Do you have one of these? – IOTW Report

Do you have one of these?

Monday, 13 March 2017, 20:00 MJA Uncategorized 58

 

Amazon Echo-

  • Plays all your music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and more using just your voice
  • Fills the room with immersive, 360º omni-directional audio
  • Allows hands-free convenience with voice-control
  • Hears you from across the room with far-field voice recognition, even while music is playing
  • Answers questions, reads the news, reports traffic and weather, reads audiobooks from Audible, gives info on local businesses, provides sports scores and schedules, and more using the Alexa Voice Service
  • Controls lights, fans, switches, thermostats, garage doors, sprinklers, locks, and more with compatible connected devices from WeMo, Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings, Nest, ecobee, and others
  • Always getting smarter and adding new features, plus thousands of skills like Uber, Domino’s, and more
SNIP: I’m not judging you if you do have one of these, I just wonder if they are helpful or are they little busy- bodies?
I don’t like being nagged, and if I have to repeat myself constantly to get it to understand what I want I’d probably have to get violent. lol.

h/t Dave

58 Comments on Do you have one of these?

  3. Anything (including TV’s) labelled “smart” have the ability to snitch on you to whomever has the ability (and brought the rights to) to turn on, tune-in, or capture video of you and yours EVEN when not turned on. Just plugged in is enough.

    Welcome to the no privacy zone!

    Siri ooogges me out when my daughter uses it enough to not want these things near me.

    Assume that even your smart toaster know if it’s boxers or briefs!

  6. been researching home automation for a while now, the one common thing i’ve found is the vast majority are simply unsecured access points to your home network and many can be hacked/bypassed/messed with by anyone that has the inclination to look up the how-to on youtube. There are a few that seem to address security as important and not an afterthought, but most of the products are just wide open. Even if you had a secure hub device to run your connected items, having one open item compromises all of that. They really can add a certain functionality to your life and set up properly can make things more convenient but the risks are just huge. There was a report that the superbowl google home ad made people’s google home hubs go apeshit. There’s the stories of little kids talking and then amazon delivers a ton of shit to the door. There is a hilarious video of a kid babbling into an echo and it starts describing a hardcore porn scene. These aren’t ready for prime time in my opinion, though the way it’s going they will be literally everywhere very soon. I think that if you value privacy, you’ll avoid these since the company that records and stores what these devices see/hear won’t have the same investment in ensuring your information stays private, especially when they can sell it to anyone who wants to pay for it, gov’t included. Might be a losing battle at this point.

  8. I use Google Maps when I’m on the road. The voice advising you to turn here or there, and such, is great.
    I thank the voice every time it tells me to do something.
    Who knows where’d I’d end up if it got pissed off at me.

  11. I have a Harmon kardon onxy blue tooth. Love it.
    Plus I’m not running a criminal enterprise. And since I stopped making my dog go bug fuck crazy, using the command OBAMA!!! I’m probably pretty safe.

    Still use the OBAMA!!! command for entertainment purposes, plus the dog needs his exercise and I’ve gotten lazy.

    Seriously though, I’d get the paranoia if Hillary were president. Now I don’t even shudder when formations of Huey’s fly over.

  12. We have one of the new big ugly Ford vans at work. The darned thing can carry a lot of cargo and I’m getting used to it except when I stop a disembodied voice asks me to give it a command to perform. First off, I hate these things, it’s really none it’s damned business what I want it to do or not to do, I figured out pretty quickly that just by opening the drivers side door I can disable it. I swear I want to tell it to eff off and go away. I don’t need all this new fangled baloney, I’ve been driving since 1969 and up to now I’ve done pretty darned good and I don’t need or want a friggin computer voice telling me or asking me what to do.

  14. My first experience with “Smart Devices” was installing a programmable digital thermostat in my home back in the late 1980s. Instead of keeping the house comfortable, the stupid thing would keep over compensating – alternately freezing us and baking us. After a week I replaced it with that simple round one with the dial. I can’t even imagine what that overpriced Nest thermostat does. Probably sends an alert to the EPA if you run the AC for longer than it sees fit.

    Aside from my computer and iPhone, I hate devices that think they’re smarter and know what’s good for me.

  18. We too made the mistake of allowing a slick furnace-repair guy talk us into a digital thermostat. Guaran-damn-teed to save us a fortune. Did just the opposite. The walls, floors, dishes, furnishings, every damned thing in the house dropped down to 55 degrees. We’d come home at the end of the day and turn that baby up. It took HOURS for everything in the house to come up to 68 degrees. Gas bills were atrocious. Turned out we were better off by putting the old thermostat back on and just leaving it set on 68 degrees. Gas bill dropped.

  21. Check it out, California, 4 years ago, required new construction thermostats with power company remote control to “prevent brown outs”. The power company will cut your power when “necessary” to prevent brown out. It will learn they rhythm of your life and adjust as it sees fit.

    Somebody, am I right?

  22. I guess everyone already knows that your new “smart” electric meter monitors your electricity usage and can be commanded to cut your power off during peak periods of demand, if the power company deems it “necessary”, right?

    🙂

  23. Alexa plays a lot of tunes, answers questions, and entertains visitors. We’re not interested in her jokes anymore and I sure don’t want her getting control of anything. She’s a lousy conversationalist. Try to find her opinion on anything and she gets squishy. I asked her if she works for the CIA and she said she works for Amazon. I asked her if Amazon reports to the CIA and she hung up. I hate her.

  24. Bad_Boy_Brad,

    I have a dumb phone, I always forget to charge it or even carry it. Mr Z says >sigh<. But I do have tape across the camera on my lap top out of courtesy. Every time I have to show my drivers license I warn people, 'don't get scared'

  25. Zonga, yes, the smart meters. We fought them tooth and nail. Last ones in our community to have it installed. Meaning, one day we came home and the bastards had installed it.

  26. They billed those Smart Meters as a vehicle to control rates. Well the rates haven’t slowed their escalation to insanity. We are rarely at home. Always at work. Last months bill was $1200.00 smackers. And PG&E just announced another rate increase.

  28. OMG! $1200 utility a month?

    I am in subtropical, running the AC all spring, summer, fall, and electric bill UP TO $130 a month. (one hundred thirty)

    California prolly has it’s own imposed carbon tax? Plus shut down cheap energy plants, windmills and solar. Fruits & Nuts

  31. A couple of years ago (maybe 3+?), read where the smart meters were being tried/debuted in Australia and were blamed for numerous house fires… we opted ‘out.’ Wired the house & well for the generator instead, if needed.

  32. Smart meters are a similar tech but those are usually installed by the power company, like ya’ll said, to control power outages. I’ve been approached here but still have been able to decline. They do have the ability to monitor a surprising amount of your life through them, though it’s generally tougher than just using the camera in your tv to just watch or the microphone in your laptop/phone, etc. to just listen. They can use wifi signals off your router/internet connected devices to determine if someone is in the room and who they are just by signal distortion. Fortunately, that’s not a common thing and it’s not easy to do yet. I’m paranoid like Brad, maybe more so, since i don’t do social media(unless IOTW counts) and I keep my android spy phone locked down and don’t download shit on it. Yes, I take the battery out sometimes too (suck it apple). The Nest thermostats/similar thermostats that get installed inside the house will learn a lot about you and adjust as it believes it should, sometimes to the detriment of the homeowner – A/C off in summer, heat off in winter, etc. because it got hacked/malfunctioned. I had a wifi enabled thermostat installed when i upgraded my HVAC, forced the tech to disable the wifi since it wasn’t in the instructions (convenient!) and I wasn’t going to pay until it was disabled and no longer broadcasting. I still have the old mercury switch thermostat just in case it comes to life, but so far it’s been acting like a dumb thermostat ever since. These things are tough to avoid. My goddamn toothbrush has bluetooth and is internet enabled-for fucks sake, it will track my brushing habits if I want to download the app and pair it to my phone. I’ve not figured out how to disable the bluetooth yet, but no app and no pairing means no data transferred. Of course my neighbor probably downloads porn through it, but I can’t do it all.

  36. I live in the country, in the East. We have a 50 kw generator that runs off of natural gas.
    We have 6 gas wells and one is dedicated to the generator. We still have a power hookup
    to the local utility. Average bill $20.00 a month and we don’t draw any power.

  39. Don’t care, but, until they’re mandatory installations in all new dwellings, I won’t buy into their lies. Don’t want to end up like Michael Hastings! And, when I do have to consider a new vehicle, I’m going to totally disable and bypass any and all wireless capabilities.

  44. joe6pack, we had the option of, “opting out” of the smart meter and had a one time $75 fee. We’re on Edison, not PG&E, so don’t know if the opt-out option is required, but suspect that it may be? Maybe they can dictate if you want to be their customer. Short answer-don’t know.

  46. OK I lived in San Francisco about 9 years ago – the worst time of my life. I got around the power company by telling them I had cancer and could not go without heat. I cried on the phone a little too. The power guy sent a nice man over right away to restart the furnace. well, it’s true I did have cancer about 5 years before that and I was and still am OK.
    TMI?

  47. 6pak – we the “option” to refuse the smart meter, right up until they put one on the house…..no, they will NOT replace it, regardless of the fact that we opted out before it was installed… we’re in an rea area, so i suppose the government still has the last word……

    btw – we have a cat named sixpack – she was brought home as a mother’s day gift, turned out to be pregnant, had six kittens…and….voila…..sixpack……..

  48. It’s maddening as hell. At my shop I told them I didn’t want a smart meter. The guy said fine, we will just disconnect you then. I guess I could have pursued it but I didn’t.

  51. Zonga, I think there’s a good possibility you and my wife could take over the world. She got that negotiated rate on our business by informing them that we were manufacturing parts for our war fighters and their rates were prohibitive. Boom, agacultural rates for a machine shop.

  54. I’ve got an Echo Dot. I use it mainly to play all kinds of favorite music during the workday. Amazon has an enormous playlist collection (of every genre) and all I have to do is tell her what to play. Then I mute her microphone (it’s a few feet away). I like it better than my favorite FM stations.

    I have the Dot connected to my big stereo system in the living room and I like being able to control it from my office without getting up. The big stereo fills the house with whatever CD-quality music volume I want.

    It’s one more reason to keep keep me subscribing to Amazon Prime (besides the free shipping and TV/movies, etc.). You may hate Bezos for being a confused Liberal, but he is a one smart businessman.

  55. Yes it’s amazing to voluntarily have something listening in on everything you say and do in your home.

    Yet, here most of us are with our phones on us all the time. And it does the same thing, only it keeps tabs on you and listens in everywhere you are, not just inside your home 😀

  56. “Demand Response.” It’s a lucrative enterprise in PJM’s energy market. The provider of DR receives significant payments if they reduce their power consumption when called upon during high power use periods (extreme heat or cold). I’ve seen it used. It’s freaking awesome. As power consumption approaches maximum power supply, the call goes out, and WHAM, the uptick in the load curve STOPS.

    It’s state and federal policy for power companies to put out public requests for residents to reduce power use during periods of high demand. Smart meters do indeed give powercos the ability to reduce your power intake, but I seriously doubt they use it much. YET. They will eventually as more and more power plants close.

    It’s really nothing new. Many powercos signed residential customers up in the 80s with remotely interruptible electric water heaters for reduced rates.

    The main attraction to smart meters for powercos is reduced expense for meter reading. The list of opposing views from customers is endless. Your mileage may vary. Offer not good in any state whose name ends in a vowel. Must be 21 or older. Employees or family members associated with IOTWR are not eligible. Warning: may contain nuts. Do not use in shower. Keep away from open flame.

  58. @Sapper Chris – A Bluetooth brush? Why would anyone want their teeth to turn blue? Except for a few Liberal nutcases out there.
    You know why the toothbrush was invented in Arkansas? If it had been invented anywhere else, it would have been called the teethbrush.

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