Could Google enable this feature without harming user privacy?
What if they allowed you to name SSIDs such as 'Home' or 'Work', and then when the app scanned for networks in your house it would only see 'Home'?
Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
101–110 of 176 posts
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi! You might be interested to know that the Turn Touch homepage starts playing audio as soon as it is opened. This was enough for me to close it and never come back, and I think this sentiment is reasonably widespread. I'm genuinely curios about the reason some people decide to add audio (or video for that matter, but audio is way worse) on autoplay. Do you enjoy when web pages you visit do it? Did you see from some…
Yikes! It's part of a hidden video that shouldn't play until you explicitly open it. What's your browser/OS? I tested on Chrome, Safari, and FF on mac as well as iOS. I also just added a muted attribute to the `video` tag so it should no longer do that even if I messed up the JS for some browser somewhere. I encourage you to try it once again to confirm.
No issues here, tested on Chrome and FF (win 8.1)
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#103Quite a few "smart home" devices use location information to determine when the sun rises and sets.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#104At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…
Does anyone know of a good (from a privacy and usability perspective) alternative to Sonos? I plan to buy 5-6 of them sometime later this year, and for what that costs, they have no excuse to data-harvest me.
Low cost SBC (Raspberry Pi, etc) and whatever speakers you'd like. Airsonic or a basic UPnP server as your driver.
Take it a step further (if you prefer portability of sound quality) and get an SBC with a bluetooth adapter, and several bluetooth modules which you can rig up to each speaker.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#105At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…
"... Unfortunately I have a Sonos system ..."
How very funny - as I read the OP and was clicking into the HN comments, all that I had on my mind was "Sonos".
I wish I had the time to clearly and succinctly elucidate the path of Sonos, corrupted by the mobile ecosystem and a reach for easy profits, from a darling hardware provider that users loved to a wannabe data broker that I hate-use.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can I ask how it works to protect my data from Sonos? Don't they still get all the same data?
What you do with the remote is between you and what you control. I store anonymous metrics that I use to gauge usage levels but you can turn that off. Sonos undoubtedly takes your listening habits and profits off that data but Turn Touch does not, even though it has access to that data.
> I store anonymous metrics that I use to gauge usage levels
How valuable has that data proven to be? Is it worth collecting?
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#107At least they acknowledged it, responded to the feedback and fixed it. Unfortunately I have a Sonos system which became effectively bricked unless I signed a new user agreement allowing the collection of data. There are no physical controls on Sonos so the system becomes useless without accepting. They used to sell dedicated controllers/remotes years ago but these were also bricked as part of an upgrade about a year…
Sounds like lawmakers need to enforce warnings labels on such products: „works only with sensitive data collection“ or similar.
The label would be useless at this point. You know how in California everything causes cancer? This would be the same.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that reasoning, nothing is; even GPS signals aren't tied to geographic locations, you infer it based on timing calculations. BSSIDs can be easily mapped to a location using free and readily-available services. They are as good as most geolocation mechanisms you can get.
Thanks to how difficult GPS signals can be indoors, they can be better than some other geolocation mechanisms. Google did this for the right reasons.
Yes. The reason is showing ads and spying on their users. Right reasons for THEM.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well I agree lots of times what the app wants is innocuous, I'd still rather have the message than not. Maybe an option to open up a more detailed description of what the app wants the permissions for?
Yes there should be much finer detail in permissions.
But we've done research on this. Fine grained permissions don't work, even for people who claim to be knowledgeable. It sounds like a good idea until you look at the papers.
Re: Why Does My Remote Control Need to Know My Location?
#110I think the obvious glaring flaw here is deciding to have a remote control for an amplifier run Android. Why on earth would that be necessary?