Smart toothbrush heads must be in the running for the most needless use of sophisticated electronics.
Hard to compete against the Bluetooth enabled one-time-use pregnancy test.
Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
271–280 of 311 posts
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely is a very strong statement here. I see no reason that a properly designed electronic timer wouldn't have effectively infinite lifetime, which is not possible with a practical mechanical timer. It has no moving parts (other than switches, which can be substituted for capacitive touch). A mechanical timer has many small mechanical parts and wear points, and can get gummed up over time if it doesn't outright stop…
I'm willing to believe that the best electronic switches can last longer than the best mechanical switches, but there's so many more ways for an electronic switch to fail that it's a lot easier for me to trust an off-the-shelf mechanical switch than an off-the-shelf electronic one, especially if the cost of failure of the mechanical switch is just an easy swap in of another one.
In what ways can a purely electronic, no moving parts, switch fail?
There are so many different mechanical things that can break, jam, get gummed up...
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#273I own an IT company in a town (Yeovil, UK) on an acre plot with a roughly four acre plot next door. We have a fair few busy roads adjoining our place - A30 and A37.
I have deployed Home Assistant on a laptop with a fair few dongles (Zwave/Zigbee etc) but its built in Bluetooth has noticed loads of toothbrushes - Oral B. I also see lots of some sort of plant auto water thingies and loads of lights.
Our office is next to a roundabout that sees at least 30,000 cars a day on one side. I've turned off the car integrations and several others because HA went a bit mad.
I see a lot of data that I don't want to without trying and it gets in the way. I do encourage people to stop leaking.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure you can even buy "just works" dumb mechanical scales any more. You can, they're just more expensive (relatively speaking) because they cost more to make.
Not my much, even; the analog scale on amazon is $27, compared to $20-30 for most digital scales.
Do they have the same accuracy?
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#275Great article, the most interesting part of which is that you can lock your self out of your toothbrush head after three wrong password attempts. I didn't dig into the data sheet for the NFC chip very deeply, but I imagine that it's just the default that the chip ships with. Or maybe Philips really wants that $25 for a new toothbrush head. :-) EDIT: nope, not the default. From the data sheet, last sentence: "To preve…
Welcome Time Travellers! This is 2023 where you can find yourself locked out of your toothbrush after too many failed password attempts.
"Unauthorised Bread"
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-...
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s 5-something in the morning and I can’t stop laughing at the mental image of some guy cackling maniacally in the toiletry aisle while DoSing toothbrushes. The absolute personification of Chaotic Neutral
It’s such a funny idea, comic book villainous. Fear the Toothbrush Terrorist!
Dr. Doofenshmirtz would definitely do this.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
My pet peeve with bathroom scales is that it is impossible to find one that actually does what it claims and has accuracy of +-0.1kg. They do show the measurement to 0.1, but just shifting your weight differently can cause a difference of hundreds of grams. Does anyone knlw a scale that actually measures at 0.1kg accuracy?
After a ton of research I got an AccuCheck scale (~$30 on Amazon) which I'm happy with, and at least avoids most of the problems with modern digital scales. Clean minimalist look. Takes 3 AAA batteries. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084SFRSBD/ It claims 0.1 lb accuracy, and seems pretty repeatable, but I haven't tested it for accuracy. These digital scales have multiple sensors (this one has 4), so it makes sens…
0.1lb is ~0.5kg so same precision as parent. 0.1kg is 0.22lb, or literally glass half full of water, or slightly less than two Medium eggs, or 2/3 an empty glass itself, or 2/3 an iPhone, etc. 0.1lb/0.5kg/500g is about 16 fluid ounce in water, so it's probably a good balance point.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#278What? Has the world become so complicated? In my impression, only toothbrush knowledge has added a micro motor, does it really need to be so only?
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of the time I bought a lamp plug-in dimmer on Amazon, and I noticed that my "personal massager" was one of the "frequently bought with" items. My wife and I had a lot of fun that night! Turns out the "personal massagers" work a lot better that way.
Wait, personal massagers are generally battery operated. How does this work with a plug in lamp dimmer.
Because it plugs in to a wall outlet.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Notice I didn't use the word lie or liar, because the traditional definitions require intent to deceive. We rarely have access to each other's true intentions, so I don't think it is a useful term to use in these discussions. What I believe is that we shouldn't be afraid of calling out people who casually spout easily disproven bullshit to make their argument. Saying you can only call out someone for being wrong does…
> If they aren't a liar, then they are at best intellectually dishonest "Intellectually dishonest" is just a polite way to say "liar". There's no need to go after someone personally when it's sufficient to simply point out that their statement was wrong. Why it was wrong isn't really important.
Hey if you’re going to lie to people, then prepare to be called out about it. Lying for rhetorical effect is still lying. Their intent is obvious in the rest of the post where their disdain for IoT things is clear. We don’t need to see in to the mind’s eye to know this - the balance of probabilities is enough for me.
The other option is for me to assume that the guy is unintelligent and incapable - which do you think that they’d prefer to be characterised as?