As this website is called HackerNews, I would suggest to install rather one of the numerous IoT platform such as Home Assistant or OpenHAB, and connect one of your devices to it. A Raspberry Pi is more than enough to do the job.
Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
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Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#572Earlier 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…
That sounds like a startup opportunity there :)
Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very different. Smart speakers are much better at invading privacy.
No one has yet to provide an argument as to why "smart speakers are much better at invading privacy". For example, just this year my always-on, always-near-me iPhone was subject to an attack where anyone could call me on FaceTime and gain access to my microphone. This attack vector does not exist on my Google Home. So, why are smart speakers much better at invading privacy?
Smart speakers are designed to listen, obviously!
Streaming audio is not seen as suspicious.
Also they aren not phones and not using wifi, not LTE/4G uplinks, making it more easy to stream audio without hitting bandwidth caps or using too much battery.
It's way much easier to notice if a phone streams audio often and unnecessarily.