[dvt]

This article, the Twitter critics, and the overall lesson learned reminds me of this quote, one of my favorites:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

[trabant00]

I like this quote and have used myself several times. The devil is in the details though. "who spends himself in a worthy cause". IoT is far from a worthy cause, it's a desperate attempt to sell more stuff. Or let me go to the internet's favorite argument: Hitler also did deeds and could have certainly done them better. Are we not allowed to be judgemental?

[BoysenberryPi]

> Are we not allowed to be judgemental?

I am far from innocent here but I'm gonna say no. You are saying IoT is far from a worthy cause. Really? Is it not worthy that my aging grandparents can open the door from their bed and not have to go downstairs, turn on their lights in the dead of night from their phone so they don't have to risk stumbling and falling when reaching for the light switch, or even just more accurate track their health? I think those are all pretty worthy causes.

[suifbwish]

The problem with IoT is that people in other countries can also theoretically open the door and turn on the lights from THEIR phone if the grandparents don’t keep everything updated.

[trabant00]

Excuse me, but a an analog electrical switch to open the front door remotely works just fine. If you must insist on a digital one, OK, though I fail to see why you would complicate things. An internet connected one though: just NO.

[selfhifive]

I don't know if that's a great use case. My experience with old people says that they (mostly) hate tech and cannot operate it without someone else.

Also with old people you'd want the tech to be familiar to them so that you don't have to video call them to show them how to reset the WiFi.

And if you're talking about old people who cannot even walk without stumbling their memory would be so far gone that they'd forget how to operate half the devices half the time.

Maybe it would be more helpful to future old people such as ourselves, but I think simpler, robust, and familiar tech is better for old people.

Just another perspective.

[nine_k]

Consumer IoT is often a gimmick. In industry and agriculture it's much more worthy but less visible to lay people.

[zachlatta]

I love how I can have lots of floor lighting that’s easily controlled with IoT bulbs and power switches.

It solves a real problem for me, and I think many others too!