The case against so-called SMART devices in the home

[jeffbert]

If you can control these things remotely via smartphone, so can the bad guys!

https://www.techspot.com/news/75248-domestic-abusers-using-smart-home-gadgets-exert-control.html

[DrFrag]

But I can't live without my bluetooth toilet that I can flush from my phone!

[fafner]

Most "smart" devices out there need to be called "smartly dumb" devices. No kidding. DrFrag said it all The less malignous will do what they are supposed to do without being pirated, until the vendor closes the server because it doesn't fetch enough money anymore. The most malignous will spy on you for the only reason to make more money by selling your data to anyone wanting to give them some money. But most of them will do many things we can already do, but from your couch, and at the price of some random pirate being able to do the same thing. This often happens because developers throw a few hours to develop a quick interface that they don't care to secure at a decent level. Today, there are free libraries which allow to minimally secure anything (TLS for example, at the base of HTTPS protocol) ; only using this kind of library isn't enough, but will make things a lot more difficult for would-be pirates but just preventing them to see the messages sent by the device. A little more efforts would allow to raise the bar significantly higher again (secure logins anyone?). But it requires a few hours that vendors aren't willing to pay for.

[jeffbert]

My big concern is when the smart thermostat talks to the smart power meter, & they decide I am too greedy because 76 degrees is unreasonable given that the outside temp is 96. Yesterday, the power company robocalled, & beeged me to raise the thermostat because it was 94 outside. Next time, there will be no robocall.

[DrFrag]

Yikes. Where I live the government sold the electricity network to a private company, and the free market drove the price through the roof because they had a monopoly. We ended up with the highest electricity prices in the world. Then when the load got too high, the company shut off power to random suburbs. A big tourist area near the beach drew the short straw and the restaurants there lost millions of dolllars worth of refrigerated food. We also lost power when state interconnect towers blew over in a storm, which the pro-coal government tried to blame on renewable energy.

The public backlash resulted in Elon Musk installing the world's largest battery farm, and there's a push for a distributed battery mesh where people have solar panels and home batteries. My uncle has half the solar panels as I do and he generates twice the power, so my old panels are due for an upgrade soon. The technology keeps improving and I think people will just move away from abusive power companies and run their own independent systems. We might end up with a future where big power companies become less and less relevant, like how the Internet has made newspapers and TV less relevant.

[jeffbert]

Ouch! Competition is a good thing. Where I live, we regularly receive ads for cheaper electricity. But while the new one may have lower rates today, 6 months from now, the old one, the one we had before switching, is lower.