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A comment on Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home. Parent comment

Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by xnyan on Thursday October 17, 2019 @12:57PM (#21283996)
Posted elsewhere, but my A/C had a small leak and was slowly loosing efficiency. At peak heat it could not keep up, but I had no way of knowing that at work. My $99 Emerson Sensi messaged me that the cooling was not keeping up and there was a problem. I could turn off the unit remotely to prevent stress on the compressor and fixed the small leak well before I would have known without a internet enabled thermostat.

I did A/C repair in college, fixing it early more than paid for the maybe 50 extra bucks wifi cost. The thermostat itself is on an isolated wifi network,

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by TeMPOraL on Thursday October 17, 2019 @01:10PM (#21284136)
Messaging you requires at best only enough Internet access to send a message. It doesn't require all other functionality to be Internet dependent.

Frankly, the way these IoT devices are designed to be just dumb terminals to some cloud on the other side of the world, it's just bad engineering, in service of anticonsumer business.

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by rasz on Thursday October 17, 2019 @09:53PM (#21287988)
Perfect IoT device would include an internal scripting language (ideally standardized and easy to grasp, embedded python/js/lua etc) and API exposing all of gadgets hardware. This way user/owner/external service providers could supply their own script snippets implementing desired functionality. Aka general computing.

Imaging buying "smart light" thats actually smart enough to do what you want it to do.

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by ChristianBundy on Thursday October 17, 2019 @01:08PM (#21284107)
That doesn't answer the question: why does that require internet access?
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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by Volundr on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:15PM (#21285950)
How else did you expect it to message him? Or let him turn it off remotely? Sure, could put a SIM in it and do an SMS that way, but then you have to pay for service for your thermostat, rather than just using the WIFI you already have.
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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by jammygit on Thursday October 17, 2019 @06:06PM (#21286777)
Couldn’t it just have a lcd display with a scrolling alert message? Maybe even a red light that turns on to draw attention.
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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by icebraining on Thursday October 17, 2019 @08:47PM (#21287699)
"I could turn off the unit remotely to prevent stress on the compressor"
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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by ChristianBundy on Thursday October 17, 2019 @11:00PM (#21288300)
Good point. In my experience an air conditioner is something that you use when you're home, so turning it off remotely doesn't make any sense, but I suppose other people might AC their house while they're gone all day?
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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by beefalo on Friday October 18, 2019 @01:52AM (#21289008)
If you live somwhere that might be >100 degrees, you can't just turn the AC off all day
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