Your Refrigerator:

What’s funny Arc is we use “Hal9000” to describe all the driving nannies in the vehicles now. ADAS of any kind. One of my friends and I will bust each other’s balls, saying “Hello Dave. Would you like a stress pill?” This has been going on for a few decades now. We loathe the over-automation the world we live in. Too much too fast and many things, completely unnecessary.

I'd argue that in some cases allowing config changes etc are probably cheaper (and possibly more reliable) with the wifi/bluetooth enabled methods than having a physical push button that stands up to less than ideal environmental conditions. Good weather proof buttons/switches are ridiculously expensive and are a weak spot on the outside of the device. Heck I'd bet that in a lot of cases the chip they're sourcing as a battery monitor or whatever already has it 'built in'. Why spend more money on another piece of hardware when you can pay some contractor in india a few bucks to write a crap interface and an absolutely shit app and you can then tout that your widget is wifi'd!!!

I wouldn't mind having my garage freezer sending me an alert if the temp rises too high.

But if that happens, it's probably because it lost power and wouldn't be able to alert me anyway with no power.

******OLD THREAD WARNING!!!******

Holy Cow! I spent an hour today at the new house trying to figure out why we didn’t have water.

Long story short: I tried to fill the pool and found out the house has a smart water valve that shuts the water off if it detects a leak. That took 45 minutes, calls to the water company, etc. to track down. I didn’t see the valve right away because it’s right in there with the piping for the fire suppression system. Spent 15 minutes trying figuring out how to turn the water back on. Everything I found initially says it has to be connected to WiFi and done through the app! We aren’t living there yet, so I have yet to set up the network.

I use WiFi or Bluetooth enabled to steer me to another product that does not have these features.
To my mind these WiFi claims interpret to, "Does Not Work".

SpyFi?

Yup, That is just about it.

Bundling and selling data is what it is all about.

I'm looking at you, Mercedes! Don't forget your pals at Apple and GM either.

We purchased a new gas range (GE) in March which apparently has wi-fi capabilities. There was a QR come to scan for “more exciting features” or something like that, cooking tips, operation, etc.

Recovering from some health issues I decided to scan the QR code. Guess what, ten bucks a month for access through this particular reader.

Pulled the label off the range and tossed it. Guess I’ll figure out how to use it on my own.

Bought a Shark robo vac a couple years ago to replace a old basic Roomba. I almost returned it upon initially opening it until I saw that I do not have to wi-fi enable it to operate. It’s job is to clean up cat and dog hair and the occasional potato chip crumb and not to send data gathered by it back to China.

Guess I’m a Luddite.

It’s gonna be hard to shed tears when people start getting creative with ways to fuck up everything wi-fi. I’m not a fan of destroying others property, I’m also not a fan of data mining peoples lives. Especially when they profit from the sale of it. Sooner or later the government will be looking to crucify those who circumvent the system saying you could have potentially killed a kid and a puppy by interrupting some crucial data transmission. The worst part is they will convince the average sheep that giving up your privacy for the potential safety of (fill in the blank) is necessary. No we don’t need wi-fi enabled motion detectors in mattresses, and liquor bottles.

I've been trying to figure out how to get my wife WIFI enabled!

A couple of years ago installed a new nat gas water heater, it was wifi capable. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:
SpyFi?

Yup, That is just about it.

Bundling and selling data is what it is all about.

I'm looking at you, Mercedes! Don't forget your pals at Apple and GM either.

You seem to have overlooked the two 'worst of the worst' bad actors here, Google and facebook, whose entire business model is bundling and selling your data...YOU are the product!

Here is a warning from ethical hacker Ryan Montgomery when he first appeared on Shawn Ryan:

quote:

Originally posted by Mboroman:
Here is a warning from ethical hacker Ryan Montgomery when he first appeared on Shawn Ryan:


[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8sVVbtEd64g" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

He was on a week or so ago and it’s pretty crazy what you’re opening yourself up to if someone wants to be unethical.

Haha, glad I didn't have a Traeger this thanksgiving!
https://x.com/HardPass4/status...886150171566084?s=20

I’m on day 3 in the new to us house.

Internet hooked up, WiFi running, garage doors, house locks, water main valve, and many of the lights switches are up and running. Had to have the previous owner remove the water main valve from her “account”. I’m hoping not to have to do that with the thermostats, but have to wait until 9:00am central time to find out.

The new double oven is broadcasting that it wants WiFi. Setting it up will give me an extra year of warranty.

I have to get some real network gear instead of the Xfinity box and setup some vlans.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

We just moved into new to us home as well.
As AT&T guy was leaving I got him to walk me through their goofy app and how to change network name. He laughed when he saw me use FBIVan34

Best part was, with same name and password as prior house everything we'd brought with us all went right back online. Water sensors, TVs, Roomba, computers, etc.

That’s better than naming it FreePuppies.

Related rant.

My cell phone service automatically sends me a "Notification" whenever there is the rare outage.
By TEXT... to my phone!

I get the notification after my service is back up and running.
SO helpful

For all this supposed "smart" stuff sometimes it seems pretty dumb.