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The Internet of Way Too Many Things

nytimes.com

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Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#191

Post by ghaff »

elsewhen wrote: post #145
Animats wrote: post #75

I went to an Internet of Things meeting in SF about two years ago, and it was about like this. A Samsung executive was touting an Internet-enabled refrigerator, which was basically just a refrigerator with a tablet built into the door, with no special sensors, costing more than a refrigerator plus a tablet. I asked him why they'd built the product, and got an honest answer. He said the market was three types of peopl…

what do you mean by "granite kitchen counter crowd"? is it the case that granite counters are not particularly functional and primarily there for show (i'm genuinely asking).

Granite looks great, at least initially, but is expensive and can have issues with discoloration, cracking, etc. Corian-type materials are probably more practical. Granite isn't a terrible material but it is often the choice for kitchen remodels done mostly for show.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#192

Post by tonyarkles »

joshvm wrote: post #18

Refuel looks like it would be much better pivoted towards the beverage industry. The BBQ going out is not a problem, beer running out is a party-killer. It looks for all the world like a WiFi-connected scale that tells you when the weight of the tank is getting a bit light. We're poking fun at these, but this just caricatures the entire bay area startup scene. There are so many companies solving rich-people-problems…

Funny enough, the Refuel immediately jumped out at me as a product that would be super useful for me. Not because I care a lot about being able to BBQ without running out of fuel, but because I have a propane-heated cabin in the middle of nowhere. Being able to look at the weather forecast and the amount of propane in the tank would make planning a lot easier.

There's also a few different people that share the place, so we don't always know what the other people have done/how much they've used.

Of course, there's no wifi at the cabin, but there is a nearby 3G tower... If I could remotely monitor both the propane tank and the water tank, that'd be awesome!

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#193

Post by jschwartzi »

CydeWeys wrote: post #164
tptacek wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

14-16 years ago, it wasn't even possible to get out of a hospital without having this explained to you in detail. I can only imagine what it's like now. "Smart onesies" are silly.

Biometric monitoring for at-risk individuals is patently not silly. As a percentage, more babies are at-risk than young adults.

The question we should be asking is whether a smart onesie improves outcomes compared to existing best practices. If there's not a statistically significant difference and you divert money from things that would help, then pushing these onesies isn't benign, it's actively harmful.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#194

Post by briandear »

antr wrote: post #17
hessenwolf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.childtrends.org/?indicators=infant-child-and-teen... Looks to me like infant mortality (under age one) has halved between 1977 and 2013. I understand the argument of "it worked fine for me", but, well, on a portfolio basis, you and I were dying a bit faster back then. Outpatient care is a big field these days. Something that, with extremely little effort, can reduce the odds of death or disability, is quit…

Maybe you are right... but a onesie that "knows that when a baby wakes up, the parents will, too -- so it turns on lights and music and even makes the coffee." ... is of no use to fight infant mortality.

My baby doesn't need an app to let me know he's up. Generally the piercing fire trunk level scream does the trick. Now, does this smart baby suit help against SIDS? Nope. If there's science to prove me wrong, I will gladly revise my opinion. Honestly though, that baby suit with a built in coffee maker trigger and light turning on capability.. That's just dumb. Do we really want all the lights coming on every time the baby stirs? Is coffee making really what's needed at that moment? The potential for that technology is cool, but the execution just sounds excessively superficial. as far as infant mortality: what are the causes of infant mortality? Certainly not underlit homes and under caffeinated parents.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#195

Post by sliverstorm »

rsync wrote: post #68
rollback wrote: post #21

Commentary about the silliness of the avalanche of IOT devices being created right now aside (99% of consumer internet startups are based on dumb ideas and fail, but that doesn't mean there is no market or trend!), it's inevitable that this stuff is going to get traction in the market and it's a vast market. I doubt it's going to happen based on a bunch of edge-case $99 devices though. The big trend here is the cost…

"My guess is that almost everyone reading this forum spends a shitload of money buying techno gadgets for reasons beyond "it saves me money."" My guess would be that the HN reader is more discerning and sophisticated than that. I am guessing that a lot of HN readers are considering questions like: - how many different sources of data egress do I want in my home ? (as few as possible) - how many different wireless net…

+1 for knowing how to spell 'wary'. Seriously, I've discovered a horrifyingly small number of people spell it right.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#196

Post by narrowrail »

hoka wrote: post #104
jedberg wrote: post #102

> I asked a young man working at the Target store how visitors felt about their every action being tracked and he said that they’d come to accept it. And that was that. I think this is completely true. I've done research in this area, and people under the age of about 22 have no concept of privacy whatsoever (it should be noted that these people were 12 when Facebook started and basically hit their teenage years just…

Another common one: people posting that they're going on vacation or posting pictures from vacation while still on it. Sure, your friends might not break into your place, but what if their laptop gets stolen and the thief sees you're not going to be home for a week?

I have never locked the door to my house in the 3 years of living where I do. I also commonly leave my keys in the ignition. I live in a small town and made that choice for such reasons, but if you are willing to give up on employment choices it is viable.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#197

Post by Kenji »

ibopm wrote: post #181
Kenji wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Before long, computers will be as trivial and plentiful as chairs... Nonsense. A modern CPU has so many parts, no single human can understand its circuitry. And the complexity is ever increasing. The chair comparison is extremely poor; we live in an environment that is ever increasing in complexity and even today, most people don't understand the array of modern technology they're surrounded with and I don't see tha…

You'd be surprised how hard it is to create your own safe and reliable chair from scratch. I certainly don't think "most people could build one".

I've built a bench and stuff like that before. Very comfy and reliable for many years now. And I don't have any formal training in woodworking. It's really not that hard. However, even after years of formal training in electrical engineering, you will struggle very hard to build a modern CPU. An attempt to compare the difficulty of the two appears to be ridiculous (I have also built a CPU, though only a very simple one on a FPGA. I don't even want to imagine the amount of work and skill necessary to design a modern, say, Intel CPU).

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#198

Post by rsl7 »

alkonaut wrote: post #168
antr wrote: post #2

I just bought a home, and just started a considerable renovation. I'm putting in new water pipes, new electrical wiring, etc. I thought of putting "smart" devices (i.e. switches, alarms, thermostats, etc.) given the "advantages" these promise. After considerable research, it's not worth the hussle or money. Let's put aside the fact that these are considerable more expensive, and won't breakeven in years (some devices…

> After considerable research, it's not worth the hussle or money. Agree. There is no point in making a 75% smart home. A 10% smart home is fine, it feels like a nifty gadget here and there. It can be clever to automate just a few things, maybe get a nest or make it possible to start watering plants remotely when on holiday. But the dream of the full smart home isn't here yet. If you have 9 lights switchable on your…

I thought I'd done my research when I built a dedicated movie theater in my basement, around 2004 or 2005. I hung a decent projector from the ceiling and wired DVI through the walls and ceiling. What I should have done was put an accessible conduit so it was replaceable. because.. only a few years later the projector was destroyed in a lightning storm, which also took out a fridge, toaster, a bunch of GFI outlets, router, etc.; and by that time, decent 1080p projectors were affordable ... and were all HDMI.

so

- conduit for those cool hidden in-wall wires like HDMI for your wall-mounted TV, etc.

- whole house surge protector

Your PoE idea is pretty good, ethernet has been around and will be for a while, and wireless will never really cut it all the time.

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#199

Post by briandear »

shostack wrote: post #88
OliverJones wrote: post #15

Internet-enabled house jewelry? Feh. It will be fun for a week, then boring. Here's what I want: stuff that will make me a better neighbor and citizen of the world. Specifically: Realtime smart energy and water consumption meters. Wouldn't it be great to get some sort of alert if there was a pipe burst or even a water trickle? Wouldn't it be fabulous to track electricity consumption? That could generate the creation…

I've been longing for a nice looking wifi-enabled flow meter I can attach to all my faucets that have a readout of how much water I'm using and tie that data to current water rates to show me the cost in cents/second or something. And the obligatory display of a dashboard via website or app. Great way to help people in a home, especially little ones become water conscious.

Is water really that expensive? has anyone in a developed area ever actually run out of water? Even in California, people are still flushing toilets every day. The obsession with water conservation doesn't seem like it's based on anyone actually ever having run out of water. For example, where does water actually go when it's "wasted?" Does it disappear?

Re: The Internet of Way Too Many Things

#200

Post by cbr »

zck wrote: post #157
joshstrange wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this plays in at all... Could you please expand on that?

I'm not the person you responded to, but survivorship bias is what you were originally responding to -- a claim like "we survived without the baby monitor, so it's unnecessary" falls flat because the people that didn't survive without it aren't here to tell you it would've saved them.

Eh. We still know about people who didn't survive.

Survivorship bias is when you are only seeing the successes.

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