[pb77]

Samsung TV starts playing ads if it feels you are idle so i don't connect it to internet directly so use a fire stick. I once connected tv to internet to update some firmware but disconnected the same day because of ads.

There are also concerns about control, in Texas there were people who signed something that allowed the companies to remotely control their ac, apparently at night time it was turned up to 82, I am worried about what other companies could do like smart washer ( how about allowed to wash cloths only after 10 pm ) or not allowed to use some setting like extra wash etc.

What would happen if your account gets locked and you cannot access your smart stove to cook a meal. All those people who posted that their oculus was locked out because their FB account go locked out. In my opinion most of these smart appliances are more of a hassle than worth it.

[darkwizard42]

I agree with a lot of your post, but the Texas example is actually the kind of example I would prefer. Folks were not deceived when they signed up for the process. It was clearly spelled out, enjoy lower rates, but when energy grid gets hot, you might have some conditions throttled resulting in mild discomfort (the exact window of how much this could affect and the minimums was transparently communicated). And it was all opt-IN which I think is again a good thing.

I don't like when smart appliances like the Samsung connect to the internet for what I as a consumer hope are good things (like using Netflix with the push of a button, etc.) and instead abuse that by showing me ads -- not something they include very visibly in the agreement or feature sell. It is not transparent and near impossible to opt out of.

[mindslight]

What I don't get about signing up to allow your thermostat to be remotely controlled for a discount, is that isn't really easy to circumvent the system? Either the cloud thermostat isn't even connected, or a second thermostat in parallel, or only sign up a thermostat that controls half your load (making the other half work harder), or even just a candle under the thermostat to make it think it's warmer than it is.

Making it do what it's advertised to do would either require fully trusting the hardware (and hardware in this case means the whole hvac system), or monitoring a home's electricity usage and having some after the facto punishment (which will only catch the unsophisticated ways of working around it).

[quickthrowman]

The electrical utility program they’re talking about doesn’t control your thermostat, it’s a line-voltage device that is wired in-line with your air conditioning compressor. It has a relay that enables and disables the compressor circuit. The enable/disable signal comes from the utility. The furnace fan will still run.

Xcel Energy calls their program “Saver’s Switch” if you want to read more about it

[mindslight]

That seems even easier to bypass, but makes more sense if they're just using that to moderate instantaneous draw (everyone's compressor kicking on at once), rather than trying to reduce total cooling demand.

But my original critique still applies. If you have two AC units, and only install the switch in series with one, do they figure it out based on your draw and cut your discount in half, or what? Or do they do the install themselves and check over your system. And if you later open up your own equipment and bypass it, they treat you similarly as if you were to just jump your electric meter?

I do wonder if this approach makes sense from the homeowner perspective too. Modulating your compressor means that you need a bigger compressor to handle the same cooling load, and short cycling isn't going to be good for it.

[Wyoming23]

You're overthinking this.

Yes, you could buy a second AC and do complex wiring and control trickery to hack the system... Or you could just not sign up for the voluntary system and pay an extra couple bucks a year.

Any effort to hack the system is going to be far more cost or hassle than just not signing up for the program, for people who are following financial incentives. If you want to hack the system for the fun of it, sure you could, but the utilities aren't really worried about that.

[mindslight]

I'm overstating it because I'm analyzing it adversarially. But I could very easily see these situations happening emergently. Central HVAC in the main house, then an addition/office/etc that gets a mini split or even its own ducted HVAC. So sure, main AC gets set back 5 degrees but then you're still hot, so just kick the office AC on high and leave the door open.

Also jumpering over a low voltage thermostat takes like 5 minutes tops, and could be easily done by the type of tech enthusiast early adopter that would be interested in programs like these. And it only takes someone getting too hot once to try it, and then just continue doing it routinely. Never mind people for which the few bucks a year is significant.

[hadlock]

We bought our samsung in 2016 and in... 2018 it started showing us ads, and then later they installed the "tv plus", uh, "feature". Which you can't uninstall so every time your toddler bumps the channel button on the remote, it will kick you out of whatever netflix/youtube/disney+ thing you're watching to go to some ad-supported BS. Over the years the UI has gone from good to almost unusably slow and laggy. Next time we move, we're trashing the 2016 samsung and getting something else, and never ever hooking it up to wifi.

When I bought a samsung tv for my home office, I explicitly never enabled the wifi, and plugged in an external FAANG device with a remote and control the TV via that. If the device gets buggy I can go buy a new one for $60.

[RHSeeger]

> in Texas there were people who signed something that allowed the companies to remotely control their ac, apparently at night time it was turned up to 82

As I understand it, those people got a discount on their bill specifically _because_ they allowed for that.

[quickthrowman]

> There are also concerns about control, in Texas there were people who signed something that allowed the companies to remotely control their ac, apparently at night time it was turned up to 82, I am worried about what other companies could do like smart washer ( how about allowed to wash cloths only after 10 pm ) or not allowed to use some setting like extra wash etc.

The electric utility is very clear about what would happen if you sign up for their energy saving program. It is possible to buy a home that has an energy saving switch already installed on the A/C circuit, but you can simply request to have it removed by the utility.

[BrandoElFollito]

Samsung TV starts playing ads ... in the US.

This kind of craziness is illegal in Europe and I honestly cannot understand why this is not regulated in the US.

[m463]

My mother called me freezing cold. Her nest thermostat had a "wifi connectivity lost" message on the screen and she couldn't (or didn't know how) to turn up the heat.