It's difficult to even find non-internet-vendor-locked in sensors/controls/lights... (sensors/controls ideally running on batteries with sane local network API)

So far I've been lucky with cheap zigbee devices but these seem to be getting phased out in favor of locked in items...

and before people suggest - no, I don't have the willingness to build/maintain my own devices with raspberry pis or ESP etc

Ikea sells Zigbee bulbs and control devices as well as a Zigbee bridge. Seeing how they joined the Zigbee alliance's boards of directors I don't think they're going away. In my experience they work fine and are reasonably priced.

They support HomeKit and while their own API technically isn't open, it's documented and has libraries to interact with it programmatically.

+1. I run entirely Zigbee devices in my home. They don't have internet access and talk to the Home Assistant[1] instance running on my home server.

The downside of Zigbee is that, as a user, there isn't a strong ecosystem of DIY IoT solutions like there is with, for example, the wifi-connected ESP8266/ESP32 chips. And, of course, it requires a hub and some degree of knowledge to set up.

At the moment I'm evaluating launching a small IoT startup/side-business in an underserved market. As much as I love Zigbee, these devices will probably end up being wifi. I'm not an expert in the hardware side of things, and the ability to pay <$1 for an ESP chip that does everything I need off the shelf is great, and I don't want to create a hub or require users to buy a (often $80+) hub just for my set of (<=$5) devices.

Although it'll be wifi-based, I plan to make these guarantees:

- The cloud service (supported by a small yearly subscription) will stay online for at least 1 year after the last device is sold.

- When the service is shut down, its software and hardware will be released under an open source license.

- The subscription fee will never be increased faster than inflation rate.

- 3rd party analytics software won't be used and data will never be shared with 3rd parties (outside from Stripe during checkout). In all cases a minimum amount of data will be collected.

Maybe this'll make my product slightly less likely to appear on the @internetofshit Twitter account[2].

1. https://www.home-assistant.io/

2. https://twitter.com/internetofshit

I think Zigbee is what IoT should be. It doesn't access the internet, it doesn't clutter the frequency band like my 30 WiFi IoT devices, it doesn't need to be in range (since other Zigbee devices can relay the messages)... I'm going to buy some Zigbee devices from IKEA just so I can play around with them.

It's a really nice standard, I hope it takes off.

ZigBee sits in the same frequency band as WiFi, so it does actually clutter it.

Edit: oh and it has already taken off as much as it will, the ZigBee alliance is working on a an ipv6 based standard.

> The downside of Zigbee is that, as a user, there isn't a strong ecosystem of DIY IoT solutions like there is with, for example, the wifi-connected ESP8266/ESP32 chips.

Luckily, as you probably know, you can connect all those different protocols together with homeassistant. So you can use pre-built solutions for some devices and DIY for others and still easily connect them.

I really don't know anything about the availability of Zigbee chips for DIY projects, but I would just like to say that I paid just 20 EUR for Ikea's gateway [0].

But if you do go Wi-Fi, why use a cloud service at all? Is there a specific reason not to go with mDNS/DNS-SD and handle everything on the local network?

[0] https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/tradfri-gateway-weiss-40337806/

> They don't have internet access

Do you mean they don't as a matter of manufacturing, or that you have blocked them yourself? (I ask because I am also interested in getting some lights, but would also like them to be local-network-only.)

Zigbee devices don't have internet access because they're not on the network. Zigbee is a seperate wireless protocol. Lights and switches implement a pairing step which allows them to interact. If you would like to control such devices from your PC, you'll need a device with a Zigbee transceiver to talk to these devices.

Typically, manufacturers sell you a "bridge" or "gateway", which is a networked device including such a transceiver. You could isolate this single device from accessing the internet or you could just not rely on any closed option. You can buy a USB Zigbee transceiver for 30 EUR and use it with your PC or a Raspberry Pi.

Perfect, thank you for the explanation!

I hate that this dominates the conversation. I tried some stuff with a pi once. It was a nightmare. I fidgeted around with the installation, and after some slight hiccups, I finally get to install the package for my security system.

Errors. A screen full of errors barfed everywhere. I look at the repository for some basic debugging, and without some serious dedicated time, I can't fix the issue.

This is why people don't want to fiddle with a Pi for these things. Time is dedicated to get the system up, but you're not given any kind of guarantee that it will work out of the box.

I feel like anytime a hobbyist says a Pi is the solution to your IoT or cloud problem, it's because they enjoy fiddling with the errors and getting it work. When it does, I'm sure it's rewarding, but a lot of people have other hobbies that they'd rather spend time on.

It's like telling someone who complains about video game DLC to go skiing. Yes, you might enjoy skiing, but skiing isn't a drop in replacement for the person complaining.

I think it’s more telling them to learn to mod their favourite game instead: technically it does solve it, but it’s not even in the same universe when it comes to complexity and time investment

This is also the reason why some of us enjoy futzing with Raspberry Pis (And a Arduinos and ESPs et al.)

But yeah, I understand your pain, and recognise that it’s not a hobby everybody wants...

Lack of maintenance is a good reason to use a microcontroller. I can understand not wanting to deal with the complexity of a pi and the associated software updates, but if you just need to read a sensor or toggle a relay and send a few packets you can write arduino code that is effectively set and forget. Most importantly you can be certain its behavior wont unexpectedly change because of some remote update. It's easier now than it ever has been to get started, things have improved alot in just the last 5 years or so.

Yeah, the new microcontroller boards that have Arduino Uno MCU (ATmega328P) and cheap Wi-Fi (ESP8266) bundled on a single board and connected together via UART are really great. I recently got a couple of these from AliExpress for $12 including shipping (for experimenting with sensors), and I noticed that they are really well supported by the Arduino IDE and the open source community in general.

I'd encourage you to check out the ESP-32. It's not that much more money and supports more features (BLE, actual hardware encryption, etc.)

There is enough choice of MQTT-compatible devices, running Tasmota or other (for example Shelly devices). No vendor lock, open protocol, no single point of failure (well, usually people only setup one MQTT broker, but it is possible to publish-subscribe to several brokers at once).

How hard have you looked for the lights? Or are you specifically looking for the whole "customisable rgb lighting with ecosystem with apps etc."

FYI Phillips hue is not vendor locked, and does not require the internet. They're not cheap though.

Phillips hue does require the internet for setup.

You can join Phillips hue units to your own zigbee network without Internet or even the Phillips hue app.

Zigbee2mqtt and a cheap zigbee dongle is all you need really. You could add home assistant for a better interface but there is no need to involve Phillips or the Internet. One of the huge advantages of zigbee imo.

Thank you, that's cool to know. But if it applies to all zigbee devices, there is little point to choose phillips devices specifically, no?

With reviews being useless lately, many people have gone back to trusting brand names. Though the only reason I brought them up was to point out availability.

One other really cool thing is they have a wireless switch that is powered by the act of pushing the button.

I just bought a Laird BLE temp sensor (BT510) and have complete control over it. I can scan-response it with a Raspberry Pi and get the temperature and display it on a small LCD screen. The pi is also my home automation gateway and it sends this (and other data) to my cloud so I can read it from my personal website (which is password protected).

The BT510 It has crazy range and has only dropped 10mV battery in 14 days.

It CAN be done, because sensor makers have no interest in reporting home: costs are too high!

We need more open source projects to enable people to automate their homes with a list of suppliers who provide "dumb" edge node sensors.

Electronic lights seem like a small convenience for a high price, not to mention how they require even more use of smartphones and such.

Disagree, as a renter smart bulbs are by far the easiest way to get dimmable lights in my apartment. Being able to dim the lights in the evenings while I watch TV is amazing.

We simply switch to string lights and "bedtime bulb" in the evenings, no dimming or internet needed.

(Although, I did install a dimmer into the dining room wall switch, but it's worth it I think if you'll be there at least a year.)

I would totally be down for that, but I don't have access to the breaker box, and I don't feel like trying to install anything into anything that has hot wires.

That’s smart policy.

In the US (or at least the majority of jurisdictions who have adopted it), NEC Section 240.24(B) requires "each occupant shall have ready access to all overcurrent devices protecting the conductors supplying that occupancy unless otherwise permitted in 240.24(B)(1)" (where that is roughly buildings with continuous on-site maintenance supervision can avoid this requirement).

Is that legal?

what do you do if you have a flooding? just hope you dont get electrocuted?

You should really insist on access...

No internet needed for my setup either, local network only.

They don't need to be internet-connected though, there's many "smart" LED bulbs that run off a traditional remote control.

I don't want to add a remote control to my life, the "smart" bulbs are better because I can control them with my phone, watch, and any other devices I might get in the future.

Not to mention, I have ~10 of these bulbs. Can't imagine how a remote control would deal with that. They also aren't connected to the internet, they are controlled by a hub that only has local network access.

We have automation to turn off all lights in the apartment when nobody's home, which saves a lot of energy due to us forgetting to turn of lights quite often otherwise. Also adds nice things like turning on lights on movement in the bathroom and kitchen, where you don't need to have lights on all the time, turning on lights 45 minutes before sunset if somebody's home and turning on lights in the hallway when coming home if it's dark already.

I find all of this extremely convenient and ZigBee is a great platform to do things like this.

I don't know if I'm just that jaded, but it feels like it's more trouble that just using a light switch and getting in the habit of not leaving lights on.

Depends on how many lights you have, and how often you need to do it. I've installed extra wires from all light buttons so one master switch per room, not as flexible but same cost over 10 years. It saves me a ton grief every night turning off all the lamps in the apartment, some partners never learn that light switches can turn something off. The monetary savings are not enough to break even in 20 years, the time saved is priceless. ;-)

I get a lot of subjective value out of being able to adjust colour temperature, brightness, and hue.

For instance, the last hour or two of the day, I have lights in the bedroom and kitchen either dim red or off.

Being able to do the routine of "try to go to sleep, fail, tell my watch to turn the lights red, get a glass of water or a snack, turn lights off" is really nice. Even dim white light would be like splashing cold water on my face.

There are other ways to solve for this, approximately, I guess. This is simple and works, though.

I forgot one more thing I do: a redshift kind of system for the whole house. The lights dim and change their temperature from bright and blue during the day to dim and red in the evening, just like my computer and phone does.

Circadian lighting is the script and it follows the sun to make its decisions.

I think this is common across all technological phases: wild west implementations preceeds standardization.

I have a few friends running Shelly devices locally with HomeAssistant and other agents. They can also do the cloud thing (and are unfortunately named that), but the local-first functions work. I don't know more, but the hass forums are a good start.

> Stop buying stupid disposable junk.

I get the frustration, but this is a narrow perspective. _Consumer_ IoT is still waiting for some good use cases. But IoT touches a lot more industries than that: medical, earth science, manufacturing, heavy industrial, logistics, energy... they are all being improved with useful IoT solutions. And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home.

I'd also note that privacy and security, while related, are separate issues. Most IoT solutions don't factor in either concern well.

> And we need solid security in all these areas, not just the home.

Who is we who need solid security?

I haven't met them. They don't sign a check for security. They don't do anything other than put "Security" on a PowerPoint slide and forget about it.

We make our shipping IoT stuff secure because it's a point of pride and point of competence. But we built the whole architecture around that idea, and it definitely slowed us down at the start.

Until people start cutting checks for actually secure IoT, it's going to remain a giant field of cow dung.

They really do exist. Believe it or not, just last week I had an actual meeting with an actual paying client who took IoT security seriously because "we've got some hydraulics on this machine that can cause real damage if someone hacks into it."

Unfortunately, I think this is going to be the perspective for a long time: if the customer sees real liability (read: a lawsuit for physical damage) as a possibility, that's probably going to be the only motivating factor to take security seriously.

Whatever. One step at a time!

> Who is we who need solid security?

Anyone with a modern medical device is the 'we'.

My grandmother got a new pacemaker installed a while back. She now has a device sitting beside her bed with a 4G modem in it, that talks to her pacemaker at night and sends the data back to some service, which in turn her Doctors can access.

This is apparently the normal thing to do.

What level of security is there in either of those devices?

How do you ensure that there isn't open ports? Does it get security updates pushed to it? (I wouldn't be money on that)

How does one ensure that this can't send malicious commands to the pacemaker?

This isn't just an issue with pacemakers, either - plenty of other medical devices are coming with various wireless chips in them.

> Who is we who need solid security?

Ultimately, the we is society.

For better or worse -- "Buying stupid disposable junk" the absolute central driving force and core of this economy and perhaps our culture and society. I'm with you on the idea, but there's a LOT of work to do...

Doubt that electronic gizmos have much to do with climate change unless you’re running kilowatts for Dogecoin mining or whatever.

It’s heating and cooling, transport, and food. Maybe cement as well. If you buy a new conventional car, I have more to question you on climate change over.

Electronics require lots of metals that are sourced through mining. Mining is an essential but dirty business that often leaves pools of toxic heavy metal water behind. These pools are damned up, but inevitably leak out into the surrounding environment.

It’s important that everyone Reduce, Reuse, Recycle properly in order to reduce our impact to the environment.

You know what requires a lot more metals? Cars and houses and apartments and railroads and highways. When we’re trying to reduce our impact on the environment, we’ve got to not waste time on the small fry while ignoring the elephants. Problems should be attacked proportional to their impact. Don’t think that using metal straws but driving a new gasoline powered SUV is making an improvement.

We are now at the point where everything matters. Industry is responsible for about 21% of GHG emissions globally (more than transportation!)[1]. Reducing that by using simpler technologies is a good thing to look into.

Do you really need to replace your perfectly functional doorbell with a big pile of electronics? Probably not. Would not driving to work every day make a bigger contribution? Yes. Would not doing either be best? Yes.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

Using an incandescent light bulb is not “better” than an LED bulb, even though the latter is a “pile of electronics” while an incandescent bulb is just a little tungsten wire. So I really don’t think this is a good rule to follow. Simpler technologies are often far less efficient and often have a far larger ecological impact.

LED bulbs are comically more efficient than incandescent bulbs (by a factor of 5-10), which in turn are comically more efficient (by 10-50 times) than like a candle or oil lamp. “Simple” is actually a terrible heuristic for “low ecological impact.”

Are you really making the claim that a simple doorbell switch has higher environmental impact than a Ring doorbell?

It actually might. If the Ring doorbell allows you to avoid opening your door just once or twice a week, the energy savings could exceed the environmental footprint.

A Ring doorbell has a 22Wh battery that lasts about a month or two per charge.

Having the door open for 10 seconds on a cold winter day can easily waste that much energy. About 10kW of heat loss for 10 seconds is 100kJ, higher than that 22Wh. Likewise, the embodied energy of that 22Wh battery is about 22MJ, and might dominate the embodied energy of the Ring camera. So if it saves you from opening the door 200-300 times in its lifetime, that might be enough to pay for its own embodied emissions.

Plus not having to drive home to pick up a package, etc, etc.

Plus think of other smart devices like smart thermostats that might be part of the whole Ring system. Or perhaps if the Ring device prevents destruction of part of your home from theft.

I don’t even own a Ring doorbell, but I can see how it could actually help. Also, traditional doorbells aren’t that efficient. Especially if they have a little light.

Ring could also replace a window to see who is there, which is a big source of heat leakage.

The argument is that the "simpleness" of the doorbell isn't a good heuristic for the amount of impact.

According to wikipedia [1], the transformer on a standard doorbell can use 2-3 watts of power at all times. That's 1400-2100 watt hours per month — about one hundred times as much as a ring doorbell uses (Less than 20 Wh per month).

The cost and impact of the Ring includes more manufacturing, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Ring ended up having a larger environmental cost, but it's not as clear cut as your incredulity makes it seem.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doorbell

> According to wikipedia [1], the transformer on a standard doorbell can use 2-3 watts of power at all times. That's 1400-2100 watt hours per month — about one hundred times as much as a ring doorbell uses (Less than 20 Wh per month).

Interesting thing to know because here in Brazil we don't route PELV (Protected Extra-low Voltage) to the doorbell. The external switch just carries the full voltage from the mains (127 Vac or 220 Vac, according to the state). Maybe it's not the safest design after all.

However this constant power usage can be safely removed by using a non-rechargeable 12V battery that would power a relay that will trigger the mains-powered bell when the (purely mechanical) external switch is pressed. This removes the constant power usage and such battery should last for years with a typical usage scenario (less than one second per push or so).

>We are now at the point where everything matters

You are missing the point and mischaracterising the problem. Resources are finite. Human attention spans are limited. Emissions from ships in international waters are an absolutely huge problem and addressing that will make a huge impact on future climate.

Funny how no one mentions that but we are all focused on paper straws and smart doorbells.

It is all related, so everything taken together does indeed matter. When we as consumers insist more on buying locally produced, durable, interchangeable, replaceable, repairable (!) components to build things we're actually likely to use for a long time, we can stem the flow of cargo ships and ditto planes shipping "stupid disposable junk" halfway across the world, thereby limiting all the pollution and waste of (fossil fueled) energy that goes with it.

While we're at it, we should demand to put an end to the senseless hoarding of patents and IP, in particular those that hamper interoperability between components, and for information on interfaces to be made public, so no more proprietary connectors, protocols, APIs, no more artificial restrictions on consumables such as printer ink, etcetera.

> You know what requires a lot more metals?

I believe the argument is about the refining process and the chemical waste it creates, which is substantially higher when trying to extract 99.99% pure copper, zinc, gold, silver and other industrial elements which are converted into electronics. I'm a hobbyist fan of silver and know just the basics - refining for 99.99% pure silver looks like making crack to my eyes. :) Breaking Bad level chemicals.

I'm to understand the act of creating and "washing" circuit boards also uses a large amount of caustic chemicals, as does the attempted recycling/recovery (to basically eat away the coatings to expose the reclaimable metals). Refining for purity has a high environmental cost to get it from ore -> 99.99% and to reuse/recycle it, I speculate much higher than iron ore (train tracks, etc.) require/use.

Interesting claim, but to justify a few milligrams of metals is worse than literally tons of metal and cement is going to require a quantitative argument.

99.99%, even if you’re right, only gets us to 10kg equivalent if you start with 1 gram.

(And keep in mind that these processes to make bulk materials themselves use alloying agents and specialty materials in cutting heads, etc, to fabricate them.)

It requires tonnes of ore processed to produce ounces of gold (I read roughly 13 tonnes on average, but it's highly dependent on the quality of the deposit and refinement difficulty), there are metrics and studies: https://www.businessinsider.com/tons-of-rock-for-an-ounce-of...

Edit as I'm curious myself, this study shows it's about 150 tonnes of ore input for one ton of copper output (with other minerals reclaimed during the process): https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk2/1988/8808/880811.PDF

Keep in mind your conventional car’s catalytic converter contains grams of platinum group metals, worth about $1000 or so now ($3000 for older, larger catalytic converters). Due in large part to the spike in rhodium prices.

Platinum is extracted as a by-product of nickel and copper mining (as are other elements) as it's primary source, unlike gold and copper which are mined for their element directly. Not arguing your point (45% of platinum is used in auto) only that how we get Pt and Pd is already in progress to get at the other elements like Cu, Au and Ag.

But IS it a mere byproduct? If it adds significant revenue, it’s no longer a mere byproduct but now part of the business proposition of the mine. About $30 billion of nickel is mined per year. About $8 billion in platinum mined per year. 30 tons of rhodium are mined per year, which at current >$900/gram prices, means the revenue from rhodium is actually HIGHER than platinum and on par with nickel.

So you could as well argue that nickel is a byproduct of rhodium (and platinum group metal) production.

The USA mints alone use roughly 4,400 tonnes of nickel to produce coins every year (one specific industry with one type of output in one country). Around 133 tonnes of platinum and 1,800 tonnes of gold are mined per year in total for all use globally.

Local odeon stopped using plastic straws in their drinks. Paper ones were awful. Bought some metal straws also awful. Ended up taking 2x500ml bottles instead - far more plastic than was used before.

Yeay?

Stop using straws... completely unnecessary.

Use a reusable water bottle. One can be had for the price of those 2x500ml bottles.

I don’t want water.

Charge me for the plastic for the 6 straws a year I use, which is far far less than the plastic others “waste”.

Put a price in the pollution and let the market sort it out

Using them maybe not, but producing them and then shipping them across the globe? Also, as with all things, its not like one iPhone in isolation is a problem, but millions, year after year, that does add up.

Maybe that's still not much compared to other industries, but in the context of the conversation here, its still something that an individual who might complain about climate change does have a little control over. I mean, if I complain, but then don't change MY behaviour, even if that change wouldn't by itself change anything, why should I expect companies to change theirs?

gizmos in total probably have some noticeable impact and unlike heating or food are mostly useless/not needed/harmful.

It’s amazing how after 2020 work from home and school from home orders, people still insist “gizmos” are mostly useless.

nonative speaker, by I thought that term "gizmos" excludes actually useful devices

I'd just say that both contribute and stop this whataboutism.

> The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk."

The joke is that there is no S, which means you're saying we shouldn't stop buying.

I use an old Philips TV from 10 yrs ago. It works fine, has HDMI and all that. No WiFi and other shit of course.

I am totally worried about the day it will break down.

I bought a guitar, TV went unused, sold it, less gadget worry. Bought more guitars!

I’ve dramatically slashed my personal gadget footprint. Phone, watch cause I like the exercise data, a Linux box I barely touch, old iPad for movies and video chat.

I pickup the guitar rather than sit at the TV or computer. Learning an instrument connects both sides of the brain like no other skills based activity.

No ads, acoustic road trips easy enough, no worry about charging, smart speakers would hear some bad covers of Wonder Wall.

It’s a life changing experience.

So when the TV breaks, maybe consider replacing it with $500 digital piano to get weighted keys and decent built in sound instead of paying for an ad distribution device.

What were you saying? I was busy upgrading the firmware on my guitar amp.

Is anyone doing a smart guitar with ads already?

Kinda, its an app that trains people to tune guitars in different scenarios. The ads are mostly for pro versions of itself, its sibling apps and a far field mike array for adjusting tuning based on the room. The killer feature is artificial intelligence that learns how the person perceives sound and adjusts the tuning from "technically correct" to "perceptually correct." It is gamified with a blockchain verified leaderboard.

I'm not sure if you're joking. This seems like a reasonable feature to have but then you threw in blockchain and now I'm not sure anymore.

Cheating devalues games. Ambiguity heightens absurdity. Maybe I should have added that the IP has rock solid patents, is open source* and the startup is still in stealth while raising a series G.

* some restrictions apply, please agree to the terms of service to allow super cookies and review that the license SKU matching your service region to a stacked arbitration regime established in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea and Delaware

Relative counterpoint - I'm an online student, all of my classes require a PC, all of my homework requires a PC. My orchestra requires I listen to and play along with recordings (on a PC). The minimum 'personal gadget footprint' for me and many others is going to be quite high. Above a certain level, IoT is unavoidable.

The thing that drives me bonkers about "smart" TVs is how slow they can be. Cheap processor + lots of software to compute = sluggish user experience. It's not not only is it spying on me, it's letting me know that it cares more about making me wait to spy on me before adjusting the frikkin' volume.

Like most other things, it's the good old "you get what you pay for". I got the LG CX OLED few months ago and that thing is lightning fast. Starts up nearly instantly, apps switch without any delay....I have no problems with it being "smart". Compared to my old Sony Bravia which literally took a minute to even start up, urgh.

Now you have to pay more for features that used to come standard, in addition to making tv ownership ad supported.

Nobody had a lighting fast or slow RF remote, the volume just went up and down when you clicked the button (after getting it pointed in the right direction)

Really? That’s strange, because I don’t remember my old TV supporting AirPlay. I also don’t remember ever seeing ads on my LG.

"Smart" is just a marketing buzzwords. These days due to this smart tv thing I can't find any decent dumb TV.

Their is nothing smart in "Smart TV" they all should be labeled "Scam TV".

Sceptre makes dumb 4K TVs up to 75".

Same here. I have a plasma LG that I absolutely love. It has an amazing picture, but it's heavier than wet sand.

My friend recently got a new TV and I was appalled at the controls, picture (soap opera effect), "smart features" (how it instantly goes into this app like experience that you can't ever get out of). So many things bother me about modern TVs. If my TV ever dies, I don't know what I'll do.

Replace with a projector :) you don’t watch OTA channels, do you? So any other media source should be hookable to a projector. Sure you need a dark room to watch stuff, but that’s a plus as it’ll induce you to watch less tv ;)

Also - the soap opera thing can be turned off in decent newer TVs and as discussed in other HN threads you can just deny the TV an internet connection so it behaves dumbly. You might still need to contend with clunky UI but really - just select your video source and start watching, so the pain is minimal.

Soon all 'smart' TVs will just come with 5G connection. Will make it much harder (if even possible) to deny them internet connection.

As long as parent buys his new TVs before that happens, they should be good to roll for a few years.

I got myself a nice chunky laser projector with more than enough lumen output to overpower the sun. In fact I loved it so much I got a second one for basically the same price. Sure it's not 4K, but I get the screen size.

I replaced mine with a computer monitor. It's a bit more expensive, but that's the price of not being spied on.

I wouldn't be surprised that by the time I buy a projector, they're all "smart".

https://www.sceptre.com/ makes dumb, consumer TVs. As far as I can tell they are basically the only brand doing it.

Are they good, though? I, too, want a "dumb" TV, but I still want high color accuracy, refresh rate, viewing angles, etc. I don't necessarily want a Hotel/Office Waiting Room TV.

Also, taking a look at the site, and not a single 4K UHD TV is in stock at the moment. Yikes!

Can't vouch for the TVs, but I owned one of their 1080P monitors in the last 2000s/early 2010s. Upper-middle quality, very basic OSD, great customer service. Used the monitor for ~7 years before upgrading to a 4k, sold it still working with original cables & box.

Walmart has better stock of Sceptre TVs last time I checked. Unfortunately they only make dumb 4K TVs up to 75"

(I was looking for 85", so I just unplugged the WiFi module in the TV I bought before I turned it on the first time.)

Most TVs work fine without an internet connection. I recently got a new Samsung TV. It really wanted an internet connection but works just fine without it.

This. All I want out of a T.V. is a dumb monitor. If I want "smart" I'll just plug something in - that's why a TV has HDMI ports. Instead you get something you can't replace, can't fix and can't get rid of.

One of my "please steal my idea" projects is to get any of these Youtube personalities that are famous for commentary on consumer tech (such as Linus from LTT, MKBHD, mrwhosetheboss) and convince them to create a company that would mix together something like drop.com with a "design studio" focused on coming up with high-quality kits for consumer gadgets, with the twist that every kit is open source and freely available.

Every month or so, they would make a video about the ongoing projects and show what kind of features are already available. Partner with manufacturer companies that can provide pre-assembled systems. For those that don't care about the DIY part, offer a subscription-based option where they can get early review units, prioritize their change requests, troubleshoot support, personalization options, discounts for bulk buys, etc.

The revenue from these subscriptions should be more than enough to fund the team of open source developers/designers and to make up for the "lost" revenue of a video made that is sponsored by any of the big tech companies. The most interesting though would be to see if this could lead to a change in consumer demand: could an influencer changed the public's perception of what is really "hot"? Would we start seeing things like "/r/mechanicalkeyboards" for all sorts of products like TV panels, wireless speakers, home automation light systems, F/OSS-based smartphones?

I had a similar idea where devices are all just a bunch of input and output devices that declar themselves via zeroconf on wifi/5G. And you can have a portal on your PC where you choose which software to use one which device and control it all from there.

There's a lot of IoT stuff which doesn't reach out to the internet. You can also reflash some commercial solutions with open firmware. Also, there's quite a few local only solutions using ZigBee / zwave that you can manage from Home Assistant.

You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition.

Home automation is a mess, IoT or not. There are standards like KNX, but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard. As a result, I can't buy any A/C unit, rolling shutter, light fixture and thermostat and just connect them to my home network, the selection of "smart" appliances is actually very limited.

I mean, home installation is thought out on the scale of decades, because renovation is a pain. People want something simple and reliable, that is the reason why some taps, switches, sockets, etc... are 10 times more expensive than others while looking the same and people still buy them. It is the complete opposite from what Silicon Valley is pushing.

> IoT is connected to the internet by definition.

Those who are old enough remember that the Internet is just one example of an internet. Quoting Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Internet#The...): "The Internet standards community historically differentiated between an internet, as a short-form of an internetwork, and the Internet: treating the latter as a proper noun with a capital letter, and the former as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any set of interconnected Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The distinction is evident in Request for Comments documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET, funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, to the Internet, with broad commercial support, was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity."

So an IoT is an internet of things, not necessarily the Internet of all Things.

> You probably mean home automation. IoT is connected to the internet by definition.

Home automation was just an example. I take IoT to mean networked not-general-purpose devices. The internet part is meaningless. If you use that IoT device in the same server room as the controller does it become strictly LANoT? What about private overlay networks? It was never about the internet as in public accessibility.

>but the problem is the same as it was 30 years ago when the idea of home automation arose: manufacturers want captive markets and can't agree on a single standard.

I think the "solution" to this is some sort of open hardware system, where instead of someone manufacturing and selling for a profit, the design includes a standard set of parts you order, and then there's a very simple assembly, Ikea-style.

I think the I in IoT is really for Internet, so I am not sure if it counts if it is local only.

Literally yes, but come on. "connected home" and IoT are so close in use case, and _because_ most connected home things are Internet-only, let's not pick at terminology too much.

I would love to have a connected home that did not require _any_ external connectivity or web accounts. Why did I need to login with my Google account and enable location services to set up a Chromecast Audio?

I imagine it enables Google to enforce location based licensing for where you can listen to certain songs at a given price point.

Listening to a song in the forest is free, listening to it in a bustling street costs 10¢ per play because you're performing it to people walking by

Intranet?

Surely it would be IntranetS of Things.

Vpn

Or you could just flip the switch with your actual thumbs.

There's a discussion to be had to on placing every basic action on our daily lives on a finicky smartphone.

There's value in automation across different devices. Just a silly example: I've got a CO₂ monitor in my office. If the level goes above a certain threshold, it triggers a fan and changes the color of an LED light strip to alert me.

Automation is great. What's nice is the thing you described can also be implemented extremely cheaply without any fancy logic or network connectivity, and then it's just a Thing, not an IoT thing.

... Are you really using iot for a co2 sensor of all things? It's one thing if your smart toaster fails to start when your car enters the garage, it's another when a device to save your life decides to do an npm update at the wrong time and you go to sleep. For good.

Sitting in an increasingly concentrated puddle of my own CO₂ when I close the door of my small home office is not a life safety issue. It just seems to affect my cognitive performance at some point. If there were CO₂ tanks or combustion in play, I'd be using a proper industrial CO₂ alarm.

This is probably to keep CO2 below 500/600 ppm, not a safety device.

are you thinking of CO?

CO2 is pretty safe because your body has a built in sensor.

Slightly OT: But what sensor are you using? I've been on the lookout for one for years but always decided they've been too expensive. But now working from home I think it's time to finally get one.

I was looking at this sensor available from Adafruit (and others): https://www.adafruit.com/product/4867

Seems like a reasonable price for a true CO2 sensor.

I'm using the Kaiterra Laser Egg+ CO₂.

Automation is what you are missing.

I love that my light turns on in the hallway when sun sets. Or the lock locks/unlocks as I leave or approach the house. Or that I can see my camera over vpn.

I totally understand it for security, as ironic as it is (given the topic). For everything else though, I feel like there's a "honeymoon" effect in place, where the theoretical and immediate convenience overshadow the implications.

To make a silly comparison, it's like buying digital videogames on a console instead of their physical versions, knowing you're trading immediate convenicence while giving away control, ownership and future availability.

I would have much less problems processing IoT if the "I" was scrapped and optional by default.

I guess I have an hard time understanding people relying on the internet at all.

In addition to what the other reply said about going local-only using Zwave/Zigbee, the other key is that home automation should be "in addition to" not "instead of."

Want to control your lights remotely or automate them? Use an in-wall smart switch. They still work as physical switches even if all your automation/smart home stuff is down. Guests don't need to know anything about the smart home, they can just operate them like regular switches. You get smarts "in addition to" the normal light operation that everyone in the world understands.

Smart garage? Hook into a regular, tried and true garage opener using some kind of remotely controllable relay. The button on the wall still works, the opener in your car still works, but you can have smarts in addition to all that.

Replacing regular bulbs with smart bulbs and then requiring a phone or internet connected voice device "instead of" a normal wall switch is insanity.

Correct. Most people like myself go with no cloud versions of smart home gear. And use vpn to have a lot more control.

A camera that works only locally (dafang hacks + wyze), home assistant, zigbee/zwave for example.

That's definitely a popular stance in the community of people who care enough to join the home automation and general electronics community, but if 'most people' is a factor, Amazon's best sellers are all "works with alexa" and "no hub required", and all of those products will surely die when their cloud tenancy is turned off.

Other people feel differently.

I personally hate living in a haunted world which is filled with devices watching me, ready to pounce and fill me with delight at their fulfilling my every desire. It's absolute exhausting and downright terrifying when you think through the hell some motivated hacker (or hater) could subject you to.

Is it unthinkable that all this stuff will turn on you one day? What if you become infamous for crossing the wrong person and a viral video sends the firehouse of political hatred from one group or another your way? "Swatting" is a thing. Just wait until people start hacking your house. They could burn it down while you are away by just turning on your oven maybe!

Me? I'd like my bricks, locks, doors, lights, and life to stay dumb.

I like not having to get up and walk across my house to reset the internet because my ISPs modem is garbage and locks up under heavy load.

I like being able to schedule my plant's grow lights to get the appropriate amount of light regardless of season and being able to keep that schedule even when i'm not home

I like knowing that I left my garage door wide open as I drove away because I forgot to look back over my shoulder to see that the button in my car didn't get picked up.

I like being able to unlock the door for my neighbor to let my dogs out if I end up stranded at work longer than I had intended to when I left that morning.

I like that my garage camera turns on and takes shots of whoever is entering though the door when its opened.

I like that my system texts me if a door/window is opened after 10pm (if its me? no biggy. If its an intruder? BIG HELP)

I like that these devices are on a segregated VLAN with firewalling protecting my personal computers/NAS

---

There's a lot of negativity to be said about smart devices, but you can't focus solely on the negativity while ignoring the advantages.

There's also a level of risk and comfort each individual should be willing to set for themselves. I don't 100% trust my garage automation, that's why I have monitored security on my house. I'm not willing to automate devices that can harm my house (oven as your example) but I am willing to monitor their power state (is the oven on?)

This isn't all or nothing in the end.

Your dual-edged sword is a valid argument, but one can only set the level of risk and comfort iff he/she is aware of the risks in the first place. Look at how busy the Best Buy "Geek Squad" is setting up TVs' and helping new owners with use of their smart remote! :-)

“Ghastly,” continued Marvin, “it all is. Absolutely ghastly. Just don't even talk about it. Look at this door,” he said, stepping through it. The irony circuits cut into his voice modulator as he mimicked the style of the sales brochure. “All the doors in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

People just can't get enough of Alexa and her Genuine People Personality!

The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”

He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”

“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”

In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.

“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.

— Ubik, Philip K Dick, 1969

I'd go further: smart devices are largely a status symbol. You're advertising to your guests that your concerns are those of convenience and luxury, to the point where you won't even use a light switch. That alone is pretty gross before you add in the implicit support for the megacorps.

That's a little too cynical.

I use smart home stuff, because: 1. I use it as security device (i have tons of zigbee sensors for motion, and contact). 2. I forget about simple things, all the time. I forget to lock my door, i forget to get my keys etc. All of this is taken care for me in case i forget. I haven't hooked up my garage door yet, but my kid (1 yo) likes to find the remote and press it mindlessly, and i really don't want to leave it open. 3. I like the convenience in general.

If you come to my house, it's definitely not something you'd say a "status symbol". It's only expensive because it's in bay area, otherwise it's a mediocre house.

I have been a programmer for as long as i remember, and these things excite me, that's another aspect.

I agree, but what I dont like is how to function a device needs Internet connectivity. Our smart vaccum cannot work with its app unless its connected to thr Internet. The nice thing is we can see its progress on mobile data, etc, but its a little ott for a 3rd party server to be involved. I'd prefer it to be local only.

I don't know of an off-the-shelf one you could buy.

For the tinkerers, https://dontvacuum.me/ and dustcloud/dustbuilder as search terms.

I have a roborock(Xiaomi sub-corporate brand) firmware flashed to no longer need internet, hosts "the database" on itself which is great for latency/responsiveness, provides web page functionality so you can use it from your phone, computer etc.

I quite like it.

Nice, I have the xaoimi mi vaccum Mop, not sure it's supported by that site just yet, but glad someone has taken up the challenge. It's a great little device.

There are lights in our home that are simply hard to get to, especially in certain cirumstances. I could probably rig up a physical switch with some extension cords (potentially dangerous) or rewire the house (expensive and messy) or I could use a wifi bulb or switch.

And once that was the case, it just made sense to have others for convenience, too. For instance, we can turn off almost every regularly-used light at the same time now when we go to bed. The remaining ones are lights we only turn on for a short time anyhow, so they don't get left on.

There are some good use cases for connected devices. Some are just gimmicks, but there's no point in being smug and discounting all of them.

I remember when the primary threat you considered when setting up your firewall was hackers trying to infiltrate your network. Increasingly I find myself using my firewall to sandbox devices already on my LAN and preventing them from phoning home to exfiltrate.

My thoughts exactly. And even this seems to be getting harder. I keep reading about "smart" TVs which barely function if they're not allowed to phone home, and IOT devices which query their own hardcoded DNS servers, ignoring whatever your DHCP server has told them to do.

I think it's only a matter of time before we start seeing more and more of these things with built in cellular modems which can't be disabled. Makes me want to start stockpiling older technology in order to prepare for a time when every single available lightbulb, washing machine, TV, or vacuum cleaner has to be online all the time and controlled by some privacy destroying app.

I'm only half joking when I say that I can imagine a future where something purely mechanical is considered the height of luxury. Look at this! A door lock with a metal key which doesn't log and transmit the comings and goings of your family and friends. Incredible! If only we could afford such a thing, but there are only a few artisans left in the world who can make them...

I can't imagine letting non-free software– the proprietor can modify it, but I can't, and under the control of someone else– hexing a piece of property I have bought. It's my property, yet it's cursed by the proprietor.

I would be willing to compromise if at least there was a widely adopted set of standard protocols that I could use to interface these devices with my own favourite controller.

Instead it's a mish-mash of bespoke proprietary smartphone apps that have terrible security and privacy practices.

The Venn diagram of IoT devices with reasonable default security and IoT devices that are not proprietary does not overlap at all.

Apple makes IoT devices with reasonable default security, but they're also as proprietary as proprietary gets.

I get the sentiment. That said, consider that "iOT" is sometimes simply re-implementing something that used a different moniker before. A printer that connects to Wifi to print is "iOT" but the link is just replacing the bulky copper printer cable (or the USB cable). Security cameras on WiFi replace installing labor intensive (expensive) hard wires between cameras and base station. It goes on and on. Basically re-implementing the same things that have sold before but with "improved" logistics that lower cost, add capabilities, or both.

>The S in IoT should be for "Stop buying stupid disposable junk." I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them.

...but you can order your IoT to "set a mood" from your phone or speaker and have 5-6 lights in your house change color and some Barry White to start playing like some cheesy 70s playboy's penthhouse.

Who wants to go back to physically walking to close a light? Walking? We've got expensive tredmills we've bought for that purpose!

Say what you will about Apple's Homekit but every Homekit device can be set up with local-only control.

> I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them.

Your hearing must be better than mine! I didn't hear Todd Weaver, the author of this blogpost, complain about climate change.

>I can't listen to anyone complain about climate change while they fill their homes with cheap consumer electronics from globalized supply chains that spy on them.

IoT thermostats can save an ton of carbon emissions, and spying seems to have nothing to do with climate change. Just put it all on a separate subnet and you can solve a lot of the spying/vulnerability issues though not all.

Check out Home Assistant and mqtt. If motivated you can actually go pretty far with just on-prem. If home automation floats your boat that is. I'm thinking maybe it's not just the surveillance part that you don't care for but that the whole thing does nothing for you. Which is cool.

> I also can't imagine letting an internet connected anything in my home, and I keep all internet electronics in one room. Sure, other people can live in a surveillance zoo, but I prefer to keep mine limited.

Out of curiosity, how often is your smartphone resting on a surface within reach @home?

Alerts have been 95%+ off for years. Sometimes it's nearby, but it doesn't go to the 2nd floor where bedrooms are. I don't do social media or slack either.

It's just a way of living where you don't give other people a free 24h real time option on your attention.

Notifications/alerts have zero bearing on surveillance capabilities.

Keeping your phone on you or at your side to respond to notifications and alerts means you are generating surveillance data the whole time via the accelerometer, mic, camera lighting changes, reachable bluetooth devices, signal changes, wifi availability, and every other onboard sensor.

Having alerts off means you relate to the device differently. Would be curious what you suppose I misunderstand about surveillance and security though.

You do know that you can prevent IOT devices from reaching the internet, right? Our Wemo gear, cameras, etc, get blocked by my firewall. Problem solved while still benefiting from their convenience.

I hope you do know that most consumers don't even have their own router, let alone anything that can isolate devices or block certain traffic.

What an amazing solution, so simple and accessible to the average consumer. What's the next revelation, that you can prevent the IOT devices from reaching the internet by reverse engineering and rewriting their software?

An even easier and more accesible solution to move your boot with a high enough acceleration towards the IoT device thereby totally disabling the internet functionality! Doesn't even need any technical skill.

I know you're being humorous but....

If only there were a big sign on every such device saying "We are spying on you!".

Otherwise how is the average consumer to know which ones to apply boot to?

(Also, the boot needs mass and velocity, acceleration is orthogonal :-))

This is where Sigfox has a lot of added value: It is like a simcard, but you only pay per million packages instead of per SIM, and you save the trouble of customers trying to disable your hardware. If you build electronic components and the TV integrator doesn’t want to bother providing ethernet to the power unit, at least the power unit can self-report its location to the grid.

Interesting point. I have also been thinking about how LPWANs could, in theory, be used to exfiltrate data from consumer devices without anyone noticing. I mean, it would be trivial to hide a tiny Sigfox / LoRa transmitter in kitchen appliances, washing machines, televisions, cars or whatever and claim that you need information like location and how the devices are used for "market research".

It feels like it should be illegal, but I'm not sure if it is or if there are loopholes. Do you, by chance, know of any actual consumer products with covert Sigfox / LoRa transmitters?

Amazon has built a LoRa transmitter (Amazon Sidewalk) in their Echo and Ring devices since 2017, it seems.

They’re not hiding it though. It’s marketed as something you might want to keep enabled and “help your neighbors” by sharing its location.

- “if your Echo device loses its wifi connection, Sidewalk can simplify reconnecting to your router”

- “customer support can still troubleshoot problems even if your devices lose their wifi connection”

- you “support community extended coverage benefits such as locating pets”

No I don’t, I’ve just be loosely afraid of TVs with sim cards, and since I discovered Sigfox I know that will happen someday. Same as the MH370 (I think) which went dark at transponder level but the engines continued to return the technical data for 4hrs.

I’ve begun thinking of plastic landfill crap as carbon capture. We don’t call electric cars coal cars, do we now?

Helps me sleep (not really. I can’t sleep. Help.)

I'm with you but I made an exception for a baby monitor

I don't understand why hate like this gets so many upvotes. IoT devices are in their infancy, it's not fair to constantly berate their inadequacies instead of focusing on the technological marvel that they are, what they can achieve and how they can be made more whole. The resistance to change on HN is real.

Home automation is really not particularly novel. Quoting Wikipedia:

>In 1975, the first general purpose home automation network technology, X10, was developed. It is a communication protocol for electronic devices. It primarily uses electric power transmission wiring for signalling and control, where the signals involve brief radio frequency bursts of digital data, and remains the most widely available.[4] By 1978, X10 products included a 16 channel command console, a lamp module, and an appliance module. Soon after came the wall switch module and the first X10 timer.

Of course electronics have progressed immensely in 45 years, so we can now do a lot more with a lot less.

I still feel like very little has change in practice though. I find myself actively avoiding "smart" equipment, both because it's overpriced and a bit of a pain to use in my experience. They all have their own software stack, their own apps (which are often cloud-based instead of running locally, adding all sorts of privacy issues) etc...

On top of that you never know when the company is going to go under or stop supporting your device, leaving you with a not-so-smart device in the best case, or a useless plastic brick in the worst.

Not only IoT devices aren't on their infancy, the device makers keep using C to program them, and don't provide any kind of updates on top of that.

Can't wait for my javascript powered IoT kettle that has a cpu more powerful than my laptop and includes 4gb of ram to load half of npm into memory! The future looks ever so much brighter!

I did not mention JavaScript, whose only worthy place is the browser.

So NodeJS is doomed?

I wish, but unfortunately I don't see it happen, it has become too relevant.