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by BoxFour
864 days ago
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> I cannot turn my lights on because somewhere, potentially thousands of miles away, some datacenters failed, even if those datacenters could, ostensibly, only give me ads and "improvements" and not any core feature. It appears there's a misunderstanding here. When smart lightbulbs lose internet connection, they still function as regular lightbulbs. In such cases, you simply revert to the traditional method of turning the light switch on and off manually, instead of using voice commands or an app. |
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That's a better way to install things, but it's not the only way that installation is done, and it's still excessive to need the internet for what could easily be a purely local operation. For device classes where "on/off" has historically been attached to the device itself (washer, stove, ...), it's more common than in the lightbulb case for the internet connection to be mandatory.
Pushing closer to tin-foil hat territory, when your lights can be controlled over the internet by servers you don't own, that operator can do nearly whatever they'd like. A common pattern in other industries (ocean navigation apps, OB2 monitors, ...) is to require a server for no good reason, sell a device at full market value, and then later extort the customer into some sort of subscription/data-leak to continue using their own devices. It's common for the remote server to just shut down (startup goes out of business, manufacturer decides it'd be nice if you bought a new device, ...). Less likely but worse if it happened, the server operator _could_ trigger epilectic seizures or whatever.