General > General Technical Chat
Amazon accuses customer of racism & shuts down their smart home!
wraper:
--- Quote from: james_s on June 12, 2023, 09:53:31 pm ---The delivery driver isn't the problem here, maybe he really did think he heard a racist comment. The issue is in the way Amazon handled it, guilty until proven innocent. If they were going to do anything, they should have investigated first, and taken action only once it is PROVEN that the customer committed some kind of offense that is in breach of contract and even then unless it was an actual credible threat or act of violence then the only action should be a warning. There's an old saying "the customer is always right" that companies seem to be forgetting about.
--- End quote ---
Even if he actually made a racist remark, deny him delivery of goods so he does not get to interact with their drivers. Even if the guy was a racist KKK member, he still should be able to use the devices he paid for.
tom66:
There's a reason I got rid of all of our Wi-Fi bulbs and peripherals and moved the system to a locally hosted Zigbee network. There's a cloud - but I own it!
MK14:
--- Quote from: langwadt on June 13, 2023, 08:51:23 am ---
--- Quote from: MK14 on June 12, 2023, 11:24:38 pm ---There was a potentially fairly serious incident
--- End quote ---
really? someone says they thought they heard a racist remark
--- End quote ---
When writing replies on the internet, with a wide ranging audience. I tried to choose the best words, to most likely NOT offend anyone here. (politically correct).
It is arguably serious, because anything that is 'serious' enough for Amazon in practice to ban/close your Amazon account, along with all its services. Is therefore 'serious', as it has bad consequences.
If a customer really is, shouting racist abuse at delivery people (it seems there was a mistake in this case), that is not acceptable.
MK14:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on June 13, 2023, 06:06:30 am ---Smart homes are a dumb enough in the first, but why connect to a cloud service?
If you have to "smartify" your house then use a local system that has no internet connection.
--- End quote ---
It means that if a person or family wants to, they can view various internal/external security cameras, in various positions. Which can give them reassurance, when away from home.
It means they can have access to a set of their files, such as family pictures and videos. Which can be shown to other people or even given links to the material, on all their internet capable devices.
Yes, most of the users on this particular forum, could probably set up their own local 'cloud' services.
But members of the general population, might be scared and not know how to set up servers and such services, locally and may not even realise that it can be done, without using external cloud companies, and paying (often) monthly fees, which soon add up.
I like the idea of being able to switch some things on and off, via commands. E.g. Extra lighting, cooling fans, sometimes other stuff.
But a better (much cheaper, no expensive subscriptions, no internet needed, no wasting time with complicated setups) way, is to use a relatively cheap remote control switched set of plug in mains sockets.
tom66:
The reason Wi-Fi smart devices are more common:
- No need for a central hub if you have a Wi-Fi router which almost everyone does have
- No need to open ports on the router to access cloud function (the bulb maintains the connection)
- Automatically creates a 'cloud' if you have access to this server
Of course, the privacy implications of having a bulb constantly talking to a server in a country that may not be super friendly... yeah, not great.
Compared to the Zigbee option I chose:
- Need a central coordinator and a Wi-Fi router
- Have to run custom software on this coordinator (RasPi running Home Assistant in a Docker container)
- Had to set up my own SSL certificate to secure my open connection (not doing so would be stupid)
- Had to get a free DNS set up so I have a consistent end point to access
- Had to open ports on the router
You don't have to do all of this, but if you want to use an off the shelf system which makes things easier (say Philips Hue which is Zigbee compatible) then you open yourself into the same problem of having a device talking to a server you don't own or trust. If the latter tasks could be made easier for 'Joe Public' (I didn't even find it particularly easy and I like to think I know a thing or two about networking) then I think there would be better adoption of this tech over the Wi-Fi only option. But, it would require companies to set up an IoT system that didn't give them access to your data though, so I can't see the incentive for them!
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