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How do you move out of a smarthome?

shkspr.mobi

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Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#171

Post by fujiters »

kmmlng wrote: post #166
cr1895 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "take the floor with you when you leave the apartment" thing that is common in the Netherlands is really very bizarre to Americans.

Not just to Americans. I'm an expat in the Netherlands and interact with lots of people who came here from various different countries. It's bizarre to everyone. Seems like there are two options. (1) You can do it the Dutch way, i.e. every time someone moves they'll have to take their floors out. Those floors often won't fit into your new apartment, so you're just creating lots of waste. Not to mention all the effort…

Ripping up floors is an actual thing there?? I assumed the original poster was speaking metaphorically about how much gets taken out. I wonder how that practice got started. It's almost impossible to reuse floors.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#172

Post by ajford »

bdod6 wrote: post #160
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

I can see some use of things like Nest which keeps your electric usage efficient and low. Agree that other things are way over-hyped though. Look at how hard Amazon has been pushing Alexa for years now, and the shopping experience on it is still terrible. For very specific use cases, it works kinda well (i.e. order more household supplies that I've ordered 100x before). For anything else, it's much easier and faster…

As a shopping platform, Alexa is shit. Nobody wants to shop by voice. Unless maybe you're visually impaired. But I can't skim reviews or anything like that via Alexa.

But, I love the Echo so much, I recently upgraded from a single Dot to a full Echo and added two more Dots to the house.

Being able to ask Alexa for a weather forecast while getting dressed in the morning is great. Asking Alexa to play music or change songs/volume while I'm doing the dishes without drying my hands and fiddling with my phone is awesome. Setting kitchen timers while my hands are dirty from cooking, or while I'm putting something into the oven (I tend to forget if I wait until I've walked away from the oven) is pretty damn useful.

My kids love asking Alexa questions, and some of the skills (like the Magic Door) are huge hits with them.

Overall, I think assuming the Echo is meant for shopping is a bad assumption. It is meant to pull you into the Amazon ecosystem (Echosystem?), but I don't think voice shopping will ever be successful.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#173

Post by Silhouette »

ensignavenger wrote: post #144
Silhouette wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The not adding value to the house bit is important. Nobody really knows about or cares enough about home automation to justify an added expense on the cost of the home. I'd actually go further. I do care about home automation, because it is almost certainly a negative and possibly a deal-breaker for me to put any offer in to buy a place. If it has anything installed that has any form of off-site access or any depende…

"if there is anything installed that relies on any sort of sensors" So, no smoke or CO2 alarms in your house?

Especially things like those. If you can give me evidence they are properly set up, working, and compliant with all applicable advice and regulations, that's great, I'll be happy to have them. Otherwise, get rid of them, and I'll get my own properly fitted by a suitably qualified professional, thanks. Those things save lives, and I'm not going to cut corners to save a few bucks, only to find that your hack job installer didn't connect them to repeat alarms properly throughout the building, or you used some trendy junk that doesn't actually work reliably if the power goes out, Internet is down, or some other dumb thing that should have nothing at all to do with safety systems ever.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#174

Post by fps »

abiox wrote: post #146
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

while i'm very skeptical of cloud-only smart-home devices, i'm absolutely all in on the general premise. i want to have every even remotely conceivable automation and assistance at my whim. if there isn't a secure lan-only option, then let's (as a community) create either open source options or start a business focusing on this as a competitive advantage.

Home assistant (https://home-assistant.io/) combined with zwave devices gives you an open source controller and a LAN only network of things. You can also to in to hundreds of existing devices/platforms. The platform is growing rapidly in capabilities and integrations.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#175

Post by owlmirror »

bdamm wrote: post #161
npongratz wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Clapper never needed to phone home to the mothership.

Modern voice activated neural nets don't either. I don't buy voice activated appliances specifically because they are online, but with a new generation of offline neural nets, I just may revisit that choice.

Offline IoT/smart appliances will never become viable again. They simply can't compete with products that mine and sell your data.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#176

Post by WorldMaker »

sowbug wrote: post #158
WorldMaker wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can print out private keys (and passwords, etc) and put them in Trust. If you are feeling paranoid that you can't trust your Trustees, you can use something like Shamir's Secret Sharing algorithm [1] to give individual Trustees only a portion of the private keys (or passwords, etc). I explored at one point if there was a market for an app to automate that last part, but so far such noodling keeps winding up at a…

Trust is only part of the problem. It's also competence on the part of the recipients to combine the Shamir parts, correctly pick Segwit vs Legacy chains, not send BCH to a BTC address, not email their private keys to the Geek Squad, and then not get it all swiped on their malware-infested PC.

The joke answer is "At that point, what do you care, you're dead?"

The long answer is that's all part of setting up a Trust for your estate, picking Trustees that can execute your Trust responsibly/competently when the time comes, and picking recipient heirs as well that can benefit from your property. All of that is a long conversation to have between you and your lawyer and your heirs.

(In that way, Shamir's Secret Sharing is simply a modern technical/mathematical equivalent to bequeathing your heirs a puzzle box with a safety deposit key in it. If your heirs can't solve the puzzle box, do they deserve the contents of that safety deposit box?)

That said, there probably is a role for some of the cryptocurrency exchanges to play as possible Trustees in an estate, just as banks large and small play into many estates for the transfer of wealth. It could be a feature the exchanges could offer whereby they help liquidate a cryptocurrency as a part of executing a Trust.

(I would also not be surprised if there was at least one person building a Rube Goldberg machine in Ethereum smart contracts where on proof of their death the contracts execute transactions to an exchange sell order with forwarding instructions to Western Union telegraph the money to a loved one's postal address.)

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#177

Post by stefan69 »

SN76477 wrote: post #137
titzer wrote: post #135

I just. don't. get. it. All of this home automation and internet of things hype is going to end in tears. Computers are just. not. secure. They're not even necessary in these applications. I don't want tech that includes massive amounts of software doing the job of simple things. It just is not necessary. I'll walk over to the lightswitch and turn the lights on. I'll set the thermostat and use its old-school timers t…

Im with you. I feel that we never stopped to ask ourselves how will this make the world better. Sure automatically tweeting my pics is cute, but does it improve my life or anyones lives? We are simply chasing novelty.

This.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#178

Post by subway »

Chaebixi wrote: post #165
mcguire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just reading a review of a sous vide stick the other day that mentioned that issue. Fortunately, it supported Bluetooth...

Even Bluetooth is a no-go. What happens if the control is app no longer available or drops support for your model? Something like a sous vide stick should have control buttons. Ditto for stuff like Roombas. I've noticed all the new ones have their schedules set via an app. WTF? My current one has buttons and that works just fine. I'm seriously thinking of getting a spare now. Smartphones are great solution for contro…

I think Bluetooth could be doable; assuming their use of the protocol is well documented and open to 3rd party implementation. For a lot of these devices, the API could be described in AT commands (flung over any of several bluetooth profiles) pretty easily.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#179

Post by mikeash »

khedoros1 wrote: post #169
mikeash wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This scenario is covered under "If it doesn't work, you call a garage door or HVAC company and they fix it." Your typical HN reader is probably willing and able to reprogram the thing on their own, but this is not normal.

You say it's covered; I disagree, which is why I responded. HVAC? Maybe; it's sometimes hooked into the gas lines, with wiring through the walls and such. I feel like it's condescending to assume that most people would be unwilling or unable to pair a remote with a garage door opener, though.

"Condescending" may very well be accurate, but that doesn't make the statement wrong.

Re: How do you move out of a smarthome?

#180

Post by ensignavenger »

Silhouette wrote: post #173
ensignavenger wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if there is anything installed that relies on any sort of sensors" So, no smoke or CO2 alarms in your house?

Especially things like those. If you can give me evidence they are properly set up, working, and compliant with all applicable advice and regulations, that's great, I'll be happy to have them. Otherwise, get rid of them, and I'll get my own properly fitted by a suitably qualified professional, thanks. Those things save lives, and I'm not going to cut corners to save a few bucks, only to find that your hack job instal…

All smoke alarms use sensors, whether or not they are connected to the Internet.
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