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I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#621

Post by DanielHB »

ldng wrote: post #579
DanielHB wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An appliance could just have blutooth so it can connect to an app on your phone. With the machine not having a direct internet connection, the app can collect diagnostics, metrics and do software updates. Require you to press a button in the machine to pair it to your phone. 99% of the functionality with 0 annoyance and ~0 security/privacy risks.

Why ?! Audio diagnostic is passive and (I suppose/hope) associated with a button (?). Can we stop putting obligatory (hackable) active network devices everywhere ?

For basic diagnostics that is enough, but if you want to do more data-intensive stuff (including software updates) you need something more.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#622

Post by agilob »

tpmoney wrote: post #538
agilob wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If taking a stand means sacrificing another 2-4 hours >Plus, now I have a long-term project to hack my dishwasher. So you'd rather waste more time, probably days or weeks, on a hack where Bosch can change implementation anytime, than return it?

People will make the choices that are rational for them. When your job is making content about hacking stuff, wasting 8 hours on hacking a dishwasher that both generates content and generates useful information for other people is a better use of time than wasting 4 hours returning a dishwasher in the hopes that you personally will be the straw that breaks the IoT camel’s back.

so the next step here is Bosch puts eco mode behind a paywall.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#623

Post by kube-system »

kroltan wrote: post #555
kube-system wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's annoying, but it's not a paywall. > All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it. For a dishwasher yes, but I don't agree with that as a blanket statement. There are cloud connected devices that I really like. e.g. I like to run my Roomba on-demand after I leave my house, and I think that's an entirely reasonable use case. Many ot…

The internet doesn't need to be the cloud. Security cameras are the classic example of widespread self hosted but internet-accessible. Even the ones that have proprietary apps are often just alternative frontends to a web server running on the home network.

It does when the end user is being a NAT and a firewall and they don't know how to configure it. Legacy IPs cameras are notorious for being difficult-to-impossible for consumers to install, and when they managed to do so, they were often set up insecurely.

The typical MJPEG/ONVIF camera doesn't even remotely compete for the same customers as Ring/Nest/Blink.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#624

Post by DanielHB »

phkahler wrote: post #511
DanielHB wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An appliance could just have blutooth so it can connect to an app on your phone. With the machine not having a direct internet connection, the app can collect diagnostics, metrics and do software updates. Require you to press a button in the machine to pair it to your phone. 99% of the functionality with 0 annoyance and ~0 security/privacy risks.

Yes! I've been thinking about bluetooth and a standard protocol and generic app. You'd get basic gui functionality for any compliant device, showing whatever device specific stuff the manufacturer wants. Kinda of like a bluetooth X-terminal, but way way simpler. Think tkinter over bluetooth, probably sans canvas. A bunch of people will say to just use wifi, make the device a Hotspot, and use your web browser. That's…

If you afford a bluetooth chip you can definitely definitely afford a CPU that can push 2-5mb HTML files through it in reasonable time (you can pre-gzip it) and some flash storage (which you probably already need if you are any kind of metrics over time).

It could be hard to encode JSON messages dynamically for the actual data to show in the web application, but you _can_ use other protocols from a browser too (CBOR is quite popular for this).

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#625

Post by necovek »

LocalH wrote: post #365
necovek wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that's the goal we as a community should steer to. But on how we do that, my opinion seems to differ. I postulate that it's hard (expensive) to do what you suggest: finding people to build that for every customer, while not increasing support costs is tricky today. Just ensuring your personal computing device (a phone, laptop or server running home assistant) can see and talk to your device is a hard problem…

The "software development community" isn't going to do shit, quite frankly, as long as bean counters rule the world. The businesses will keep hardening their equipment (or paying someone to do it poorly), and they'll threaten to sue anyone who attempts to free the hardware. Some things that are already wildly out of control cannot be fixed from within. We can only hope that regulation and government influence could s…

Obviously they aren't, as long as they are not even willing to acknowledge that developing local-first while also supporting mobile app use outside the homes _is_ more expensive. And obviously, "bean counters" are not going to invest in doing the more expensive thing when the cheaper one "works" (we all disagree with that, but these products continue selling in the market).

So I think it's either increased government regulation, or IT crowd working to simplify development of local-first/mobile-supported applications for any type of a connected device and client. I don't really think this will come from a community, but a push to standardize on a couple of protocols, API formats, how apps can talk to the same API locally and over the internet and such — those are things that could really be done once (or at most a couple dozen times, for everyone's favourite framework and language :)), and then there won't be an "expensive" excuse for companies.

Or, rules can mandate that, when it will become cheaper because companies will join together to bring the price down (like they did with Matter).

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#626

Post by saltcured »

account42 wrote: post #595
Izkata wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of remotely preheating my oven while I am not home still makes me shudder. Electric ovens can be terrifying when they fail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrL_9K7rCz8 Mine was throwing a lot more sparks than in this video. It sounded like fireworks were going off in my kitchen.

What's the failure mode here? Heating coil making contact with the outer casing? Shouldn't that be caught by a residual-current circuit breaker? In any case, generating lots of heat inside the oven is probably safer than doing it outside it.

That looks like a fractured heating element that now identifies as a welder.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#627

Post by kube-system »

fortran77 wrote: post #396
kube-system wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a vali…

Usually contracts say that the entire contract is contained within the four corners of the document and anything the salesman tells you isn’t a contract.

If there was a written contract, it might say that. I haven't always been asked to sign a written contract for appliances at retail. But even if it did, those types of contracts can not disclaim away any liability for the salesperson accurately representing the product. Verbal contracts are legally contracts whether or not the seller wants to be held liable for them.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#628

Post by kube-system »

colechristensen wrote: post #335
kube-system wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a vali…

Most retailers just have a standard return policy, it's a good idea to choose where you purchase a major appliance where you know the return policy. For Costco it's 90 days for a major appliance, you don't have to justify yourself as to why. Some stores have terrible return policies, some have good enough policies.

Yeah, good return policies make things easy, for sure. But retailers with bad policies still have to fulfill their legal requirements even if their policy conflicts.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#629

Post by whitehexagon »

We are outraged for ten minutes, and then move on, like the red sock in the white wash. The modern western consumer getting exactly what we deserve. MBA spin, rinse, repeat, draining us all, whilst the stain of these complex holding companies, launder their tax free profits.

With wage deflation, free time erosion, and political uncertainty, nobody has the time, energy or money to fight this. It is no wonder that we take the easy option, and so the cycle continues.

I do my best to pushback (this month was deleting firefox, last year was deleting youtube), but disengagement is just a number that nobody sees. So another 1000 people wont buy this brand, or use that service, or will boycott such and such. No one notices.

But I found some small hope. I recently switched jobs, and I have been lucky enough to talk to many people that do care enough to try to make a difference. I know there are others here on HN as well, some of us clinging on to one of the last websites worth visiting.

So if you have ever taken the more difficult option, I just want to say thank-you for your sacrifice, because even if the corps dont notice, you are doing the right thing. Karma.

Time to give tech a 'soiled wash' and start reviewing tech with a 'Clean Tech' moniker for companies willing to sell repairable tech, without the enshitifcation of ads, cloud, subscriptions, drm, mandatory accounts etc etc

Today's challenge, find Jeff a 'Clean Tech' washer so that we can have some interesting followup articles where he battles with the returns department because the machine has been listening in to his grumbles, and the water detection sticker has turned blue.

Re: I won't connect my dishwasher to your cloud

#630

Post by kube-system »

fluidcruft wrote: post #524
kube-system wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a vali…

He asked for no wifi, was sold a no wifi dishwasher and then later changed his mind and wanted wifi after installing it. Where's the misrepresentation?

No, the person above was led to believe that all of the dishwasher's features could be used offline, but that was not the case.
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