[api]

Any kind of Internet connectivity on an appliance is a strong anti-feature for me. I can't think of a single reason I would want it, and it seems like it would either be a privacy invasion or a source of headaches.

Unfortunately I think for the average customer this is a "blue crystals" feature, something they don't really need and probably don't use much but that makes the device feel new and cool. Mass market product development is governed by what the bulk of the market does, so we will probably see more "put a chip in it" trash.

The solution is unfortunately to go up market and pay more for luxury or commercial grade stuff. On the plus side it tends to last a lot longer, so if you factor in life span it may cost about the same.

[qwertox]

The analog thermostat of my fridge broke, a replacement thermostat didn't work reliably.

So around two or three years ago I replaced it with an ESP2866, a relay and an ds18b20.

It worked great, except that the logic was outside the fridge on a home server, it was a a Python script which also logged the data into InfluxDB. The issue then was that sometimes when the server was down, the fridge stayed on or off.

Last week I started to reorganize my WiFi, which devices access which APs, and since then it had constant disconnects, so I decided to finally fix this issue.

Now it's an ESP32 with the logic in code which now only posts to the server for InfluxDB-logging and is upgradeable via OTA and parameters can be set via http://fridge.home/esp?data={"set-fridge":{"max":7,"min":5.5...}

It's been fun doing this and extended the lifetime of the fridge for a couple of years.

But I also would never buy an internet connected fridge or any type of appliance, unless it could be flashed with some OSS to make it cloud-free.

[alkonaut]

It should at least be considered a drawback, so that the benefits it offers must outweigh it. For a microwave, the drawbacks is (obviously) greater than whatever benefit it can offer.

For a heat pump or something that can actually make good use of the internet (remote control, looking at electricity prices, planning with weather information) the cost/benefit analysis is different.

I'd hate to have an internet connected microwave but I'd love to have an internet connected heat pump (Or ideally a heat pump with a local REST api so I can just tell it myself)