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Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

bbc.com

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Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#541

Post by nilram »

finestkludge wrote: post #519
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier 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…

Nothing, in my opinion, but I do have a sort of funny story about IoT thermostats. My SO's dad is a gadgets guy, and he travels constantly for work. He is also incredibly vigilant about bills. They're the kind of family that can't touch the thermostat until a certain time of year, weighs insurance costs into every decision they make, etc. Anyways, when he was traveling—even in cold months—he would see the thermostat…

Classic story I heard was of a landlord who locked the thermostat in a plastic air-flow case. The college roommates who lived at the residence learned to strap an ice pack to it. Hilarity ensued when the landlord would come by to check on the heating system.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#542

Post by ChristianBundy »

icebraining wrote: post #528
jammygit wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn’t it just have a lcd display with a scrolling alert message? Maybe even a red light that turns on to draw attention.

"I could turn off the unit remotely to prevent stress on the compressor"

Good point. In my experience an air conditioner is something that you use when you're home, so turning it off remotely doesn't make any sense, but I suppose other people might AC their house while they're gone all day?

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#543

Post by dreamcompiler »

homero wrote: post #507
dreamcompiler wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved my Nest thermostat when I first bought it. I could change the set point with my phone without getting out of bed, or set the house to the right temperature before I got home. It would automatically go into energy-saving mode if nobody was home. I could track my long-term energy usage with an app on my phone. That was all very nice, but then Nest blew it. They kept forcing firmware updates to the thermostat th…

I got a dumb but wifi Sensi thermostat, glad i did

From the Sensi website: "As existing features are enhanced and new features are released, your thermostat software is kept up-to-date automatically."

No thanks. Been there, done that. With a simple device like a thermostat, I don't want the thing changing all the time. Security updates are fine but every update needs to be under my control and the device should be designed with a mechanical switch that restores the previous version of the firmware.

And really even security updates should be unnecessary if the code is written in a type-safe language with good security practices.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#544

Post by timc3 »

_salmon wrote: post #265
mr_overalls wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. Are there any good open-source projects for AI assistants? There certainly seems to be a need.

Yep, Home Assistant - https://www.home-assistant.io/

That is not an AI assistant.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#545

Post by techsupporter »

finestkludge wrote: post #519
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier 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…

Nothing, in my opinion, but I do have a sort of funny story about IoT thermostats. My SO's dad is a gadgets guy, and he travels constantly for work. He is also incredibly vigilant about bills. They're the kind of family that can't touch the thermostat until a certain time of year, weighs insurance costs into every decision they make, etc. Anyways, when he was traveling—even in cold months—he would see the thermostat…

This was also the subject of a Judge John Hodgman episode: https://www.maximumfun.org/judge-john-hodgman/judge-john-hod...

(He’s the “PC guy” from the Apple commercials, among many other performances, and he has a podcast where he acts as a more cerebral and empathetic Judge Wapner, hearing “cases” and making rulings. The show has quite the internal lore, complete with local court rules, standing, and binding precedent.)

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#546

Post by dang »

teslafanboi22 wrote: post #243
cptskippy wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nest/Google Home devices have a hardware mute button. They are off when they are off. Can you cite where Google says that the mute switch is a hardware kill switch for the mics? I've only read where they say that it doesn't listen but never that it physically disables the mics which means it's done in software and the device could be "muted" and still able to listen. Unless the mute switch is a physical disconnect…

Google it you lazy fuck, yes they repeatedly say it's a hardware disconnect

Abusing HN like this will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#547

Post by dang »

groby_b wrote: post #419
nwalker85 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or you could spend time with your kids, educating them to actually function as adults. But I suppose conditioning them for life in a surveillance society does that job.

That crosses into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#548

Post by beefalo »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #542
icebraining wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I could turn off the unit remotely to prevent stress on the compressor"

Good point. In my experience an air conditioner is something that you use when you're home, so turning it off remotely doesn't make any sense, but I suppose other people might AC their house while they're gone all day?

If you live somwhere that might be >100 degrees, you can't just turn the AC off all day

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#549

Post by jkestner »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #543
homero wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a dumb but wifi Sensi thermostat, glad i did

From the Sensi website: "As existing features are enhanced and new features are released, your thermostat software is kept up-to-date automatically." No thanks. Been there, done that. With a simple device like a thermostat, I don't want the thing changing all the time. Security updates are fine but every update needs to be under my control and the device should be designed with a mechanical switch that restores the p…

I don’t want my complex devices changing all the time either. Just updated my desktop to last year's macOS and it caused a cascade of changes from dependencies I wasn’t ready for. Same with the latest version of Xcode, and the auto-updated text editor that went to subscription for the features I had paid for already.

I got Sensis too. Best compromise I could find, avoided connecting to the internet until I couldn’t find another way to program them. Suppose I could disconnect them now.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#550

Post by tjansen »

jeremyjh wrote: post #361
fluffything wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and a few other parlor tricks. I don't really understand why the device needs to store my recording and send it over the internet. I would be willing to pay more for a device that guarantees that my recordings are deleted immediately.

Echo does this - only wake word phrases are sent to the internet - but it is not guaranteed by the hardware. Also your failed requests - where it recognized the wake word but not the request - are listened to by QA people. Those could easily be private conversations with an accidental wake word.

A simple work-around on Echos is to enable the wake word notification pling. Then you immediately notice that the Echo is listening.
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