Perhaps the best part of this anecdote was Swenson’s incredulous conclusion that the situation “could have been worse.” But he’s right that it was nice of the hacker to let him know his vacuum was hacked instead of spying on him indefinitely.

The most common issue people have with so-called “smart” home devices is that they often require a software subscription to access core functionality, and if the manufacturer goes under or stops supporting the device, it simply becomes a paperweight.

  • kristina [she/her]
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    422 months ago

    why would you ever let a thing with a camera on it roam around your house connected to the wider internet? thats lan only shit

      • Chronicon [they/them]
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        82 months ago

        the only tiny saving grace of those pieces of shit is that they got rubes to put up battery powered cameras which are trivially easy to disable and often not active regardless due to a dead battery. I moved into a shared house with some. The batteries were charged like twice in 2 years and I put duct tape over the camera on the one facing the street

  • Angel [any]
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    382 months ago

    You ever see a post title that gets you to check if it was submitted to c/fakenews? Yeah…

  • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
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    262 months ago

    People think I’m weird for rejecting all smarthome tech. No I do not want that Alexa. No I don’t want a camera system connected to the Internet.

    But it seems so clear to me it’s a bad idea… Like the line is funny but also not wrong. Yelling slurs is honestly barely on the list of the worst things someone with access to a house full of iot devices could do.

    • Chronicon [they/them]
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      92 months ago

      yeah and its always the dumbest shit that’s the most egregious. This vacuum cleaner had a CAMERA and INTERCOM lmao

      Or like smart plugs could so easily be a fire hazard but as uber-cheap consumer devices are some of the worst for design and security

    • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
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      62 months ago

      I just vacuum my house using a normal vacuum cleaner that’d like 25 years old. It blasts straight into a kitchen bag and is also a wet vac if you remove or change the bag. It takes like maybe an hour tops to vacuum a pretty bug house, it takes me like 15 minutes for my apartment. I consider a vacuum cleaner itself to be a bit of a luxury cause until pretty recently I just used a broom. A robot doing it is still weird and silly to me, let alone one that can yell slurs.

      • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
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        62 months ago

        Seriously. I barely get the point of an vacuum bot even not connected to iot. Probably helpful if you are mobility impaired or possibly like hyper busy parent? But outside of specific use cases ya vacuuming ain’t hard.

        But seriously don’t hook it to the net

        • GalaxyBrain [they/them]
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          62 months ago

          I’m a bit of a weirdo about digital stuff to a certain extent. I believe there’s a value in tangibility and friction. I don’t want s robot to clean my house cause it’s my house(not really it’s my rented apartment but if anything this makes me feel stronger about my point) and it’d my mess, cleaning it myself gives me a sense of ownership of both. Cleaning my own apartment is my responsibility and I reap it’s rewards by having a nicer space to be in. That’s the kind of labor joy can be found in, those are moments of genuine experience even if they suck at the time at least the reward feels rewarding and proportional to the task. I’d hate to let a robot take it away from me even if it is a chore. It’s MY chore. Let the roombas sweep up my work instead. It’s not a glamorous or pleasant part of life but it is part of living to do your own maintenance. Hold on to any unalienated labor you can afford to

          • TomBombadil [he/him, she/her]
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            42 months ago

            Totally. It’s not like I like doing dishes exactly but damn if I don’t feel excellent standing in my clean kitchen. Way bigger feeling of accomplishment than I get at work. I’ve accomplished something with a clean kitchen and I’ll accomplish more worth what labor when I dirty it up again by cooking.

            It’s the a reason that I’m always weirded out by rich types with servants doing the most basic tasks. Like I don’t feel comfortable having someone clean my house for me… And a personal chef?? Couldn’t be me

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
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    182 months ago

    My only “IoT” device is a Roomba, not whatever brand this was but it’s not like the Roomba brand is somehow immune to this kind of thing.

    I love this machine, having 2 cats and a very furry dog it’s a life changer. A vacuum that runs every day on its own with me just having to empty the bin? Fucking amazing. Can’t recommend it enough.

    I wish so badly that it wasn’t connected to the internet. Why do you need that? Can’t we just have some buttons to set a schedule? Did I really need an app?

    Robot vacuums that have no internet connection do exist, but they’re worse. Like, they will literally just do a worse job of vacuuming your floor. The dumb ones just bump around randomly until it notices there’s no more dirt. The internet connected ones map the room and can put straight lines on the floor and make sure they don’t miss spots.

    But they don’t actually need the internet for any of that aside from starting it. If the internet goes down it keeps the same schedule and map. Which means they could do all of it with no reason to connect to the internet.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]
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      102 months ago

      Does it use some kind of cloud service to get the map initially? It’s a lot harder to commercialize a solution without the IoT buzzwords and management loves that garbage sadly. But it might be nontrivial to take the existing product and make it work seamlessly without ever connecting to that cloud service.

  • LigOleTiberal [he/him]
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    152 months ago

    too bad it wasn’t based commies who hacked them, and made them start reading the communist manifesto out loud. that would be amazing. imagine.