This is definitely on the horizon and future generations won’t even be aware of a time when you didn’t pay a subscription for every aspect of life. (TikTok screencap)
This is definitely on the horizon and future generations won’t even be aware of a time when you didn’t pay a subscription for every aspect of life. (TikTok screencap)
Actually (put on fedora) a “smart” fridge is not necessarily bad.
No what absolutely sucks is lock-in and enshittification.
If you were to imagine a FLOSS OSHW fridge that used e.g. OpenFoodFacts and data from your purchases, e.g. OCRing your grocery list receipt or online purchases and genuinely helped with stock, recipes, diet, etc why not.
The WHOLE point is control, it’s not the technology.
Exactly, we don’t need to ditch computers and smartphones and go “back to nature” like some people say. We need control.
Counterpoint - we do not need appliances capable of running operating systems with userlands. A pre-programmed microcontroler should be more than enough for most appliances
An ESP32 based microcontroller can also send the temperature over ZigBee, smart devices and microcontrollers are not mutually exclusive
I hate that any new tech nowadays is caveated by this perversion of right to ownership.
It’s gotten to the point that I either actively seek older tech, or just go for even more expensive niche tech by small private tech players like Framework. But then my worry becomes, are these small private tech companies actually principled or are they just waiting on their exit strategy to be bought out?
Yeah. People hate “smart” stuff and IOT and i sometime do too, but owning a bit of automation tech makes me realise the shitty thing about these tech is we’re being forced to use it for even the basic shit and in THEIR term, which mean they can brick your stuff if they want to.
I have two aircond that comes with IOT that i can connect for extra feature, but that’s entirely optional stuff, i can operate it like a normal aircond. We need stronger consumer protection and more personal control.
Home Assistant ftw
It’s come so far! It used to just be for tech nerds and privacy extremists. But it’s so easy to use now, everyone who wants to enjoy the IoT world again without losing personal control can do it!
It’s cooking absolutely but we need a whole class of contributors that only work with support and uiux that really enjoy helping people because there’s always that one little thing that’s vague in the docs and obvious to everyone else
I get they can’t support an old device forever, but then a local API should be available by law.
That’s why picking the right tech matters. My heuristic is that if you need a proprietary app, it’s NOT going to be on your term, hard pass.
If you do need some connectivity, it’s also probably bad.
If you do not need connectivity and it’s interoperable via standards then and only then maybe it can be good.
Theoretically, I suppose that you could reflash your fridge. It’s unlikely that it’s running a dedicated embedded system nowadays. It has to be either android or Linux (or maybe Windows if they’re idiots, which is always a possibility).
Well yes, but honestly that’s swimming upstream. I always discourage reverse engineering or hacking unless you do it for learning and entertainment purposes. If you love the challenge it’s amazing. If you want to use the tool they you are giving away money to corporations you do not trust and you put a lot of weight on your shoulders to maintain all that over time.