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A comment on Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbells will stop working. Parent comment

Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by karlkatzke on Thursday November 26, 2020 @07:55PM (#25224690)
To be fair, I personally no longer buy WiFi “smart” devices, but I don’t mind if my wife buys them.

I get the dual benefit of having the “smart” when it works, and pointing and laughing at her when it doesn’t, because I told her so.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by DavidSJ on Thursday November 26, 2020 @08:21PM (#25224815)
And on top of that, your TV manufacturer gets to spy on you. It’s win-win-win.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by Semaphor on Friday November 27, 2020 @12:23AM (#25225733)
My old dumb tv is failing. After looking online, it seems the only dumb TVs left are in the US (Spectre and very little else) and not available in Germany. At least the spying is removed by not connecting it to the internet, though I still get the great full OS experience :/
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by goatinaboat on Friday November 27, 2020 @01:26AM (#25226002)
At least the spying is removed by not connecting it to the internet, though I still get the great full OS experience :/

I have a smart TV not connected to the internet, just a HDMI connection to another box. Then I learned that IP-over-HDMI is a thing!

In the very near future this will be even more futile - the TV will have it’s own built-in cellular connection just for telemetry. Anyone who objects will be shouted down as a 5G conspiracy nut, but this is exactly what 5G is designed for.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by ranma42 on Friday November 27, 2020 @04:23AM (#25226894)
Anecdotally, the first Sony smart tv my grandma got (after her old tube TV died) managed to receive a firmware upgrade over the antenna cable (don't remember if it was cable TV or satellite). She certainly didn't have any internet in her home. Of course that led to a fun episode of "My TV is broken" (actually just showing a prompt to start the firmware upgrade), in general she got very confused by the smart TVs UI often...
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by mtsr on Friday November 27, 2020 @01:33AM (#25226039)
That’s horrible, I hadn’t even looked at it like that.

But it will actually work better with 3/4G because 5Gs range is so short and it would be easy to block with just a little tinfoil.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by Foivos on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:10AM (#25226495)
5G has a lot of bands. Most of them are close to the 3G/4G bands, so it should have the same signal as 3G/4G.

Also, new IoT technologies use techniques allowing them to operate at a much weaker signal.

But you can always just destroy the antenna.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by realityking on Friday November 27, 2020 @04:15AM (#25226841)
> Then I learned that IP-over-HDMI is a thing!

While it’s in the spec, I’m not aware of a single piece of consumer electronics that actually support it. The standard is an utter failure.

In HDMI 2.1 the wires previously used for Ethernet-over-HDMI are now used for eARC making these two features mutually exclusive.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by therealx on Friday November 27, 2020 @08:26AM (#25228505)
I believe some higher end residential automation automation software support it?
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by mschild on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:02AM (#25226177)
Take a look at NOGIS [0]. They were primarily designed to avoid Austrian GEZ but should work fine as dumb tv's as well.

[0]https://nogis.at/

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by labawi on Sunday November 29, 2020 @03:42PM (#25247899)
Isn't it the opposite of a dumb tv?

AFAIU it has no TV tuner, so no air/cable/sat reception, while having full "smarts" with built-in internet and apps.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by solatic on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:26AM (#25226287)
Tried to check out, their shop only ships to German and Austrian addresses :(
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by mschild on Friday November 27, 2020 @05:35AM (#25227407)
Maybe try Swedx [0]. I dont know how good their TV's are but I know they have some dumb one available and should ship to more locations.

[0]https://www.swedx.se

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by brobdingnagians on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:29AM (#25226296)
We bought a larger monitor for the computer and have it placed where we can watch movies from the sofa. It's not as nice as a real dedicated TV, but saves space and avoids the headache of modern TVs.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by lbotos on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:00AM (#25227940)
depending on your budget, you could look for "digital information displays" which are displays that are meant for advertising in shops/malls/storefronts, and most of them are literally 'giant monitors" with no smart features. Expect it to be pricier though.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by tannhaeuser on Friday November 27, 2020 @07:27AM (#25228132)
Don't know about you, but when my 2017 Sony (not so smart, but starts fast and doesn't call home) will die, I'm not going to buy a regular TV set anymore but just a monitor, like I used to with my old PS3 and PlayTV. What's left of free-to-air TV (state broadcasters on DVB, if the signal is even strong enough) frankly feels like religious programs played in prisons. It's caustic and depressive social-pedagogical palliative crap, during coronavirus more than ever. Someone from Hollywood should come over and teach about the concept called "entertainment".
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by ornornor on Friday November 27, 2020 @12:56AM (#25225859)
Nextdns is the best solution I found to this problem (they have a smart TVs blocklist) along with a firewall rule that blocks all port 53 traffic except to approved dns.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by mtsr on Friday November 27, 2020 @01:31AM (#25226026)
Shame this stops working with the next firmware update that switches your TV to DNS-over-HTTPS. Because then, just like google ads switching to the main google.com domain, you will have to choose to block either every service from your tv manufacturer (including firmware security updates) or allow it all through.

My next TV is going to be a dumb one with a bespoke HTPC...

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by jeanofthedead on Friday November 27, 2020 @02:25PM (#25231801)
I use Pi-hole (https://pi-hole.net) to block my Roku TV from sending out analytics (and from displaying ads).
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by _underfl0w_ on Thursday November 26, 2020 @07:58PM (#25224703)
This actually sounds like the perfect middle ground.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by mrpopo on Thursday November 26, 2020 @08:02PM (#25224723)
Except it doesn't cut on the gigantic waste of electronic components that IoT is creating, and no one is talking about.
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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by bamboozled on Thursday November 26, 2020 @08:12PM (#25224774)
This is why I don't like "smart devices".

They're the most likely thing to be obsolete in the shortest amount of time.

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by alilsumpinditto on Thursday November 26, 2020 @09:36PM (#25225137)
to be fair, I'm actually too stupid to vacuum a carpet vs floor without it auto adjusting fo me, so just to play devil's advocate, my vacuum has worked wonders on sucking up the ight amount of floor baddies. I can also forgive the glass stuck on the floor on thanksgiving night because of all the help it's been 364 days of the year.

edit: oh yeah my letterr "R" key is broken on my 2015 macbook po fom all my refreshing, so sorry fo the typos

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Re:Due to a problem with AWS, many "smart" vacuums or doorbe... by takeda on Friday November 27, 2020 @12:53AM (#25225848)
Why does it need to be connected to the Internet to do it?
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