NO MORE "SMART" APPLIANCES

[helio0centra@gmail.com]

I have a smart phone and a real computer. That's the only smart devices I need.

[Nominal Animal]

I see, so you can't accuse a women of mansplaining.

And you shouldn't accuse men of that either, when you refuse to define "man" or "woman".  The silliness happens, when you use the term, but refuse to define "man", because you're using a term you cannot define.  And that is most of the people who seriously use the term "to mansplain".

To be honest, I think the 'splaining is just a derogatory way of describing how men, especially fathers, intuitively describe things. The female/mother counterpart, in my opinion, would be to describe an event, by describing how humans perceiving the event felt and experienced it, with many diversions describing each persons relationship with everyone else.

Just thought of something:

It would probably short-circuit an intersectionalists mind, if you asked them whether a trans-man can be accused of mansplaining!

Not all men mansplain, and I've met women (definitely female, with XY XX chromosomes – edit: was just a typo!) who tend to mansplain; one of them was an air stewardess, and mansplained to me about condensation, when I only asked her for a paper towel to dry my neck as the cold condensate happened to drip there.  No, I never got a towel either; go figure.

I get enough crap because I'm so verbose –– it is not by choice; I've always been this analytical/descriptive/insistent on correctly describing my point ––, and know that one can easily create a derogatory term for every possible way of human interaction.  So, I don't put much weight on such terms.  I consider it just another diversion: when you cannot attack the argument at hand, you attack the person presenting the argument, so you can "win".  A typical social game, which I utterly detest.

[MrMobodies]

When looking for things like televisions or screens, I put my hand in the back to see if it gets hot and if it is well ventilated. I want things to last long. I believe, the hotter it is the shorter service life but I know that may not always be the case. I have had things over nearly 20 years that get hot when turned on.

My fridge has a WIFI, which was never turned on. Yeah things can go wrong:

youtube.com/watch?v=YEZCySVQHEU[/url]
Why the F*** a microwave needs a Wifi?

0:54 "My car doesn't have a computer in it and never will"

I saw this advert about an electric car on television some weeks ago, I can't remember what manufacturer that had all the usual UI garbage, bloat and annoyances of a web page on the screen during the advert.

I know someone who had a Jaguar 12 years ago and even a Volkswagon car after that. They had a lcd screen in the center. I found the arrangement of the UI was compact and nice not bloated, not patronising or insulting, didn't have any intrusive distracting spammy nav/toolbars taking up room following down the menu when scrolling, no dimming overlays that would cover everything else what you are trying to do, gradients over the maps or fake loading spinners. It was all there to help assist the drive and not interfere. The Jaguar had this debug menu where it should all the details in there...  There was none of this "stupid app" or cloud nonsense.

If it is not for, computer, cloud and app nonsense set to micromanage and control the user in every aspect that they desire I wonder what the manufacturers would do instead?

[PlainName]

Not all men mansplain, and I've met women (definitely female, with XY chromosomes) who tend to mansplain

Let's not get stuck on forensic dismantling of portmanteaus. Just as 'chairman' describes the position rather than the gender, 'mansplaining' nowadays describes the interaction rather than the sex, the way it's done rather than the physical makeup of the transgressor.

[AVGresponding]

It would probably short-circuit an intersectionalists mind, if you asked them whether a trans-man can be accused of mansplaining!

Not all men mansplain, and I've met women (definitely female, with XY chromosomes) who tend to mansplain; one of them was an air stewardess, and mansplained to me about condensation, when I only asked her for a paper towel to dry my neck as the cold condensate happened to drip there.  No, I never got a towel either; go figure.

I get enough crap because I'm so verbose –– it is not by choice; I've always been this analytical/descriptive/insistent on correctly describing my point ––, and know that one can easily create a derogatory term for every possible way of human interaction.  So, I don't put much weight on such terms.  I consider it just another diversion: when you cannot attack the argument at hand, you attack the person presenting the argument, so you can "win".  A typical social game, which I utterly detest.

Oooopsy... XY is male, XX is female...   

[SiliconWizard]

It would probably short-circuit an intersectionalists mind, if you asked them whether a trans-man can be accused of mansplaining!

Not all men mansplain, and I've met women (definitely female, with XY chromosomes) who tend to mansplain; one of them was an air stewardess, and mansplained to me about condensation, when I only asked her for a paper towel to dry my neck as the cold condensate happened to drip there.  No, I never got a towel either; go figure.

I get enough crap because I'm so verbose –– it is not by choice; I've always been this analytical/descriptive/insistent on correctly describing my point ––, and know that one can easily create a derogatory term for every possible way of human interaction.  So, I don't put much weight on such terms.  I consider it just another diversion: when you cannot attack the argument at hand, you attack the person presenting the argument, so you can "win".  A typical social game, which I utterly detest.

Oooopsy... XY is male, XX is female...   

That's right, but some of those "awaken" people will tell you that this is quite oppressive.

[David Hess]

The Active Self Protection Youtube channel has shown at least two examples where people tried to escape deadly situations in their "smart" vehicle and could not because the vehicle disabled itself.  In the case below, the automatic braking system did it, but in other the driver went over a curb and the vehicle decided there had been a collision and disabled itself.

https://youtu.be/uvc0hmovZvE

[MrMobodies]

In that case I'd expect a notification of what it is about to do or what decision it is about to make and an option to override it otherwise the driver is not fully in control.

[SiliconWizard]

They just want more control over their products because that's what makes them the most cash.

Yes, that explains the cloudy stuff. But that isn't the definition of 'smart' appliances.

I dunno what the "definition" is. We're actually just trying to figure out what it REALLY is from a business POV. And to me it is just about more control to the company selling it and less control to the user. All this sweetened with stuff that makes it appear on the surface to be a benefit for the user. It certainly isn't all about the "cloudy stuff". There are other means for companies to get the user captive and have more control. More on that below.

I have stuff that does the same clever bits but without external data hoovering or cloud. A simple example is an RGB LED strip which you can control from a phone app. I think it's clever - one of the things you can do is point your camera at something to make the LEDs show exactly that colour - so I think it would qualify as 'smart'. Maybe even IoT since it's networked, but it there isn't a cloud in sight.

Two points here. First, are you sure there is no data hoovering or cloud at all? I highly doubt it. I have personally never seen any of those connected gadgets, controlled by mobile apps, that didn't require an online account and actually used a cloud service behind the scenes (usually AWS or Azure.) If you're absolutely sure your device does not do any of this, please let me know what brand and model it is. I could be interested. I can't find anything like this on the market. If it requires an online account, you can be 99.99% sure they are storing data on servers - and again often AWS. And you usually have no clue about what kind of data it stores, nor how often.

Now even if that wasn't the case for a particular product (which again would be an oddball here rather than the norm), this doesn't mean that there still isn't an unbalanced control power between the company and the user. If the device requires a mobile app to function at all, then you're 100% dependent on whatever the company decides to do with it. It could remove some features in some app updates, or even stop maintaining the app altogether and you'd end up with dead beef basically unless you manage to keep an old phone on which the old app will still work. Maybe.

So yeah. All in all, any so-called "smart" device out there is a product that the user doesn't fully "own". And that's a general problem. The new trendy business model is all about that. Destroying ownership.

Sure that is not to say that we couldn't design products with cool features that may look "smart", but without all this crap involved. But does that even exist these days and is there even a sizable market for it anymore? I doubt that. And anyway, I'm pretty sure the very topic of this thread was more about what I just described than about some fantasy smart devices that are either a niche or don't even exist. Just my 2 cents.

[PlainName]

Two points here. First, are you sure there is no data hoovering or cloud at all? I highly doubt it.

You can doubt it all you want, but I have the parts and I am absolutely sure. Of course, I was initially suspicious so both shut it off from the Intertubes and then, separately, monitored traffic.

If you're absolutely sure your device does not do any of this, please let me know what brand and model it is.

I'll try and find it. It was a spontaneous purchase that turned out not to have a problem to solve, so is currently shelfware.

[Later] Hmmm. Didn't find it with a quick look but then figured that the app would throw some light (ha ha) on it. Unfortunately, it's a few years old and my phone doesn't have the app. A previous phone that I know did got wiped when I gave it to my partner. Going through the list of non-installed apps on the phone, and then every app I've ever used on Play didn't turn it up. But I have apps that don't appear in such lists, presumably because the have fallen foul of some Playstore rule, so the lack of it doesn't mean it never existed, just that I can't find the thing now. I'll keep looking, because it's annoyed me, but don't hold your breath.

[Bud]

All those smartphone apps are merely a user front-end to the cloud, with everything being processed and stored in the cloud. Any idiot can write an IOT app if he cares to look how it is done. I think this is a big reason why things are they are, because it is so easy to do it this way. Just slap together a GUI with a couple buttons and sliders and use the cloud API to talk to a database in the cloud.

[PlainName]

While much IoT stuff does indeed talk to one of the large cloud providers and utilise the providers app, not all phone apps are like that. The one for my LEDs was definitely not, which was a nice surprise at the time and probably why I can't find the thing now

[coppice]

While much IoT stuff does indeed talk to one of the large cloud providers and utilise the providers app, not all phone apps are like that. The one for my LEDs was definitely not, which was a nice surprise at the time and probably why I can't find the thing now

If things are only intended to communicate within a LAN they often do. When they need to be accessible from a remote location they are almost always cloud based. The IETF is usually good at foreseeing needs like this, but nobody produced an RFC for "a box in your home and a phone on the move finding each other". Commercial interests probably didn't align.

[MrMobodies]

I store everything locally and I refuse to depend on something finite as a the primary and only means.

All the programs I use with my phone which is an Android J5 don't need broadband connection apart from the browser which I don't use. I have an old Samba tool which had to root the phone for that so when I take pictures and stuff I can just take them directly from when it is joined up to an access point.

Now publishing things like photos fine for people to see but I should not need (or them demand as a requirement) a website in the middle to upload things just to download them again and that goes for solar panel monitoring and datalogging or anything local that I have intention of uploading remotely.

[NiHaoMike]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gcXKiQrSs2M
Closing a car door by hand is too old fashioned, got to have an app where you have to tap a dozen times. To make it even better, you have to repeat that several times until you get tired of it and just do it the way you did in your old car.

[Nominal Animal]

Oooopsy... XY is male, XX is female...   

Exactly; it was a typo I didn't catch.

Back on topic:

Have you noticed how –– aside from full CNC's like Haas –– so many machinists on Youtube use older (1970s and older) hardware?  Those are maintainable.

Similarly, I find it funny how the same people who are working so hard to exclude humans from the production chain by automation (smart appliances, automated checkout, robot and drone deliveries), are so afraid that AI will exclude humans the rest of the way.  It is the exact same thing, the currently prevalent pattern, and the neural networks are just picking it up from the material they are fed: a straightforward extrapolation of the theme.

Intentions do not matter; what does, is actions.  Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[AVGresponding]

It would probably short-circuit an intersectionalists mind, if you asked them whether a trans-man can be accused of mansplaining!

Not all men mansplain, and I've met women (definitely female, with XY chromosomes) who tend to mansplain; one of them was an air stewardess, and mansplained to me about condensation, when I only asked her for a paper towel to dry my neck as the cold condensate happened to drip there.  No, I never got a towel either; go figure.

I get enough crap because I'm so verbose –– it is not by choice; I've always been this analytical/descriptive/insistent on correctly describing my point ––, and know that one can easily create a derogatory term for every possible way of human interaction.  So, I don't put much weight on such terms.  I consider it just another diversion: when you cannot attack the argument at hand, you attack the person presenting the argument, so you can "win".  A typical social game, which I utterly detest.

Oooopsy... XY is male, XX is female...   

That's right, but some of those "awaken" people will tell you that this is quite oppressive.

It's not oppression, it's just science. By the same token one could call gravity oppressive, since it contradicts my belief that I am a helium balloon.

[Rick Law]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gcXKiQrSs2M
Closing a car door by hand is too old fashioned, got to have an app where you have to tap a dozen times. To make it even better, you have to repeat that several times until you get tired of it and just do it the way you did in your old car.

There is actually one valid use for it -- if you locked your key inside, phone unlock is helpful.  Lincoln (and some other Ford models) have a short keypad near the door handle to remote open and that would be handy if the key is locked inside.

Manufacturers being overly "smart" to the point of stupid is not a new phenomenon.  Almost two decades ago (I had TV then), cars begin auto locking the doors for driver safety but use a timer for locking after engine start.  One heavy snow day, I saw on the local TV news that during the morning, police and auto-clubs where overwhelm by calls for help to unlock car doors -- because many drivers started their car and let the engine run to warm up while they clear the snow off the car.  By the time snow cleared, the door was auto-locked.

I much prefer the remote and the key being separate.  I can clear the snow knowing if the car door is locked, my remote is still in my pocket.  It was particularly helpful for times I would lock my engine-running car with the separate remote as I walk a dozen feet to the post-box to drop some letters in.  I can do so with the confidence that no one can just get into my car and drive it away while my back was turned.

Interesting and funny side note:

One day, I was at the post office again.  A lady and the police were there -- her green Honda Accord is stolen.  I paid attention as I am interested when crimes occur so close to my own home.  As the police was taking the report, an old guy pulled up with HER car.  He got out and the policeman confronted him immediately -- he pointed out his own green Honda Accord parked 30 feet away, explaining that he just got mixed up when he came out of the post office and drove off with the wrong car.  After ID and ownership check, the police and the lady decided to just drop the whole thing and they both drove away happy.  I asked and the policeman said: "(driving off with the wrong car) it's more common than you would think, particularly with popular models..."

EDIT: added "driving off with the wrong car" to clarify the context.

[PlainName]

My partner and I have identical cars: same make, model, even colour. Same year. There is no way I would mistake my tidy motor for her mobile trash can!

[NiHaoMike]

There is actually one valid use for it -- if you locked your key inside, phone unlock is helpful.  Lincoln (and some other Ford models) have a short keypad near the door handle to remote open and that would be handy if the key is locked inside.

But can you think of a good use case for closing the door by remote?

One day, I was at the post office again.  A lady and the police were there -- her green Honda Accord is stolen.  I paid attention as I am interested when crimes occur so close to my own home.  As the police was taking the report, an old guy pulled up with HER car.  He got out and the policeman confronted him immediately -- he pointed out his own green Honda Accord parked 30 feet away, explaining that he just got mixed up when he came out of the post office and drove off with the wrong car.  After ID and ownership check, the police and the lady decided to just drop the whole thing and they both drove away happy.  I asked and the policeman said: "(driving off with the wrong car) it's more common than you would think, particularly with popular models..."

That theoretically should not be possible nowadays with encrypted keys.

[coppice]

One day, I was at the post office again.  A lady and the police were there -- her green Honda Accord is stolen.  I paid attention as I am interested when crimes occur so close to my own home.  As the police was taking the report, an old guy pulled up with HER car.  He got out and the policeman confronted him immediately -- he pointed out his own green Honda Accord parked 30 feet away, explaining that he just got mixed up when he came out of the post office and drove off with the wrong car.  After ID and ownership check, the police and the lady decided to just drop the whole thing and they both drove away happy.  I asked and the policeman said: "(driving off with the wrong car) it's more common than you would think, particularly with popular models..."

Was that a modern Accord with electronic locking? If it was, that shouldn't happen. Perhaps there was a bug. There are too many codes for a clash to happen. With older cars that used physical keys its surprising how often clashes happened. I unlocked a car with my physical key and sat inside years ago, then realised the leather was the wrong colour. I got out and saw my car, in the same exterior colour and trim, was in the next row. I'm not sure if I got as far as trying the steering lock key, which was a completely different type of physical key from the door key in that car.

[Rick Law]

There is actually one valid use for it -- if you locked your key inside, phone unlock is helpful.  Lincoln (and some other Ford models) have a short keypad near the door handle to remote open and that would be handy if the key is locked inside.

But can you think of a good use case for closing the door by remote?
... ...

For door closing, not really.  I am assuming that if you can close, you can open as well.   Wait...  after you grab your grocery with both hands and ran into the house while it is raining, you may not want to run back out into the rain to close the car door, so the app would help...  Yeah, I know, I am stretching but I just want to dig my heels in to see how well my new shoes work for heels digging.

--------------------------

...
One day, I was at the post office again.  A lady and the police were there -- her green Honda Accord is stolen.  I paid attention as I am interested when crimes occur so close to my own home.  As the police was taking the report, an old guy pulled up with HER car.  He got out and the policeman confronted him immediately -- he pointed out his own green Honda Accord parked 30 feet away, explaining that he just got mixed up when he came out of the post office and drove off with the wrong car.  After ID and ownership check, the police and the lady decided to just drop the whole thing and they both drove away happy.  I asked and the policeman said: "(driving off with the wrong car) it's more common than you would think, particularly with popular models..."

That theoretically should not be possible nowadays with encrypted keys.

... ...
Was that a modern Accord with electronic locking? If it was, that shouldn't happen. Perhaps there was a bug. There are too many codes for a clash to happen. With older cars that used physical keys its surprising how often clashes happened. I unlocked a car with my physical key and sat inside years ago, then realised the leather was the wrong colour. I got out and saw my car, in the same exterior colour and trim, was in the next row. I'm not sure if I got as far as trying the steering lock key, which was a completely different type of physical key from the door key in that car.

Keys were not involved, long time ago before electronics got so sophisticated (pre 2000) -- At the smaller post offices, they don't have the drive-by drop off boxes.  It was/is common around here people just run in, drop off their mail, come back out and hop into a running car.  For letter size mail, one can just run to the front of the post office and drop that in the outside mailbox.  For larger envelops or small packages, one has to use the drop off box inside the post office.

I did the same (leaving the car running for a minute or two) then, and most of the time I am still doing it out of habit.

[Ranayna]

There is actually one valid use for it -- if you locked your key inside, phone unlock is helpful.

This "locking your key inside your car" seems to be something of a trope. It apparently is happening so often that you need to plan for that.
I have to ask though: How do you even do that?
You need the key to lock the doors, so you need to have it in your hands.
There is one thing that comes to mind: The doors are open, you lock the doors remotely, and then close the doors. Then your keys may be on the inside of the car. But on the cars that i used (admittedly a small sample set), the locks automatically disengaged in this scenario.

Is that a problem caused by automatic door locking? This is uncommon in Germany, but those cars that have it, only automatically lock the doors once the car is moving.

[jfiresto]

... Is that a problem caused by automatic door locking? This is uncommon in Germany, but those cars that have it, only automatically lock the doors once the car is moving.

It was not super uncommon at least some years ago with aftermarket, U.S. remote engine starters – an item that would be hard to register or use in Germany without breaking the law.

You do have to take a little care in the design to not lock out the owner.

[PlainName]

This "locking your key inside your car" seems to be something of a trope. It apparently is happening so often that you need to plan for that.
I have to ask though: How do you even do that?

Mine is an older car so you need the key (which has the remote) to lock or unlock it. Leave the keys inside and you're not locking it. Except... if you unlock the car and then don't open a door within (I think) 30 seconds it automatically relocks. Presumably this is to combat accidental unlocking which would otherwise leave the car open. That's fine, but there is also a feature where the boot (trunk to non-Brits) doesn't terminate that timer - only if you open a side door does the relock timer stop. I think the idea there is that you might unlock the car to get stuff out the back and then have you hands full (or be walking off anyway) so it saves having to put stuff down and relock when you're just getting your shopping or whatever out. You can see the problem: unlock, open boot, drop keys in boot, shut the boot and a few seconds later you're stuffed.

Have to say it's not happened to me yet, but it shows that this kind of thing is possible (if not exactly regular).