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What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

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Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#11

Post by 24gttghh »

downer72 wrote: post #9
0xcde4c3db wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. A couple years ago I bought a network-attached hard drive with some kind of cloud backup service bundled (the current marketing-speak seems to be "personal cloud"); fortunately I did a little extra reading before opening it, because it wouldn't even let you set it up for local access without registering an account on the cloud service.

For sure, that’s what killed the Pebble watch for me. I got it home, opened the box, thinking I had a new watch! Nope. You have to connect it to the internet and let it phone home first. It would not tell time, permit you to manually set the time, or let you explore that watch at all, until it spoke with it’s mothership. I put it back in the box, and tossed it in the closet, and it’s still there, and now it’s complet…

Technically it is still usable, with an update that allows the watch to be de-tethered from the old Pebble servers[0], and there is an open-sourced version in active development as of this Spring[1].

[0]https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-u...

[1]https://rebble.io/

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#12

Post by npsimons »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #4

I'm of the opinion that products which require a separate service to perform their advertised functions (i.e. a "cloud" service-- be it "free" with the product or subscription-based) should be clearly labeled as such. I know that I don't actually own anything that I can't self-host (or pay whoever I want to host it), but it's clear that most people don't. Public education on this front seems valuable to me (but, then…

> I'm one of those crazy people who believes in standards-based protocols and commodity hosting service).

If that counts as crazy, then lock me up, because I'm crazy too. I'll second everything you said, but I'm not so sure it's entirely ignorance - I believe a large number of people just don't care (which is ignorance of another kind).

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#13

Post by seanmcdirmid »

In California, there is a law that basically everywhere (e.g. all apartment complexes) must have a sign that specifies that the compounds used on site can cause cancer or birth defects or whatever. But because the signs are pervasive, they are basically useless.

This feels kind of like that.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#14

Post by npsimons »

NKosmatos wrote: post #8

Interesting idea. I wonder how this would look like on commercial software packages :-) Yeah I'm an oldschooler that remembers buying software and games in actual physical boxes!!!

No lie, I still have games in physical boxes, and none of them phone home or require any sort of Internet connection to function. Almost as if they designed for http://offlinefirst.org/ instead of the other way around . . .

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#16

Post by jorvi »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13

In California, there is a law that basically everywhere (e.g. all apartment complexes) must have a sign that specifies that the compounds used on site can cause cancer or birth defects or whatever. But because the signs are pervasive, they are basically useless. This feels kind of like that.

It's what I call the WebMD problem, though it's much older. WebMD has to put 'cancer' as possible cause for nearly every symptom because otherwise they risk huge lawsuits. Another shining example is some chainsaws having the warning label 'do not stop saw with hands or genitals'. I've always wondered, to Europeans, sue happy cultures like China or America look absolutely bonkers, but how do these cultures view Europe where it concerns that segment of society.. toothless? Sensible?

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#17

Post by npsimons »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #13

In California, there is a law that basically everywhere (e.g. all apartment complexes) must have a sign that specifies that the compounds used on site can cause cancer or birth defects or whatever. But because the signs are pervasive, they are basically useless. This feels kind of like that.

> This feels kind of like that.

It might feel like that, but it isn't. Everything[1] causes cancer. Not everything needs to have an Internet connection to a service to function, not essentially at least. It's only these people looking to monetize or "h0ok all teh th7ngs up!!1!eleven!" that are shoveling crap that no one asked for, but everyone is too lazy to object to. I've got a pair of wireless earbuds, completely modern kickstarted project. They function not just without an Internet connection, but even without a paired device. You can load music onto them like an iPod (remember them? they didn't have to be connected to a cloud to have thousands of songs).

Good design is possible if you care; bad design is trying to shoehorn required "connectivity" into something that doesn't need it.

[1] - For certain values of everything.

Re: What If We Put Warnings on IoT Devices?

#18

Post by npsimons »

michaelfeathers wrote: post #15

It would be interesting to have a word for devices that is sort of like 'organic' for food. It would indicate that the device is self-contained and has no connectivity.

> It would be interesting to have a word for devices that is sort of like 'organic' for food.

> It would indicate that the device is self-contained and has no connectivity.

"Well-designed"?

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