Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service? • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service?

#71

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #41

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>most of that isn't dystopian Remember that time a city in CA sent Cointelpro-esqe letters to the registered owner for vehicles their plate readers recorded going down a particular street? There's nothing that prevents similar bad behavior from HOAs or cities/towns that have access to other data sets. I don't want a HOA sending me brochures about recycling because my smart house reports that my ratio of trash to recy…

> Remember that time a city in CA sent Cointelpro-esqe letters to the registered owner for vehicles their plate readers recorded going down a particular street? No, I don’t. I’m guessing others might not, as well. Can you please supply a link?

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3011394/security/las-p...

It was the first result so it might not be the best article.

Re: Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service?

#72

Post by ggm » Wed, Jan 24, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

If you read a headline that the national government of a large asian economy was deploying a million cameras you would go to statist surveillence. If you read a more nuanced headline that in a large asian economy, a million privately owned cameras have been deployed, as locals chose to arm up against bad behaviour, perceived threats or nosiness, you might feel different.

I am told the latter is actually as common as the former, in the aforesaid large asian economy. The state cameras are on poles and buildings, and are at similar densities to the UK in that regard (within order of magnitude) Whereas the cheap, hackable (crackably hackable, risably simply crackably hackable) IoT IP enabled cameras are being bought and sold for $50 or less, and installed freehand by concerned locals who wonder why their pet cat keeps disappearing.

It is now routine for police to ask citizens for dashcam and other static camera footage when investigating crime. The locals with cameras are often very happy to comply.

Is this boil the frog slowly?

Re: Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service?

#73

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

dhimes wrote: post #39

toss1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, I just want a thermostat that I can remotely access -directly- and not through someone else's server. Just keep track of my IP addr myself, and yes if the ISP swaps it out for another I'll have to update it when I get there again... blah, blah, blah, yes' it'd be fine with me. Yet I cannot fine one. Every single 'smart' thermostat has some corporate service I have to negotiate through for access, and of course i…

Why don't you just turn the damn thing up when you get home?

I'm actually looking for one for my shop, which has a longer heat-up time

For home, I agree that the programmable ones are ok, although they fall down when we travel for more than a week -- we have to either run it an unnecessary day, or arrive to an extra-cold house, so if there was a good one, it'd still be handy there.

Re: Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service?

#74

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 4:06 PM UTC

mcpherrinm wrote: post #27

toss1 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yup, I just want a thermostat that I can remotely access -directly- and not through someone else's server. Just keep track of my IP addr myself, and yes if the ISP swaps it out for another I'll have to update it when I get there again... blah, blah, blah, yes' it'd be fine with me. Yet I cannot fine one. Every single 'smart' thermostat has some corporate service I have to negotiate through for access, and of course i…

If you check out Home Assistant's climate control category, you can look for devices with IoT class "local polling" and "local push". There are a number of options there. Scroll to the bottom of this page for the listing: https://home-assistant.io/components/climate/

looks quite interesting - thanks!

Re: Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service?

#75

Post by toss1 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

alsetmusic wrote: post #43

TheRealEdAbbey wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there isn't really much of a market for something like that. Sure, you can have detailed documentation on such a product that explains how it's functioning, why it might drop out when your ip changes, etc., but who is going to understand that? People like you and me, yes, but we're a pretty small market. In order for there to be a reasonable audience for a product, you have to target the least knowledg…

> The problem is there isn't really much of a market for something like that. Sure, you can have detailed documentation on such a product that explains how it's functioning, why it might drop out when your ip changes, etc., but who is going to understand that? People like you and me, yes, but we're a pretty small market. I understand why this is not available as a standalone product. The window is probably too small…

>> Money is being left on the table.

It sure is -- I'd buy that immediately.

The nice part about it is, if their "cloud" services actually added value, I'd be happy to sign up for that too.

I just want a direct access and a fall-back if their cloud goes offline (and I read about that happening in the reviews of every single one).

And sure, we're a subset of the market, but I'd expect a sufficiently large subset to make it worthwhile.

If it was a really good unit with high-quality sensors, WiFi connectors and other components, I'd pay more than for a Nest.