[deleted]
Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
391–400 of 573 posts
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
All "big tech" are at it, I tried to go to "My Pictures" the other day and microsoft asked me to run my pictures through facial recognition. They said that by consenting I was asserting I had the consent of anyone who appeared in any of my photos or might appear in future which is insane to ask of anyone, no-one can really give that third party consent. Then when I refused they showed me a nag screen which didn't hav…
Up until recently I couldn't actually do much with google maps on my phone because I have restricted it from using microphone. An error would pop up on every simple address lookup
I don't think your issue was related to microphone permission. I have never allowed the microphone permission to Google Maps and haven't faced any such issues.
Disc: Googler.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…
A programmable keypad is nice. I have a Z-wave one which can notify my Smarthings hub which notifies me when it's locked or unlocked. The Nest thermostat allows me to control the heat remotely. These two things are great for rental properties. Guests often forget to lock the door, I have records of when guests or maintenance people are coming or going, I can adjust the heat to 55 when nobody is there which saves a lo…
I have kids. They forget to turn off lights, mess with my thermostat, leave doors unlocked. The peace of mind of being able to remotely check/access/control all of this is great.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…
Why does a thermostat integrate with cameras and microphones anyway? Do they have any internal one? Anyway, I do really want a smart home lock. Just changing the shape of the keys so that they would stop puncturing my pockets when I walk would be enough of a gain. I also want a programmable bedroom light that can slowly dim on at morning. I don't have those because the costs are much higher than the benefits. I'm sur…
Shameless plug: we - at Crownstone - have an open source plug or built-in switch with with wake-up functionality. I don't know if it's too smart, but if it is, I'm fine with you flashing adjusted firmware to make it dumber. :-)
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does a thermostat integrate with cameras and microphones anyway? Do they have any internal one? Anyway, I do really want a smart home lock. Just changing the shape of the keys so that they would stop puncturing my pockets when I walk would be enough of a gain. I also want a programmable bedroom light that can slowly dim on at morning. I don't have those because the costs are much higher than the benefits. I'm sur…
> I also want a programmable bedroom light that can slowly dim on at morning. FWIW, a lot of cheap CFL bulbs do this on their own. It's one of the reasons I hate CFLs for most uses, but I've come to appreciate that the light in my kids' room starts at about half (perceived) brightness and takes a minute or two to warm up.
I think the key part is that the bulbs come on automatically, not necessarily the ramping up of brightness.
I don't really care about brightness ramping, I just have my bedroom Hue bulbs come on at max brightness at 6500K at 5:00 every morning, switch to 2700K at noon, and 2000K (and dimmer) at 20:00.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#396Legislation we need: "smart" devices need to come packaged with labels for people to put on their door warning guests that there is audio recording equipment inside and no expectation of privacy can be provided.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
I value privacy, my nest thermostat is the only IoT device in my house that talks to the internet or can be accessed remotely without a VPN. What I find most valuable is it programs itself. Am I cold? Turn it up a bit, hot? Turn it down a bit. Suddenly I have stopped having to adjust it at all. Even as life has changed. It has some nice other features, such as preheating/cooling, telling me how long it will take to g…
Ok, but what on this list actually requires an internet connection? I guess the integration with your power company. But aside from that? You could put a local AI model into the Nest, and it shouldn't need to talk to the internet at all. It can keep the data locally, and be programmed to draw inferences without help from the mothership. For some reason we've decided it's ok to gratuitously connect everything to the i…
Just taking a guess...besides integration with the power company, an internet connection can be useful for plenty of things. Weather forecasts and aggregating local user behavior to improve predictions of how to adjust settings more accurately over time. Talk to your mobile device to know when you're getting near home to pop out of an eco mode. A heartbeat to the cloud so it can notify you when the power is out. Lots of possibilities you wouldn't get with a local-only mode.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…
A programmable keypad is nice. I have a Z-wave one which can notify my Smarthings hub which notifies me when it's locked or unlocked. The Nest thermostat allows me to control the heat remotely. These two things are great for rental properties. Guests often forget to lock the door, I have records of when guests or maintenance people are coming or going, I can adjust the heat to 55 when nobody is there which saves a lo…
It sounds like you have short-term rental properties, aka unregulated hotels, or more accurately regulation-skirting residential businesses. In normal rentals, guests are called tenants, and in most places tenants have all the same privacy rights as property owners. Therefore, a landlord having access to or retaining any information about door usage or audio-video of the property would likely be illegal. Perhaps a camera pointed at the driveway and public street for security purposes, but even then only with full disclosure to the tenant. Frankly, I wouldn't rent anywhere the owner had installed his/her own cameras--if necessary for security, I'd install my own.
Of course, the same privacy rights also likely apply to short-term guests as well, but while everyone is skirting regulations, what's a bit of surveillance in addition. I mean you've basically admitted (why people can't just shut up when they break the law) that you record your guests in outside areas where they can expect privacy (sounds like the hot tub). That people make movies in places they expect privacy (shocking), and of course you don't look at any of those skinny-dipping videos wink wink. Funny how unregulated businesses attracting unregulated activities still like to have some way to regulate their guests--and do so likely illegally.
Yeah, I know, some airbnb guests can be jerks, abuse the crap out of your investment, I mean second-home you couldn't afford without hotel-income. But you don't deal with the bad apples by violating the rights of everyone else, at least unless you want to invite scrutiny and regulation into your activities.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you own a cell phone?
He mentions that he does. The thing is everyone has a cellphone, even many kids. Invite half a dozen people over and you’ll get half a dozen cellphones. I have a couple of Amazon Echos, plus iOS devices that occasionally activate Siri for no reason. I love them. My feeling is that I’m willing to live with it for now. Hopefully, a decade from now, voice technology is perfected and more is done on device.
There is never going to come a day when any of these companies give you more control over your devices. Why would they? Thats their entire competitive advantage.
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lazy engineering gets to market first, and if most users don't find it harmful, the company wins?
Yes, spying on users is a cheap way to get results. The fact that incentives exist to violate user privacy is not an excuse to violate user privacy.
Giant piles of cash can buy many excuses. ;)