AppleTV connected to a display? Maybe it works through the volume on the Apple remote, maybe it doesn't. Do you have a remote control for the TV? That should work except you have HomePods or a soundbar or ... something.
Bringing it back to smart locks: Do the locks support only NFC or is NFC one of the options? If it supports WiFi, is it also calling out to its own cloud endpoint while playing nicely with these other ecosystems? Why do we have more than one mechanism to access the lock? From a purely security standpoint, each additional mechanism offers yet another weakness. From a consumer (prosumer?) standpoint, it's more options for convenience. The market will often choose convenience and we end up where we are today.
I have a little smart plug/power meter that I love. It's great at what it does but there is one huge flaw: when it isn't plugged in, it shows the last status (on/off) in the home app and in the app specific to the tech. Let's just say I learned not to plug a refrigerator into it. This leads me to know that status mechanisms are definitely not fool-proof in this ecosystem. Then I consider a smart-lock and think, "nope, not for me."
For me, I feel like I’m gaining more security than I’m losing, so it’s still worth it.
I don't have to care about some companys loss leader product eventually going from free to paid, or being disabled alltogether because they decided that Smarthome isn't something they actually want to be in.
Sucks for the planet, sucks for peoples wallets as most of that is probably going straight to the landfill :(
Much of the current IOT and smart home products are only slight better. Much of it will be useless once the manufacturer decides that they don't actually want to support a 10 year old device. Maybe they are bought out, go bankrupt, change business or the stockholders demand higher returns and they bump your subscription 10x.
It somewhat impressive that we've managed to build business that are completely blind to the fact that a five year update cycle actually isn't that impressive, or that killing of services and products will generate excessive amounts of waste. It probably to complex to regulate correctly, but really it should be a rules that you place documentation and perhaps code in escrow when you release an IOT device, once you no longer wish to support that device, the code and documentation should be released.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36348842
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36340095
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36296250
The original article by the customer: https://medium.com/@bjax_/a-tale-of-unwanted-disruption-my-w...
Also reported in The Register: https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/15/amazon_echo_disabled_...
> My Amazon “community privileges” got suspended for “racism” after I correctly told a Chinese air filter company that their product was garbage. They false-flagged my review for racism. My review was not racist in any way. Suddenly, twenty years of my Amazon reviews (including long essays on academic books) got deleted
Something to think about the next time you honestly review something on Amazon.
Why would I risk anything like a smart home on that level of service, support and customer care?
AWS are only marginally better, despite being a high rolling enterprise customer.
Home assistant is great, I bought almost all the sensors and cameras online and they operate over zigbee, Matrix server to act as an alert box and a ghetto "intercom" system... having lots of fun with it and most of that is from me refusing to use google or amazons smart home IoT-phone-home products. I'm sure there are things I'm missing out on but it's been a lot of fun hacking them all together on a little mini-pc I picked up.
If you have a corporation in complete control of the computers in your home, they are not yours by definition. Arguably, your home is no longer yours if these computers are central to the functioning of your home.
I'm always careful with going all-in on modern "ecosystems", like buying "everything Apple", "everything Google", having "all my data in XYZ Cloud" without some way to cut them out of the loop.
I'm right there with everyone else who wants to raise a pitchfork and hop on the Amazon-critical bandwagon.
But, I felt it worth pointing out back then and again here that the seemingly bizarre choice of doorbell response "Excuse me, can I help you?" left me unsurprised that the delivery driver "misheard" it and set off this round of media hoopla.
Last year I canceled my Prime and am doing my best to use alternatives. But it's become hard, I still sometimes use Amazon and pay for shipping or use the free long-ass shipping if it exists.
This kind of shit is why I still advise everyone who asks me (as the tech guy in the family) not to use any home automation that is connected to the cloud.
Long ago, I saw a movie as a kid in the 1970s called Demon Seed, where this big computer gained consciousness and extended it's presence to a smart home (well, smart home with tech from the 1970s). It scared the heck out of me, even though seeing it now it's pretty tame...regardless of the whole impregnating a woman with it's child.
My main gripe with smart devices is their sketchy software that may or may not have vulnerabilities in them and may or may not be diligently updated with security fixes by the company that makes them. If I can concentrate most things to one device...like the AppleTV, which gets updates all the time...then I can isolate problems. If I have to worry about a myriad of things throughout the house, that's something else.
If you build new KNX is great. It works with Home Assistant and it's just a bus system. You program it once and it works for decades.
I live in a log cabin in the back woods with no thermostat, no doorbell (or even locks). No smart TV. Everything is as low-tech as possible. I have seen how the sausage is made.
Hasn't the novelty warn off for people yet? Or maybe it has for the first wave, and it's just going to take a while before everyone who's susceptible goes through the process of realising it's pointless?
I still don't understand why people are willing to rely on devices like this without having control over them.
Critical devices that run your home should always be able to disconnect and continue to run. Any cloud-connected features should be entirely optional.
Except for my Internet-connected bathroom scale. It's been giving me the side-eye for a while now.
Let's produce even more e-waste please. Let's do our best to end this quick, maybe in the next turn of the wheel we'll get better cards (or smarter humans that can live with a "dumb" house)
(Disclaimer: Not from US; popcorn grabbed)
More specifically, in one trial we implemented the (keyless) Google Nest x Yale Lock [1] - great when it was working, but locksmiths were called on more than one occasion when it was not. Then we had the epiphany to implement the (keyed) Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth [2], which solved that problem giving us the fail normal desired outcome. It was only in talking with Yale tech support that we realized these are virtually the same locks (one keyed / one not), and despite a near absence of technical supporting information, they both worked just as well on Google Home.
I cannot emphasize the fail normal requirement enough with IoT devices, as discussed elsewhere here. We similarly provision a large number of other IoT devices to improve guest experience including Nest thermostats, Nest Protect smoke and CO alarms, Chromecast Google TV, and (outside) Google Nest security cameras/floodlights. Most guests now require these features at a minimum.
I apologize that this reads somewhat as a Google advertisement, and that is one of my problems with IoT and IMHO one of the main reasons for its lack of wider adoption - product lines are proprietary and there are no well-implemented standards for cross-vendor compatibility. For example, Amazon eero wifi nodes cannot be substituted with Google Nest Wifi nodes - they use incompatible proprietary mesh networking technology.
[1] https://store.google.com/product/nest_x_yale_lock
[2] https://shopyalehome.com/products/yale-assure-lock-touchscre...
The default assumption that the company selling the product should have complete control over the software running on the device at all times, that they should have complete control over usage and access of the device, and that they even should have complete visibility to all of the data collected by the device, is so ridiculous as to be downright egregious: it requires someone who has almost nothing but contempt for users--even if they want to claim they somehow are helping them "for their own good"--to even contemplate such an architecture.
At the risk of being further down-voted, I couldn't agree with you more about this last paragraph. Alas my systems integration skills are not up to speed with implementing "end-to-end encrypted communication--and likely even peer-to-peer direct communication ... to the device in question", but I am thrilled to know that can be done. Are you able to cite any such systems/products where that is possible?