connected house. how do you manage yours?

[kmanmx]

well. people are willing to sell their privacy for convenience.

Not really. A hacker would have a 100x easier job hacking into my home network and stealing personaly stuff of my C:\ drive than they would hacking into Apples servers and stealing all the stuff I have on my iPhone's iCloud account.

 

[Joe C]

I have bad news for you. 99% of everything online these days are cloud hosted.

Best quit the internet entirely if you don't like it.

Yup... The Cloud is the Internet. Always was before that catch phrase "Cloud" the only thing different about it is they now give it a different name and the things we honestly do not need on line now today are. Do I really need my refrigerator to have internet access or my living room lamps? Are we so willing to have such a simple convenience such as turning on a light over our privacy and security? IOT device's have the worse security of anything else we do today (IMHO)

 

[PP Mguire]

Yup... The Cloud is the Internet. Always was before that catch phrase "Cloud" the only thing different about it is they now give it a different name and the things we honestly do not need on line now today are. Do I really need my refrigerator to have internet access or my living room lamps? Are we so willing to have such a simple convenience such as turning on a light over our privacy and security? IOT device's have the worse security of anything else we do today (IMHO)

My IoTs are on a VLAN. And yes, I very much love being able to walk out of my master bedroom and tell Alexa to turn kitchen lights on to 20% so I don't blind myself nor do I bump into a table on the way to the switch. I have a bad habit of laying down and forgetting to lock a door, or set my AC lower, or turn on my fans. Instead of getting up after I'm already comfortable I just say night time and it does it all for me. The mass convenience is there as long as you have the use case and it can be secure as well.

But we're talking about the cloud here and I have to agree with Kman. I have a fairly secure network and it would be much easier to hack into than trying to get into my iCloud account or Amazon account via brute force.

 

[U.F.O.]

@Joe C, hey on the bright side, the common man has a much better chance at creating a giant botnet from all these things surrounding you in an urban area. Just a few years ago only nsa could do this. I agree that complacency and convenience are not more important that privacy. The smartphone I have will be the last I ever own and alexa / Google home / siri are not welcome on my property. No nest, I think that stuff is ridiculous. Watch Mr. Robot.

 

[Joe C]

Amazon has admitted that employees listen to customer voice recordings from Echo and other Alexa-enabled smart speakers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/amazon-alexa-echo-listening-spy-security-a8865056.html

Somebody gave my mother-in-law one of those spy devices and I have to un-plug it when ever I go over there. It's nobody's business what I say to anybody that I do not know.
Also for PP, having something else remember your daily tasks are not going to help you to remember other important things also, and that's not including the security issue's. How many non-tech people will learn to depend on this stuff instead of doing things for themselves?

Example: person sends a text to the info tech dept because somebody else can not figure out on how to turn on the living room lamp and it is now dark out

 

[PP Mguire]

Life is filled with many miniscule tasks that won't be forgotten over night just because I choose to use a piece of technology to do it for me. We have cars that can drive themselves and cruise ships that operate on auto-pilot. Does that mean I'll forget how to drive my car? No. Being able to say night time saves me from walking around the house doing all these tasks and I can go straight to brushing my teeth and sleeping without needing to get back up because I forgot something. You don't like it fine, but honestly you can stay in your lane there. The things I use for my convenience are just that, for my convenience. Having a Nest means when I'm gaming I can quickly turn down my AC when I get hot instead of moving. Geofencing will open my garage door, set my AC/heat, unlock my door etc when I'm almost home. The doorbell camera and electronic door lock means I can see and communicate with whoever is at the door, or know when my kids get home from school safely. The alerts from the security system will let me know if the patio door has been opened so I know they let the dogs out after school and back in. My network setup and apps allow me to view surveillance and network usage (or block a kid in trouble) from my phone at work.
And if I was afraid of somebody possibly listening in from my Echo I might as well get rid of all the webcams in the house, scrap all the cell phones, throw away my Yeti mic plugged into my PC, or better yet just yank the fiber from the side of my house and throw away the z-wave security panel. Was no different than growing up being on a phone call and somebody might be on the other phone in the house listening in. I also enjoy learning how to set it all up and evolve as technology evolves instead of being stuck in the 90s or 00s like most of the older folks where I work. Their 30+ years of experience made obsolete because they won't move with the industry being stuck in their ways. Meanwhile they complain about younger people like me being paid more because I enjoy advancing my knowledge in the field and at home. It is what it is.

 

[Joe C]

I agree... it is what it is.
As for me, count me out on IOT ain't going to happen in my home if I can help it. I do have a digital thermostat but it does not go on line and can not phone home. I'm not against tech but tech should have a place and time in my personal life

 

[kmanmx]

For the past 10000 years people have been forgetting how to do things that once seemed important, because they were. But then tech replaces them so now it's not important.

The biggest recent example of this is learning to write. When I went to school we did handwriting lessons everyday. Maybe they still do, I don't know. But if I had a kid just starting school I probably wouldn't care that much if they couldn't write. By the time they're an adult 15 years later, how much writing is going to be done ? I barely do it myself now in 2019. I would expect it to be almost entirely gone by 2030+.

So I am not at all worried about losing skills or becoming reliant on technology. That has been the case since the dawn of man.

 

[U.F.O.]

Hope your kid doesn't have to wait tables before they're picked up as partner at a firm that uses idk tablets in court? Seems a little detatched from the reality I've lived and observe around me. I agree about cursive script writing though, that needs to go in the closet of past human mistakes like fronology or whatever, should be discredited and done away with. It's easier to read Spanish. And I don't speak Spanish.

 

[kmanmx]

Hope your kid doesn't have to wait tables before they're picked up as partner at a firm that uses idk tablets in court? Seems a little detatched from the reality I've lived and observe around me. I agree about cursive script writing though, that needs to go in the closet of past human mistakes like fronology or whatever, should be discredited and done away with. It's easier to read Spanish. And I don't speak Spanish.

There are already a huge amount of restaurants that use tablets. In fact none that I go to use pen and paper.

Though my sis works in the US a lot and she said other than California you guys in the US are way behind in some areas like that. She said she still had to sign some paper after using her credit card or some **** lol.