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Amazon Sidewalk

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Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#461

Post by tehwebguy »

pupdogg wrote: post #454
tehwebguy wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make this happen consider making them more easily serviceable too. My guess is TVs are a big landfill problem because they are too inexpensive for most people to bother getting repaired. Personally my ~8-10 y/o Samsung LED has a periodic problem that I’ve been diagnosing with YouTube, it seems like a lot of issues are caused by something simple like loose connectors inside.

Except for the LCD panel itself, everything else (the controller, PSU, wire harnesses, connectors, etc) are already easily serviceable. If you can build a computer, you can service this display. A big bonus with my industrial design would be that the casing itself is made out of metal and harder to damage than plastic casing of most large format displays. For your specific case, is that a consumer grade panel? What i…

Awesome! Yeah it’s a super thin, dumb TV and other than the fact that black shots always revealed some inconsistent lighting on it it’s decent. The recent problem is that once in a while a vertical segment (probably 1/5 or 1/6 of the width of the screen) is discolored and mostly black.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#462

Post by pupdogg »

zschuessler wrote: post #445
pupdogg wrote: post #363

If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…

I don't know if this falls in your vision or not, probably not, but I'll say I would pay top-dollar for an Android TV that was veritably privacy focused. I purchased a Sony TV that runs Android and adore it. I initially purchased it because it was a no-nonsense take on Android with high-rated privacy support. Sadly, over the past year they have begun introducing ads, promotions, and privacy policy readjustments that…

Keeping PRIVACY a top priority, my ultimate vision would be to move away from these so called app stores. Considering the current state of things, I know that sounds very unrealistic. However, something inside me still tells me that if you create something of value, they will come!

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#463

Post by nine_k »

tw04 wrote: post #354
nine_k wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose that the smart part's hardware is below $10, it's not much more advanced than a RPi. OK, $20 if it includes a decent camera for video calls. But its presence can be sold for a hundred more, because the consumers apparently... want these features? Things like YouTube, Netflix, video calls, etc. And, of course, voice control.

> I suppose that the smart part's hardware is below $10, it's not much more advanced than a RPi. OK, $20 if it includes a decent camera for video calls. Citation? Because I find that assumption outlandish. I've watched them replace the control board in my 7 year old Vizio TV, the hardware is significantly better than anything but the highest end current RPi. Dual core cpu, quad core gpu, AC wifi, 8gb of memory, and t…

My idea is that chips themselves, sold in bulk, are but a fraction of the cost of the complete control board. Assembly and testing easily double the cost. For a consumer device like RPi, also shipping, packaging, and markup add, say, 50% on top.

For a TV manufacturer, most of these costs don't appear because they just need to add a few components to an existing PCB, and add more tests for them.

The other part of costs is licensing and/or development of software, its ongoing maintenance, extended tech support (online, phone), maybe sometimes content deals (a free month of Netflix, or something).

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#464

Post by ActorNightly »

bredren wrote: post #440
ActorNightly wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? Amazon certainly does treat user privacy seriously. When is the last time you have heard of any data leaks from Amazon? Meanwhile, Apple App store still is littered with apps that violate user privacy. Also, did we already forget about the celebrity photo iCloud leak due to poor authentication?

Every customer purchase made through Amazon that is FBA results in the customer's name and address being made available to a 3rd party. Often Amazon customers do not realize that their purchases result in this information sharing, and since control of the Buy Box shifts constantly there is no obvious way to be informed about this or choose which businesses to exclude. It is possible to own the Buy Box for a very pers…

...This is not even close to a "privacy" violation.

When you buy something from a store, they get that information without Amazon in the middle by default (billing address, shipping address, CC info). As a seller, you want this information so you can see who is buying your product and optimize around that, in the same way that as a buyer, you want the most information possible about the product and competing alternatives.

Also, Amazon can and does kick sellers off for abusing data.

Meanwhile, when you buy an iPhone or Macbook, from the moment it gets an internet connection it starts phoning home sending tracking info on you, with no way to disable it. And its absolutely silly to be ok with Apple collecting data but not any other 3d party - from your perspective, Apple is 3d party, and if you trust them with your data despite a history of violations, then you probably don't really care about privacy as much as you think.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#465

Post by asimpletune »

pupdogg wrote: post #363

If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…

Can it support AirPlay? I hate how AirPlay enabled devices can be so expensive.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#467

Post by 8ytecoder »

pupdogg wrote: post #454
tehwebguy wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you make this happen consider making them more easily serviceable too. My guess is TVs are a big landfill problem because they are too inexpensive for most people to bother getting repaired. Personally my ~8-10 y/o Samsung LED has a periodic problem that I’ve been diagnosing with YouTube, it seems like a lot of issues are caused by something simple like loose connectors inside.

Except for the LCD panel itself, everything else (the controller, PSU, wire harnesses, connectors, etc) are already easily serviceable. If you can build a computer, you can service this display. A big bonus with my industrial design would be that the casing itself is made out of metal and harder to damage than plastic casing of most large format displays. For your specific case, is that a consumer grade panel? What i…

My LG display went black. The panel itself was working fine because the logo shows up when it powers up. When I checked online it said it’s the controller. I looked into the cost of replacing it - it was more expensive than the price I paid for the tv itself. Ended up replacing the tv entirely.

I don’t care much about the panel issues - a few dead pixels I can live with and anything worse I’d rather replace it. But everything else should be easily swappable.

Also, I’m assuming you’d at the minimum support HDR and preferably Dolby Vision and Atmos. How easy/hard is that?

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#468

Post by gonehome »

pupdogg wrote: post #363

If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…

I think there’s a market for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26290427

“Make it OLED, dumb TV, instant on, Apple TV box plugs in. Separate box with front facing ports that connects to screen with one cable. A remote designed by someone who thought about it for ten seconds (why do modern TVs have dozens of buttons no one ever uses?).

This entire market is in desperate need of someone to make something decent. The best available option today is LG and it’s still laden with ads and takes a few seconds to boot up.”

I would buy one at least, there’s definitely some low hanging fruit.

I'd probably even lean into it and name the company 'dumb electronics', plus there's a nice sort of symmetry to the word 'dumb' and 'db' would be a decent logo.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#469

Post by atonse »

crazygringo wrote: post #453
hwbehrens wrote: post #433

I do research on mesh networking, and the response to Sidewalk in the tech community has been pretty discouraging. People have rightly brought up Apple's Find My network as a similar application; companies are leveraging existing, ubiquitous devices to create additional network transport layers. See also, the proliferation and adoption of the Thread protocol. This doesn't mean we have to use these networks! But this…

Thank you. I'm baffled by how positive the HN community was to AirTags, but not to this...? And aren't more networks a good thing? Shouldn't there be another competitor here? Also, I'm not sure where people are getting that Amazon is bad at privacy. Amazon isn't Facebook, nor is it even Google Analytics, nor has it been involved in any user/privacy data scandal I can think of. I mean, most of the criticism of Amazon…

That's because there's deceptive language here.

There's lots of details out there about the great lengths Apple has gone to preserve actual privacy with AirTags. AirTags have been designed so nobody, not the random device holder, or even Apple, can ever see any information.

But look at Amazon's language on "privacy" - they basically say "everything is encrypted" which is essentially meaningless for privacy. It's meaningful for _security_.

And that is the difference. There's no evidence that Amazon has actually tried to create a system that respects the user's privacy (including from Amazon). Secure, yes. Private? no.

Re: Amazon Sidewalk

#470

Post by cactus2093 »

pupdogg wrote: post #363

If anyone is interested, I wouldn't mind collaborating to create a privacy oriented SmartTV or PC for devs or simply an industrial grade dumb TV. I have experience designing and building 70" industrial displays that utilize Samsung LCD panels. These "industrial" panels are normally twice the price of consumer grade ones but are designed to operate 24/7 with a MTBF of 100k hours (approx. 11 years) and are usually twic…

Would this dumb tv support things like eARC and HDMI CEC? It would be nice to buy a TV without the builtin streaming apps (and the inevitable advertising and phoning home that comes along with it), because I prefer to use a separate device like an Apple TV anyway. But there are some useful features in modern TVs that do seem to require the processing power of a smart TV.
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