231–240 of 266 posts
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Yup, Xiamoi makes everything interoperable by making it themselves. And Apple makes HomeKit. And Google makes their own. And Microsoft makes their own. And HP makes their own. And... See the problem?
That is not a problem. That is competition. Imagine the opposite where a company has monopoly over the technology.
All the automation, setup, scheduling and monitoring we are building now needs to be able to deal with people not being consistent. cf self driving cars.
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Isn't the draw negligible nowadays? Even my cheap unbranded USB chargers remain at room temperature when nothing is plugged in. And you could always get sockets with switches.
It costs resources simply to make the device. They tend to cost much more than the simple bricks, which means they use more resources than the simple bricks. And unlike the bricks which you have approx 1 per device, with outlets you need too many of them.
On the other hand, you could buy a single beefy converter (something that could manage a few amps) and then pass 5V DC cable along the regular AC wiring. Not sure about the efficiency of that, though.
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Interestingly this is actually a solved problem that we have forgotten the solution to. Copper naturally kills most pathogens. Brass door handles therefore act to prevent touch based spread of pathogens -- but plastic is cheaper.
I think it's not the price but the looks. Copper tends to oxidize and form an ugly green-ish hue of copper oxide, while proper plastics or other non-biocidic metal will not degrade in looks.
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I've never understood the desire to add smart technology to the smoke alarm. Once properly installed a smoke alarm should be interacted with when (1) there is a fire, (2) the battery is running flat. False alarms pretty much mean you've installed it wrong.
A friend of mine, a great cook, regularly performs what she refers to as The Dance of Smoke Alarm Supplication, wherein she and a broom jointly try to persuade the alarm gods that everything is fine. When she heard that there was a smoke alarm that would pop up a notification on her phone first so she could mute it with zero shrieking, she was very excited. It may be that her landlord installed it wrong, but landlord…
However in what scenario does a landlord install a £100 smoke alarm when s/he can install a £10 one though? No landlord I've ever had would have done this -- given that over here bills are paid by the tenant a thermostat is usually not provided.
Homeowners can at least move them when they realise they have installed them wrong.
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A smoke detector is there to alert the occupants of the building so that they get out. If it was an actual alarm system that is connected to a dispatcher, the firefighters would've been notified.
Yeah, as originally designed perhaps, but what if you could add a bit of tech to make sure your pets are safe? Or you're not coming home only to inhale carbon monoxide? I don't think $99 is a ridiculous expense for such peace of mind, even if it's not proven to be full proof just yet.
How would you get your pet out in time if your CO alarm or smoke alarm went off when you were at work?
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I've never understood the desire to add smart technology to the smoke alarm. Once properly installed a smoke alarm should be interacted with when (1) there is a fire, (2) the battery is running flat. False alarms pretty much mean you've installed it wrong.
That's not true - you're meant to test your smoke alarm weekly. Also false alarms can be the smoke detector acting correctly to the presence of smoke, eg. Burnt toast. In this case the ability to remotely check the alarm status from a self check, or to remotely snooze a false alarm while clearing the smoke can be very handy
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"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…
The business model part of your comment scares the crap out of me the more I let it sit. Case in point, printer manufacturers are now nlargely no longer selling individual b/w and color cartridges. They now sell them physically connected as a single block and when one color goes, you gotta toss the whole thing. And God help you if you try to refill with generics and void the warrNty. Now picture that applied to your…
It uses a scanner to authenticate the k-cups, and refuses to brew cups it determines as non-authentic.
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Same argument as "we rode on the back dashboard with no seat belts as a kid and we survived". Completely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of kids who didn't survive. Because the ones who were killed doing something dangerous aren't around anymore to tell you not to do it. Doesn't mean we should roll back the clock on car safety.
That's different because there's a clear mechanism and the data supports it. Is there a real study with a large enough sample size showing anything similar or is it just the usual convenience and artfully vague claims?
Completely pulling numbers out of my ass for sake of argument, for every 1000 babies that survive just fine without baby monitors, there might be one or two that didn't, because mom and dad stepped away and didn't notice the kid stop breathing. Really, people survived just fine without seat belts. We kept enough of the population to survive and even thrive as a species even in incredibly dangerous cars. But now that we have them and we recognize their value, would we go back?