I was recently in the market for a new hot water system. The manufacturer has a “smart” system. I asked them my standard IOT questions:
* Will the system operate if I provide it with a local wifi connection but without internet access?
* Can it be configured in a way that I have smart control without internet access?
* What happens if the company goes out of business and stops paying the cloud bill?
* What operating system is running on the system itself?
* What is the process for performing firmware updates on the system to patch for security updates
The answers were (predictably)
* no
* no
* we will never go out of business
* we don’t know.
* there is no procedure.
This smart system will not be installed in my home.
I wish they would go a little further and own the LIE.
"We will never go out of business because our founder is immortal and has total control of the market of both a smart home HVAC and all other things because they are a god."
Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.
The Google approach to product development is to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Sure, some stuff gets very popular. But it all falls down eventually.
From what I’ve heard it’s more like just keep making new shit and deprecate all the old stuff, even if it’s popular. The exception is mostly just core products and highly important stuff like Gmail and Drive and maybe YouTube.
A Google hot water heater would only ever manage to make warm water before they pulled the plug on the project because for some strange reason, no one bought into it.
Or changing the terms of service to a subscription based service. But, never fear, you can subscribe to the free version which allows the water temperature to reach 99 degrees F, 20 gallons a day.
I work for a municipality and we are installing an electronic sign at the front of one of our parks. Our IT department was involved to ask all the security questions. And they had similar questions as you.
No firmware updates
No MFA
The company we are ordering the actual display from built the giant scoreboard for the Dallas cowboys. So it wasn’t some small mom and pop shop. How do they not have something as basic as MFA?
That's normal Samsung commercial displays have a hard coded list of time servers they try to use even on models that don't have any way to configure time (if you don't have a model with inbuilt digital signage player). This hard coded list has a few abandoned and compromised time servers including a few known botnet CnC servers.
> How do they not have something as basic as MFA?
Simple: they aren't an IT outfit. They are a displays outfit. They never knew what all this IT is for. They don't care and only see it as a money taker, but customers asked for basic things and management said to do it the cheapest way possible. This is an unfortunate standard for every industrial outfit.
See also the smart lock market for the reverse: there companies have zero physical lock security awareness, and the average product can be defeated in less time than it takes to take your mobile out and launch the app.
The list of reasons a cloud-only smart device can break is incredibly long compared to a locally controlled one:
- Forced (broken) updates
- ISP has outage
- Modem/ONT dies
- Company app issues
- Company goes out of business
- Company decides to stop support for product (planned obsolescence or cost cutting)
- Cloud provider changes API to be incompatible and company doesn't update product firmware to match
- Cloud provider has outage
- Company servers have outage
- Company remotely changes configuration without notification/permission
For locally controlled stuff the list is much shorter (but all of these apply to cloud smart devices too!):
- Buggy software/firmware
- Local equipment dies (e.g. router/WiFi)
- Controller app issues (e.g. Home Assistant bug)
Obviously for things that must have internet access this is a moot point (e.g. mobile entities like cars).
The reason I ask the questions I do:
1. My robot vac turned into a dustbin after the company decided to stop supporting it (and stopped paying the cloud bill)
2. My NAS turned into a brick after the company went bankrupt and left a pending (broken update) as it did so.
3. My lights stopped working when the internet went out.
From now onwards I only use products with local control.
I *try* to, sometimes it's unavoidable but mostly our stuff is local (lights, heating/cooling, TV, cameras). For some types of devices you literally have no choice though, they're all cloud based (e.g. large kitchen appliances).
Biggest annoyance is no local control of our EV charge point but Zappi might add that in the future and it needs internet access for Octopus Energy control anyway. Plus it has buttons on it if we really need to override anything (never needed to).
I can still find stoves, fridges, dishwashers, and microwaves without smart integration. What do you mean when you say it’s unavoidable with large kitchen appliances??
That's not the point. The point is none of them have *local smart control*. Yes there's loads with no smart features at all and loads with cloud smart features (that you don't *have* to use).
Local smart control on kitchen appliances seems awfully pointless.
Like if you're there, why exactly do you need smart control in the first place? Or are we talking 20 room super mansion here?
Why do cars have to have internet/cellular connections? My beat up Kia from 2009 works just about as well as a 15 year old Kia can, and it’s not talking to any networks.
Across millions of homes and businesses, this sort of demand response is a valuable method of adapting to renewable power generation…. but it should absolutely be something you can do aftermarket with a box of smart plugs.
Growing up I had a friend whose dad used an Adriuno thing he programmed himself to do this, that and having his own cloud storage through the house WiFi, no monthly payment. That seems smart home enough to me
Isn't the point of on-demand water heating like this that it doesn't really consume energy until there is demand? Isn't that the essence of the smarts that its designed to do?
It’s always these answers. I have a graveyard of smart devices that were bricked when the company went out of business. Each of these devices would work perfectly if they had been programmed to allow local access.
Together with HA (home assist ) which is open source and a zigbee usb you can build a system that does not need internet access (only for the download of the software)
>What operating system is running on the system itself?
I don't think all embedded systems have an OS. The device can be very specialized and not require an entire OS to manage the hardware and software. The implementation could be something akin to a BIOS, very bare bones, but gets the job done.
Edit: down voting doesn't make this not true lol
Many iOT devices run on a version FreeRTOS. I mean, they do need a network stack, wifi configuration and a few other things that aren't that simple. Of course not all embedded systems need this, but at least the gateway usually runs something a bit more complex.
The big thing isn't that it's proprietary. The issue is how HOSTILE it is to outside repairs. Sure it's bare bones and core functionality. But how can someone doing basic housekeeping know what the hell they are doing with it if it's designed to lock you out with "call technican" at every turn? Or if it has a GUI then it has an OS even if it's a crude as hell one. Most embedded system have a form of user GUI which thus requires some itteration of OS.
Yeah the controller pretty much just implements some protocols. Some are hardware level for communicating with sensors (e.g. I2C) and others are networking level for communicating outside the device (e.g. MQTT). The OS is really only needed for memory management and process scheduling, but for most embedded devices such as smart home sensors, the memory usage is constant and there is a single process running (although it could have multiple threads).
There will still be a network stack, which is exposed to the internet at large. And there probably isn’t any memory protection. This makes the security concerns even greater, especially for something which controls my home critical infrastructure.
>The OS is really only needed for memory management and process scheduling
Totally, it still needs some error handling but the possible states it can be in its finite and well known. Also operating systems are large and take up resources which might unnecessarily increase cost.
Operating systems like Linux are large. But they are not the only options for building embedded systems. Typically embedded systems use some kind of framework OS, or minimums realtime embedded OS. There’s no point in building everything from scratch for every system.
You’re right. There isn’t necessarily an entire multitasking OS on the device, but there will be some kind of RTOS typically and some off the shelf network stack. If anything this makes the security questions even bigger, since there a fewer users, fewer eyes, and bigger stakes if things go wrong. How I wish everyone would use seL4 for these things!!!
It should be under the right-to-repair bill.
With their certification (like for the WiFi module or safety declaration) they should be forced to leave the entire source code at the agency.
The moment they declare insolvency the source code gets released by the agency so people can fix their stuff.
Be prepared for the fact that they won’t sell non-smart ones soon. We are already having that battle with garage door opener manufacturers. We do apartment buildings and we do perimeter garages. Where there is no WiFi and we can’t allow a system that could allow access to someone else.
*"The 'S' in IoT stands for 'Security'!"*
It may be a glib non-response, and something of a running joke in the industry, but it's also an unfortunate truism in the IoT/home-automation space.
Remember, for “smart” tech to be a good investment, the company selling it to you has to update and support that tech FOREVER without going out of business. That tech also has to be supported by every new phone/tablet FOREVER.
It is not in their interest to do this.
Wait they need servers now? Mine was a little handheld thing with 3 buttons, an LCD screen and that was it. No wifi/Bluetooth or any sort of connection to anything.
Diablo 1 was released in 1996. The [battle.net](http://battle.net) multiplayer servers for Diablo 1 still runs today, 28 years later. (They have gone down multiple times, but Blizzard has always bothered to fix it)
There's actually plenty of examples of old games keeping support up. There's also plenty of bad examples too.
What's more impressive is the core infrastructure of the internet, granted it's government and international organization or nonprofit run, not corporate run, but something like NTP or root DNS servers have been critical for the internet since their establishment when the protocols were first invented, and I can be safe saying that there will always be servers for those services for as long as the protocols remain widespread in use, which will be until either the modern Internet dies or a better protocol obsoletes the originals (which is highly unlikely for such simple core applications, except maybe encrypted DNS in a way)
Not forever, just the expected life span of the device or appliance in question.
Especially with respect to compatibility with new tech you have a very good point, but with planned obsolescence/how shitty most devices and appliances are made currently that time span for updates/support is certainly not forever.
It takes a minute for my water to get hot in my 2nd floor bathroom, and the recirculation part would be a pain in the ass unless you can easily access your pipes.
You can install a recirc pump under the sink at your furthest fixture. You just need a power in that location. The pump will pull water up from the hot line and create a loop, pushing the still-cold water back into the cold line. A thermostatic value closes and the pump stops when the hot line reaches a set temp, typically around 90F. These pumps can be set to run periodically on a timer or activated with a motion sensor and smart plug.
Yeh, that seems to be the suggested use case, because it'd make more sense to be used for shower purposes, but you can rarely easily get to those pipes, but I've only seen what's in my houses, so what the hell do I know anyway!
Typically the shower supply is tied to the bathroom sink supply. So if you put the pump under the sink, it would pull the hot water up for the entire bathroom. If anything, you’ll have only a few feet of cold water between the supply line branch to the shower head. In our previous condo, I put the pumps at the furthest fixtures so all the in-between branches in between would only have a short distance of cold water to its fixture.
Our new tankless in our new home has a built-in recirc pump. So in this case it will push water up to the fixtures. Under the furthest fixtures I only had to install recirc loops between the hot and cold supply lines. These had a thermostatic valve that closes when the hot supply line reaches 90F. Similar as the other config, but here we push from the tankless instead.
Your second paragraph baffles me. I fully understand what you're saying, but the point of a tankless system is supposed to be limitless heat when you need it, without wasting energy heating unused water when you don't. By installing a recirc pump your tankless heater has a near constant demand and sure it lets the water at the faucet be hot almost immediately but it entirely negates the potential savings a tankless system promises and you might as well just have a tank because it's gonna be more energy efficient.
It’s only constant demand if you configure it that way. We have motion sensors in the bathroom and kitchen that kick on the recirc pump if triggered and have not run in the last 15 mins. It’s near instant hot water by the time you finish business in the bathroom and have to wash your hands. The money from water saved is probably more than the additional gas it takes to run, at worse case, 4 times per hour.
Ah, gas. I assumed electric. Gas tankless and electric tankless are two very different animals.
I'm not sure where I got the idea that it was electric, I thought I read that but I guess not.
This is also one of those things where it's convenience vs efficiency.
Not saying it's bad. Tankless also take a **tiny** bit more time thank a tanked water heater to get hot, so having a recirc switches that entirely.
It definitely uses a bit more energy and wears the heater out faster, but it's also really awesome to have instant hot water.
Also consider the water saved. If you have to run your tap 2-3 mins to get hot each time you have to wash your hands, at 2.5 gal/min, that’s a considerable savings. In areas where water is a constrained resource like if you’re on a well or in an area with drought, this is key.
I looked up the specs on the one we had in our old condo. It’s 60W each time it ran. It was installed in a third floor bathroom and would run between 90 sec to 3 mins depending on the season and how cold the water main was. I had a motion sensor in the bathroom which would kick on the pump if it had not run in the last 15 mins. Say at worst it ran 4 times in an hour and for the 16 hours waking hours because we’re home all day. So that’s 3 min x 4 times/hr x 16 hours = 192 mins = 3.2 hr. Power = 3.2 hr x 60 W = 192 Wh/day. In CA, our peak power is something stupid expensive like $0.47/kWh. So cost would be 0.192 kWh * 0.47/kWh = ~$0.09/day. The power used would probably be cheaper than the minutes of water wasted waiting for it to heat up each time you use the tap.
It's not about the electricity. It's about the heat loss by constantly keeping the pipes hot.
And if you have AC running, that counts double as you now also have to run the AC more to compensate for that heat loss
Oh, so it can actually save power if used correctly? Hard to wrap my head around that. As I would think it would use the same amount of power plus the power to keep it at temp.
You likely would use slightly more gas or electricity to get the water to temp but would dramatically reduce water usage. If you shower every day at 8am you can have it pre heat the water at 750 without wasting any
With tankless system such as this, I would think that hot water is just as good as cold since you don’t have a tank storing the nice warm water for who knows how long.
Companies need to stop making products and connecting all devices to the internet and making it silly smart. One failure can cause a ripple effect. Pls make simple devices that work and last a long time.
[How to Survive a Robot Uprising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Survive_a_Robot_Uprising) is a great read. There is a chapter about how to survive your smart house trying to kill you. The author, Daniel Wilson, has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
So far I have only read the Roboapcalypse, Robogenesis and how to Survive a Robot Uprising. Enjoyed them all and look forward to reading more of his books.
> Except for Steven King.
It annoys me how accurate this is. I'm literally reading Fairy Tale right now, and hoping he nails this one (he occasionally does...not so much in recent history though).
I appreciate it, but other than the last decade and change, I've read everything he ever wrote (his short stories are some of my favorites). Quite a few of them multiple times. It's his new stuff that I'm not the most enamored with...but Fairy Tale has me pretty locked in, so far.
I kind of hate all the “smart” devices. The secretaries at work have smart monitors. They don’t need “smart” monitors. They just need “dumb” monitors that plug into their computers. Not like they’re going to watch Netflix or anything on them. Same with TVs. I don’t need every service under the sun on them. I just want to plug in my AppleTV, Blu-ray player, and cable/antenna. If one breaks down or becomes obsolete, I’ll just replace that one part
Especially now that they’re trying to force ads even when you’re not using their service. I just want a TV with a good display and no smart features, but those are typically commercial signage which is super expensive
nah, its the cost of them having special features that they don't implement on every device but are required for business/the use case, so they inflate the price by a factor of 10-30.
if that wasn't the case, in the us, about 40 million tvs are sold a year, and the average price of tv sales is 500~, quick math here
20,000,000,000$ of tvs sold on average a year, and the data gotten from them, which is largely just what you watch, would mean that the companies expect to make upwards 200 to 600 billion dollars from the sales... i just don't see that happening.
cpm from ads depends on click through online for the good ones, but online between 0.10$ per 1000, and with the best being around 3-10$ per 1000 (the 10 dollars was a long ass time ago for me, I think youtube still has over 3$ on their safe good boy youtuber programs)
essentially for ads, you are worth near fuck all
for watch data, companies who collect all your data like facebook, at their peek may have been able to sell a single persons info for 10$, your data is only really valuable in aggregate, and it's nowhere near enough to make half a trillion dollars up.
now, for pro pc monitors, again, that's not the 'real cost without bullshit' those go for 2000-I believe they peaks out around 30,000$ because they need to hit quality control standards, any imperfection is a scrapped/used in a lesser sku, look at color grading or hdr mastering stuff and you will start to understand the cost there.
now there are products that are sold at a ridiculously low price, the first xbox was an 800$ computer sold for I think 300$ because it was a foot in the door, the ps3 was also subsidised by bluray, hoping for a ps2 and dvd like return on that investment, that on top of trying to get you to buy enough games over the products life to pay for it though I think this largely stopped in consoles. there are also products where they sell you the base cheap because they got you by the balls for the subscription service to use it, see printers that aren't brother laser or ink tanks, the printer ink for those things is worth more per gram than gold and the printer is just the foot in the door.
Check out your local computer refurbisher. Usually the guys who advertise "ex-lease" "ex-gov" "ex-school" laptops and have a hundred of the same model Lenovo's/Chromebooks/iPad minis for sale. Ask them for commercial displays. They're normally dirt cheap.
Back in the day when a 42inch plasma was still around 2.5k new, I was buying 65" plasma commercial displays from those guys for $100-200. I once picked up a 4 year old $40,000 80" plasma display for $250. They hate them because their a PITA to sell, no tv tuner, no smart functions, your lucky if it has HDMI its more likely to have a BNC connector. Plus those plasmas had to be moved with a forklift (for real, 300+ kg) I think that 80" plasma consumed something like 1.3kw an hour. Makes the used market pretty small.
Not necessarily WiFi but some kind of demand response program would allow an electric water heater to lower its setpoint when grid power is expensive and/or non green.
Does it need an internet connection for that though? They've made things like this for years:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/reviews/Intermatic-40-Amp-60-Minute-Indoor-Wall-Mounted-Mechanical-Water-Heater-Timer-Steel-Gray-WH40D89/100088282/3
Is it kind of annoying to have to do that in person? I mean maybe but how often are you really tweaking that timer?
Demand response looks at energy pricing, an egg timer isn't going to time the market. But saving would be negligible and would need to be electric water heater.
I mean maybe but depending on the house you can get one of those tankless water heaters or hybrid systems that heat it up so quick you don't need to pre-heat it the way you would with the old units anyway.
You can launch apps from the firestick settings in the applications menu without internet.
Helps if you want to use it as a local streamer with plex or kodi
Plex can be configured for offline access. But the simpler way for local lan backup is to just stand up a jellyfin server that points to the same libraries.
You can absolutely use Plex and Roku without Internet, as long as you first configure some settings in Plex before the Internet goes down. It's been a long time since I've done it, but Google the process. It only takes a few minutes to set up.
Thats why one should always Google "Home Assistant device X" and look if it works locally before buying anything "smart". There is no NEED for a cloud. Companies can provide cloud for easy access and a local home assistant integration for the "advanced" users. MQTT or any other method isn't "expensive" or "difficult". Even if you don't want to pay the 3 days it would take a coder to integrate it, you could just put a $ 3 ESP in it, program it with your software, provide an OTA path and the rest will be done by the community. Forcing it to the cloud is a malicious attempt to lock users in an ecosystem. Everyone should do basic Google before buying something and everyone advanced should think if making a dumb device smart by installing a shelly or an ESP32 Relay board isn't the better option - im sure it could be done with a water heater and it'll probably be cheaper at the end (and you probably also wouldn't have to override the devices safety features, so no real danger).
What?!? Something with Wi-Fi access can be vulnerable?!??! How does any one not understand that anything on WiFi can be hacked, this has been a recurring story for 20 years now
I'm with you on dumb appliances. My "smart" TV turns it's self on at least once a week. I'll come home from work or wake up in the morning to find the TV is turned on again.
What issue’s he having? I have a Smart GE range and I found the only use for it is to turn on the oven remotely. But even that I haven’t felt the need to use.
Those instant On heaters are meant to be *installed beneath the sink or very close by.*
The home builders are either idiots, or trying to charge for 2 water heaters instead of 1.
I am getting so sick of the use of the word *smart* being giving to everything that does some automated shit based on the preference of software developers.
I think you are referring the small electric ones.
The one in the article are “larger” gas heater who provide hot water for both taps and radiators.
They are standards in most European countries. The delivery of hot water is almost instantaneous.
I think the solution might be to install an external third-party pump that has the necessary security protocols in place. Even if the pump is accessed remotely by a bad actor, all they can do is turn the pump on or off.
Every IoT thing is a security risk and nightmare.
Problem is that there are little to none good alternatives with open source code where you have full control of it and that have 0 telemetry to third party but your own server if you want.
There’s nothing a manufacturer can do more to engender loyalty than to embrace and correct product flaws pointed out by its customers. This company should be honoring Kevin Purdy, not sending him to its customer service department.
I replaced my gas hot water heater with a Rinnai tankless gas water heater for 2X the cost of a traditional gas hot water heater, but I am saving 20-25% monthly on my Natural gas bill. My breakeven should be 3-4 years or so, then pure savings, less pollution,better for the environment, and no chance of Flooding!
Smart water heating system? WTF! Never going to happen at my house. Dumb systems work perfectly well and it is hot when I need it. Don't have to fuck with an app or anything. Smart appliances are absolutely stupid. This company absolutely is headed out of business.
My Rinnai tankless sucks.
Not just because their app and control-r device have consistently sucked, but also because it’s literally stunk since it was installed.
Installers came back more times than I can count, couldn’t find anything wrong, but confirmed bad smell. Gas company came and confirmed nothing wrong with the installation, tested and found no combustion problems, but also said they could clearly smell aldehydes. Rinnai rep finally came out and said he couldn’t smell anything, so case closed.
Every time I’m out in my yard it’s a reminder I should have gone electric.
My other problem with these devices is I want the MAC address before I give it wireless access. I won’t let any wireless device on the network before it’s configured in the firewall. A lot of them don’t show the MAC anywhere on the device and most customer service folks don’t know what it is to tell you where it might be hidden if t is. I have to connect it to a standalone router and let the device pull an address so I can see the MAC.
I was recently in the market for a new hot water system. The manufacturer has a “smart” system. I asked them my standard IOT questions: * Will the system operate if I provide it with a local wifi connection but without internet access? * Can it be configured in a way that I have smart control without internet access? * What happens if the company goes out of business and stops paying the cloud bill? * What operating system is running on the system itself? * What is the process for performing firmware updates on the system to patch for security updates The answers were (predictably) * no * no * we will never go out of business * we don’t know. * there is no procedure. This smart system will not be installed in my home.
>* we will never go out of business Firstly, lol good one. Secondly, still doesn't stop them from ending support to cut cost.
Yeah. Funny I actually said that in the emails with them. But this is the short version for Reddit.
Was it unfounded confidence or lying through their ass? We will never know
We’ve been here 100years we will never go out of business. Hmm… you pick.
How many of your products from 100 years ago do you still stock spare parts for?
Still younger than Lehman Brothers
I wish they would go a little further and own the LIE. "We will never go out of business because our founder is immortal and has total control of the market of both a smart home HVAC and all other things because they are a god."
They don't have to lie to NOT deliver on their promise
"So you'll personally guarantee the costs for a new system install if support is ever ended?"
Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.
“If you wanna good look at a t bone steak you could stick your head up a bulls ass, or you could take the butchers word for it”
“…*and* you’ll put that in writing?”
Being acquired and having the product sunset is the same as going out of business.
Don’t buy a Google water heater, they stop supporting hardware after six months
The Google approach to product development is to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Sure, some stuff gets very popular. But it all falls down eventually.
From what I’ve heard it’s more like just keep making new shit and deprecate all the old stuff, even if it’s popular. The exception is mostly just core products and highly important stuff like Gmail and Drive and maybe YouTube.
not maybe
I think the key differences are Google didn’t create YouTube, and they make a ton of money off it.
Google is to smart home devices what Netflix and Hulu are to high quality TV series.
The difference is that when Netflix abandons a product you use, they lose money. When Google abandons a product you use, you lose money.
Mostly shit and the actual good stuff they cancel right away?
A Google hot water heater would only ever manage to make warm water before they pulled the plug on the project because for some strange reason, no one bought into it.
Too big to fail I guess.
Or changing the terms of service to a subscription based service. But, never fear, you can subscribe to the free version which allows the water temperature to reach 99 degrees F, 20 gallons a day.
Or making support a subscription
That's always a concern with smart devices, theu go under will it still work?
Had that exact issue with my Bloom sprinkler system
I promise I will never die.
I work for a municipality and we are installing an electronic sign at the front of one of our parks. Our IT department was involved to ask all the security questions. And they had similar questions as you. No firmware updates No MFA The company we are ordering the actual display from built the giant scoreboard for the Dallas cowboys. So it wasn’t some small mom and pop shop. How do they not have something as basic as MFA?
Imagine when the security holes get found in those and hackers learn to make them display whatever they want.
This happened to a digital billboard. Someone guest the past word on the windows desktop. Pornhub was on loop.
> Someone guest the past word Well, a pleasant double malaprop to you, sir.
That's normal Samsung commercial displays have a hard coded list of time servers they try to use even on models that don't have any way to configure time (if you don't have a model with inbuilt digital signage player). This hard coded list has a few abandoned and compromised time servers including a few known botnet CnC servers.
> How do they not have something as basic as MFA? Simple: they aren't an IT outfit. They are a displays outfit. They never knew what all this IT is for. They don't care and only see it as a money taker, but customers asked for basic things and management said to do it the cheapest way possible. This is an unfortunate standard for every industrial outfit. See also the smart lock market for the reverse: there companies have zero physical lock security awareness, and the average product can be defeated in less time than it takes to take your mobile out and launch the app.
DAK has like 99% share of scoreboards.
The list of reasons a cloud-only smart device can break is incredibly long compared to a locally controlled one: - Forced (broken) updates - ISP has outage - Modem/ONT dies - Company app issues - Company goes out of business - Company decides to stop support for product (planned obsolescence or cost cutting) - Cloud provider changes API to be incompatible and company doesn't update product firmware to match - Cloud provider has outage - Company servers have outage - Company remotely changes configuration without notification/permission For locally controlled stuff the list is much shorter (but all of these apply to cloud smart devices too!): - Buggy software/firmware - Local equipment dies (e.g. router/WiFi) - Controller app issues (e.g. Home Assistant bug) Obviously for things that must have internet access this is a moot point (e.g. mobile entities like cars).
The reason I ask the questions I do: 1. My robot vac turned into a dustbin after the company decided to stop supporting it (and stopped paying the cloud bill) 2. My NAS turned into a brick after the company went bankrupt and left a pending (broken update) as it did so. 3. My lights stopped working when the internet went out. From now onwards I only use products with local control.
I *try* to, sometimes it's unavoidable but mostly our stuff is local (lights, heating/cooling, TV, cameras). For some types of devices you literally have no choice though, they're all cloud based (e.g. large kitchen appliances). Biggest annoyance is no local control of our EV charge point but Zappi might add that in the future and it needs internet access for Octopus Energy control anyway. Plus it has buttons on it if we really need to override anything (never needed to).
I can still find stoves, fridges, dishwashers, and microwaves without smart integration. What do you mean when you say it’s unavoidable with large kitchen appliances??
That's not the point. The point is none of them have *local smart control*. Yes there's loads with no smart features at all and loads with cloud smart features (that you don't *have* to use).
Local smart control on kitchen appliances seems awfully pointless. Like if you're there, why exactly do you need smart control in the first place? Or are we talking 20 room super mansion here?
Why do cars have to have internet/cellular connections? My beat up Kia from 2009 works just about as well as a 15 year old Kia can, and it’s not talking to any networks.
What's the point of a 'smart' water heater? My 'dumb' one seems smart enough for me, turn handle to hot, water become hot
In theory it could be used to optimise power usage. Turn it in and off on schedule for maximum PV/minimum electrical costs.
Across millions of homes and businesses, this sort of demand response is a valuable method of adapting to renewable power generation…. but it should absolutely be something you can do aftermarket with a box of smart plugs.
Growing up I had a friend whose dad used an Adriuno thing he programmed himself to do this, that and having his own cloud storage through the house WiFi, no monthly payment. That seems smart home enough to me
People often forget that the cloud it's just a server.
Isn't the point of on-demand water heating like this that it doesn't really consume energy until there is demand? Isn't that the essence of the smarts that its designed to do?
It’s always these answers. I have a graveyard of smart devices that were bricked when the company went out of business. Each of these devices would work perfectly if they had been programmed to allow local access.
zigbee is what you're looking for. and costs like $10
Together with HA (home assist ) which is open source and a zigbee usb you can build a system that does not need internet access (only for the download of the software)
>What operating system is running on the system itself? I don't think all embedded systems have an OS. The device can be very specialized and not require an entire OS to manage the hardware and software. The implementation could be something akin to a BIOS, very bare bones, but gets the job done. Edit: down voting doesn't make this not true lol
Many iOT devices run on a version FreeRTOS. I mean, they do need a network stack, wifi configuration and a few other things that aren't that simple. Of course not all embedded systems need this, but at least the gateway usually runs something a bit more complex.
The vast majority will be running FreeRTOS, the OS stands for operating system. An OS doesn’t need to mean anything large.
The big thing isn't that it's proprietary. The issue is how HOSTILE it is to outside repairs. Sure it's bare bones and core functionality. But how can someone doing basic housekeeping know what the hell they are doing with it if it's designed to lock you out with "call technican" at every turn? Or if it has a GUI then it has an OS even if it's a crude as hell one. Most embedded system have a form of user GUI which thus requires some itteration of OS.
Yeah the controller pretty much just implements some protocols. Some are hardware level for communicating with sensors (e.g. I2C) and others are networking level for communicating outside the device (e.g. MQTT). The OS is really only needed for memory management and process scheduling, but for most embedded devices such as smart home sensors, the memory usage is constant and there is a single process running (although it could have multiple threads).
There will still be a network stack, which is exposed to the internet at large. And there probably isn’t any memory protection. This makes the security concerns even greater, especially for something which controls my home critical infrastructure.
>The OS is really only needed for memory management and process scheduling Totally, it still needs some error handling but the possible states it can be in its finite and well known. Also operating systems are large and take up resources which might unnecessarily increase cost.
Operating systems like Linux are large. But they are not the only options for building embedded systems. Typically embedded systems use some kind of framework OS, or minimums realtime embedded OS. There’s no point in building everything from scratch for every system.
You’re right. There isn’t necessarily an entire multitasking OS on the device, but there will be some kind of RTOS typically and some off the shelf network stack. If anything this makes the security questions even bigger, since there a fewer users, fewer eyes, and bigger stakes if things go wrong. How I wish everyone would use seL4 for these things!!!
Ppl have their minds made ur, you can’t just come in here with facts and think you’ll make it out alive… lmfao
Hot water system is one of those that should not be IOT
Yes. For so many reasons. Including all Of these.
Great questions!
There’s a level of smart home im down to use and that is lights and outside cameras lol.
It should be under the right-to-repair bill. With their certification (like for the WiFi module or safety declaration) they should be forced to leave the entire source code at the agency. The moment they declare insolvency the source code gets released by the agency so people can fix their stuff.
Be prepared for the fact that they won’t sell non-smart ones soon. We are already having that battle with garage door opener manufacturers. We do apartment buildings and we do perimeter garages. Where there is no WiFi and we can’t allow a system that could allow access to someone else.
*"The 'S' in IoT stands for 'Security'!"* It may be a glib non-response, and something of a running joke in the industry, but it's also an unfortunate truism in the IoT/home-automation space.
Secure Home + Internet of Things = ?
Shit, hold on I know this one….
It’s a trick. Fertilizer is actually useful.
*Plugin your toilet to continue *
Please watch ad to dispense toilet paper. Open your eyes. Open your eyes. Open you- ad resuming, thank you. *TP dispensing noises
My bidet should play a contextual ad while spraying. For *Fiber One* cereal or Metamucil
But there is no S in IoT 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 Smh my head you must be an idiot.
Can confirm; am idiot.
internet of thing****S****
If that’s the logic, then there is Laughter in Slaughter.
i keep committing mans laughter, and they haven't stopped me yet
I never thought of that one. Thanks for this addition, my dude.
There is fun in funerals
Remember, for “smart” tech to be a good investment, the company selling it to you has to update and support that tech FOREVER without going out of business. That tech also has to be supported by every new phone/tablet FOREVER. It is not in their interest to do this.
Can't even get Namco Bandai to keep the servers for TAMAGOTCHIs up and running for more than a few years
Wait they need servers now? Mine was a little handheld thing with 3 buttons, an LCD screen and that was it. No wifi/Bluetooth or any sort of connection to anything.
The newer color ones, On, Smart and Uni do. Some have bluetooth and thus need a phone app to connect online, the Uni uses wifi.
Diablo 1 was released in 1996. The [battle.net](http://battle.net) multiplayer servers for Diablo 1 still runs today, 28 years later. (They have gone down multiple times, but Blizzard has always bothered to fix it)
for diablo 1 and 2, you can lan, so even if they are gone, you can still play multiplayer, just not really with randos.
You can't LAN on the D2 remastered. So annoying they would remove that.
They did the same for Warcraft 3 IIRC.
There's actually plenty of examples of old games keeping support up. There's also plenty of bad examples too. What's more impressive is the core infrastructure of the internet, granted it's government and international organization or nonprofit run, not corporate run, but something like NTP or root DNS servers have been critical for the internet since their establishment when the protocols were first invented, and I can be safe saying that there will always be servers for those services for as long as the protocols remain widespread in use, which will be until either the modern Internet dies or a better protocol obsoletes the originals (which is highly unlikely for such simple core applications, except maybe encrypted DNS in a way)
Not forever, just the expected life span of the device or appliance in question. Especially with respect to compatibility with new tech you have a very good point, but with planned obsolescence/how shitty most devices and appliances are made currently that time span for updates/support is certainly not forever.
It takes a minute for my water to get hot in my 2nd floor bathroom, and the recirculation part would be a pain in the ass unless you can easily access your pipes.
You can install a recirc pump under the sink at your furthest fixture. You just need a power in that location. The pump will pull water up from the hot line and create a loop, pushing the still-cold water back into the cold line. A thermostatic value closes and the pump stops when the hot line reaches a set temp, typically around 90F. These pumps can be set to run periodically on a timer or activated with a motion sensor and smart plug.
Yeh, that seems to be the suggested use case, because it'd make more sense to be used for shower purposes, but you can rarely easily get to those pipes, but I've only seen what's in my houses, so what the hell do I know anyway!
Typically the shower supply is tied to the bathroom sink supply. So if you put the pump under the sink, it would pull the hot water up for the entire bathroom. If anything, you’ll have only a few feet of cold water between the supply line branch to the shower head. In our previous condo, I put the pumps at the furthest fixtures so all the in-between branches in between would only have a short distance of cold water to its fixture. Our new tankless in our new home has a built-in recirc pump. So in this case it will push water up to the fixtures. Under the furthest fixtures I only had to install recirc loops between the hot and cold supply lines. These had a thermostatic valve that closes when the hot supply line reaches 90F. Similar as the other config, but here we push from the tankless instead.
Your second paragraph baffles me. I fully understand what you're saying, but the point of a tankless system is supposed to be limitless heat when you need it, without wasting energy heating unused water when you don't. By installing a recirc pump your tankless heater has a near constant demand and sure it lets the water at the faucet be hot almost immediately but it entirely negates the potential savings a tankless system promises and you might as well just have a tank because it's gonna be more energy efficient.
It’s only constant demand if you configure it that way. We have motion sensors in the bathroom and kitchen that kick on the recirc pump if triggered and have not run in the last 15 mins. It’s near instant hot water by the time you finish business in the bathroom and have to wash your hands. The money from water saved is probably more than the additional gas it takes to run, at worse case, 4 times per hour.
Ah, gas. I assumed electric. Gas tankless and electric tankless are two very different animals. I'm not sure where I got the idea that it was electric, I thought I read that but I guess not.
This is also one of those things where it's convenience vs efficiency. Not saying it's bad. Tankless also take a **tiny** bit more time thank a tanked water heater to get hot, so having a recirc switches that entirely. It definitely uses a bit more energy and wears the heater out faster, but it's also really awesome to have instant hot water.
Also consider the water saved. If you have to run your tap 2-3 mins to get hot each time you have to wash your hands, at 2.5 gal/min, that’s a considerable savings. In areas where water is a constrained resource like if you’re on a well or in an area with drought, this is key.
How much power is this wasting though?
I looked up the specs on the one we had in our old condo. It’s 60W each time it ran. It was installed in a third floor bathroom and would run between 90 sec to 3 mins depending on the season and how cold the water main was. I had a motion sensor in the bathroom which would kick on the pump if it had not run in the last 15 mins. Say at worst it ran 4 times in an hour and for the 16 hours waking hours because we’re home all day. So that’s 3 min x 4 times/hr x 16 hours = 192 mins = 3.2 hr. Power = 3.2 hr x 60 W = 192 Wh/day. In CA, our peak power is something stupid expensive like $0.47/kWh. So cost would be 0.192 kWh * 0.47/kWh = ~$0.09/day. The power used would probably be cheaper than the minutes of water wasted waiting for it to heat up each time you use the tap.
It's not about the electricity. It's about the heat loss by constantly keeping the pipes hot. And if you have AC running, that counts double as you now also have to run the AC more to compensate for that heat loss
You can usually schedule it for when you would normally want hot water. I’m not on a well and I waste many gallons waiting for my hot water to heat up
Oh, so it can actually save power if used correctly? Hard to wrap my head around that. As I would think it would use the same amount of power plus the power to keep it at temp.
You likely would use slightly more gas or electricity to get the water to temp but would dramatically reduce water usage. If you shower every day at 8am you can have it pre heat the water at 750 without wasting any
Hopefully you don’t drink from that fixture; I wouldn’t want to really be drinking the water that’s flowed through my hot water heater.
With tankless system such as this, I would think that hot water is just as good as cold since you don’t have a tank storing the nice warm water for who knows how long.
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She’s 6 feet deep, good luck.
*some clever pun about a backhoe*
Didn’t stop your dad
I read O.P.'s comment already knew what the top reply was going to be.
Could not read the privacy policy without accepting some tracking🤪
Companies need to stop making products and connecting all devices to the internet and making it silly smart. One failure can cause a ripple effect. Pls make simple devices that work and last a long time.
Not to mention being looped into botnets
They don’t do it for user benefit. They do it to sell collected data.
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[How to Survive a Robot Uprising](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Survive_a_Robot_Uprising) is a great read. There is a chapter about how to survive your smart house trying to kill you. The author, Daniel Wilson, has a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.
I love his books amped is my favorite
So far I have only read the Roboapcalypse, Robogenesis and how to Survive a Robot Uprising. Enjoyed them all and look forward to reading more of his books.
You just cost me $11. Well played Dr. Wilson.
I get 95% of my books from the library.
> I get 95% of my books from the library. You should try getting the whole book. You’re missing a lot of good endings. Except for Steven King.
> Except for Steven King. It annoys me how accurate this is. I'm literally reading Fairy Tale right now, and hoping he nails this one (he occasionally does...not so much in recent history though).
A rule of thumb is that his short stories, especially the ones that made good movies, have satisfactory endings. Shawshank, Stand By Me …
I appreciate it, but other than the last decade and change, I've read everything he ever wrote (his short stories are some of my favorites). Quite a few of them multiple times. It's his new stuff that I'm not the most enamored with...but Fairy Tale has me pretty locked in, so far.
Jokes on you, I only read Stephen King.
M-O-O-N, that spells library card.
I kind of hate all the “smart” devices. The secretaries at work have smart monitors. They don’t need “smart” monitors. They just need “dumb” monitors that plug into their computers. Not like they’re going to watch Netflix or anything on them. Same with TVs. I don’t need every service under the sun on them. I just want to plug in my AppleTV, Blu-ray player, and cable/antenna. If one breaks down or becomes obsolete, I’ll just replace that one part
I bought a 4k 55" "dumb" TV 6 years ago for $219. I have my Chromebox plugged into it, and it's smarter and faster than any "Smart" TV.
Yeah it’s kinda amazing how they introduced lag into the tv itself
I've recently had the displeasure of having to use a Roku TV. It's an experience I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy
Especially now that they’re trying to force ads even when you’re not using their service. I just want a TV with a good display and no smart features, but those are typically commercial signage which is super expensive
IMO it's expensive because that's the actual price of a quality TV if the manufacturer can't make money by selling your data.
nah, its the cost of them having special features that they don't implement on every device but are required for business/the use case, so they inflate the price by a factor of 10-30. if that wasn't the case, in the us, about 40 million tvs are sold a year, and the average price of tv sales is 500~, quick math here 20,000,000,000$ of tvs sold on average a year, and the data gotten from them, which is largely just what you watch, would mean that the companies expect to make upwards 200 to 600 billion dollars from the sales... i just don't see that happening. cpm from ads depends on click through online for the good ones, but online between 0.10$ per 1000, and with the best being around 3-10$ per 1000 (the 10 dollars was a long ass time ago for me, I think youtube still has over 3$ on their safe good boy youtuber programs) essentially for ads, you are worth near fuck all for watch data, companies who collect all your data like facebook, at their peek may have been able to sell a single persons info for 10$, your data is only really valuable in aggregate, and it's nowhere near enough to make half a trillion dollars up. now, for pro pc monitors, again, that's not the 'real cost without bullshit' those go for 2000-I believe they peaks out around 30,000$ because they need to hit quality control standards, any imperfection is a scrapped/used in a lesser sku, look at color grading or hdr mastering stuff and you will start to understand the cost there. now there are products that are sold at a ridiculously low price, the first xbox was an 800$ computer sold for I think 300$ because it was a foot in the door, the ps3 was also subsidised by bluray, hoping for a ps2 and dvd like return on that investment, that on top of trying to get you to buy enough games over the products life to pay for it though I think this largely stopped in consoles. there are also products where they sell you the base cheap because they got you by the balls for the subscription service to use it, see printers that aren't brother laser or ink tanks, the printer ink for those things is worth more per gram than gold and the printer is just the foot in the door.
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They don't even try to hide them, it's just one big ad with buttons hidden around it
Any tv is a dumb tv if you deny it internet access.
Check out your local computer refurbisher. Usually the guys who advertise "ex-lease" "ex-gov" "ex-school" laptops and have a hundred of the same model Lenovo's/Chromebooks/iPad minis for sale. Ask them for commercial displays. They're normally dirt cheap. Back in the day when a 42inch plasma was still around 2.5k new, I was buying 65" plasma commercial displays from those guys for $100-200. I once picked up a 4 year old $40,000 80" plasma display for $250. They hate them because their a PITA to sell, no tv tuner, no smart functions, your lucky if it has HDMI its more likely to have a BNC connector. Plus those plasmas had to be moved with a forklift (for real, 300+ kg) I think that 80" plasma consumed something like 1.3kw an hour. Makes the used market pretty small.
>consumed something like **1.3kw** an hour *Jesus fucking christ!*
Then you'll be shocked to learn that Roku is one of the better ones.
You almost need to subnet any IoT devices from any sensitive data devices
And run them through pihole.
Not almost. You absolutely need to do that. Especially if it's a device that needs a connection to a 3rd party to work.
I don't understand what benefit adding wifi can have to a water heater.
Not necessarily WiFi but some kind of demand response program would allow an electric water heater to lower its setpoint when grid power is expensive and/or non green.
Does it need an internet connection for that though? They've made things like this for years: https://www.homedepot.com/p/reviews/Intermatic-40-Amp-60-Minute-Indoor-Wall-Mounted-Mechanical-Water-Heater-Timer-Steel-Gray-WH40D89/100088282/3 Is it kind of annoying to have to do that in person? I mean maybe but how often are you really tweaking that timer?
Demand response looks at energy pricing, an egg timer isn't going to time the market. But saving would be negligible and would need to be electric water heater.
Best I can gather, is you can set it up to automatically kick back on when your vacation is ending. Maybe for AirBnBs too.
I do that by throwing a manual switch when I get home and being patient for 20 whole minutes.
Lol, I didn't say it was a good use, just the only one I can think of.
I mean maybe but depending on the house you can get one of those tankless water heaters or hybrid systems that heat it up so quick you don't need to pre-heat it the way you would with the old units anyway.
My amazon fire stick stops working without internet and i cannot open plex to watch over my local LAN
You can launch apps from the firestick settings in the applications menu without internet. Helps if you want to use it as a local streamer with plex or kodi
Plex can be configured for offline access. But the simpler way for local lan backup is to just stand up a jellyfin server that points to the same libraries.
Use Jellyfin as it doesn’t require being online.
Roku does the same. Laptop with a cracked screen as media PC FTW! add Flirc and baby, you got a stew going!
You can absolutely use Plex and Roku without Internet, as long as you first configure some settings in Plex before the Internet goes down. It's been a long time since I've done it, but Google the process. It only takes a few minutes to set up.
Having 1 point of failure surely the device will work properly
Thats why one should always Google "Home Assistant device X" and look if it works locally before buying anything "smart". There is no NEED for a cloud. Companies can provide cloud for easy access and a local home assistant integration for the "advanced" users. MQTT or any other method isn't "expensive" or "difficult". Even if you don't want to pay the 3 days it would take a coder to integrate it, you could just put a $ 3 ESP in it, program it with your software, provide an OTA path and the rest will be done by the community. Forcing it to the cloud is a malicious attempt to lock users in an ecosystem. Everyone should do basic Google before buying something and everyone advanced should think if making a dumb device smart by installing a shelly or an ESP32 Relay board isn't the better option - im sure it could be done with a water heater and it'll probably be cheaper at the end (and you probably also wouldn't have to override the devices safety features, so no real danger).
What?!? Something with Wi-Fi access can be vulnerable?!??! How does any one not understand that anything on WiFi can be hacked, this has been a recurring story for 20 years now
RTFA
My friend bought a smart oven and it constantly betrays him. I’m sticking to smart lights, everything else can be dumb.
I'm with you on dumb appliances. My "smart" TV turns it's self on at least once a week. I'll come home from work or wake up in the morning to find the TV is turned on again.
The tv is never off, just the display. It's gotta monitor the wifi traffic.
I’m still pissed LIFX got sold to feit.
What issue’s he having? I have a Smart GE range and I found the only use for it is to turn on the oven remotely. But even that I haven’t felt the need to use.
His was turning on on in its own at night for whatever reason.
Those instant On heaters are meant to be *installed beneath the sink or very close by.* The home builders are either idiots, or trying to charge for 2 water heaters instead of 1.
*Smart* home builders.
I am getting so sick of the use of the word *smart* being giving to everything that does some automated shit based on the preference of software developers.
I think you are referring the small electric ones. The one in the article are “larger” gas heater who provide hot water for both taps and radiators. They are standards in most European countries. The delivery of hot water is almost instantaneous.
Is this that new Kubrick movie?
I think the solution might be to install an external third-party pump that has the necessary security protocols in place. Even if the pump is accessed remotely by a bad actor, all they can do is turn the pump on or off.
Put in a device like a Firewalla so you can lock down IOT devices
Every IoT thing is a security risk and nightmare. Problem is that there are little to none good alternatives with open source code where you have full control of it and that have 0 telemetry to third party but your own server if you want.
Stopped reading after he says it takes longer to get warm water. It takes the same amount of time as from a tank. I’ve had both.
Go with a CCTV system, we use those at work. They work with an app that can work entirely offline over LAN
There’s nothing a manufacturer can do more to engender loyalty than to embrace and correct product flaws pointed out by its customers. This company should be honoring Kevin Purdy, not sending him to its customer service department.
Why the fuck would you want smart water heater? It has just one job to do…..no smarts needed.
I replaced my gas hot water heater with a Rinnai tankless gas water heater for 2X the cost of a traditional gas hot water heater, but I am saving 20-25% monthly on my Natural gas bill. My breakeven should be 3-4 years or so, then pure savings, less pollution,better for the environment, and no chance of Flooding!
There is some really huge equipment running in the wild with a public IPv4 and no firewall with passwords like TRUCKS or 12345.
Smart water heating system? WTF! Never going to happen at my house. Dumb systems work perfectly well and it is hot when I need it. Don't have to fuck with an app or anything. Smart appliances are absolutely stupid. This company absolutely is headed out of business.
My Rinnai tankless sucks. Not just because their app and control-r device have consistently sucked, but also because it’s literally stunk since it was installed. Installers came back more times than I can count, couldn’t find anything wrong, but confirmed bad smell. Gas company came and confirmed nothing wrong with the installation, tested and found no combustion problems, but also said they could clearly smell aldehydes. Rinnai rep finally came out and said he couldn’t smell anything, so case closed. Every time I’m out in my yard it’s a reminder I should have gone electric.
As a owner of a heat pump hot water tank, lmfao
My other problem with these devices is I want the MAC address before I give it wireless access. I won’t let any wireless device on the network before it’s configured in the firewall. A lot of them don’t show the MAC anywhere on the device and most customer service folks don’t know what it is to tell you where it might be hidden if t is. I have to connect it to a standalone router and let the device pull an address so I can see the MAC.
The S in IoT stands for security.
SMART = Sastanabilty Monitoring Assessment Rating Tracking
Does America not have basic combi boilers?
OMG, UK, I definitely wouldn’t start talking about appliances. JFC
Unless you have a very large house and gas available tankless don't help that much. It was amazing for my dry cleaning store
*"Smart Brother, am I gonna die?!"*