[sixtyj]

It's ridiculous that people are jumping on the vendors bandwagon - control everything remotely, AI inside, etc.

Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?

Sure, I understand that there are a lot of manufacturers today, and basically all products are similar, so marketing people are looking for any way to differentiate a product from a lot of others... but cloud-connected devices are a road to hell... hello LG, Samsung, Canon, Western Digital and others who change cloud solutions for hardware so often that you blow your nose and get a service cancellation message in the mail :)

[rkomorn]

> Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?

One reason I can think of is I'd rather be able to remote control a device by pushing my instructions to the cloud from my phone and having my device pull from said cloud, rather than making the device itself accessible remotely.

Another is settings/data persistence (eg: if I replace the device, etc).

That said, I don't have a smart vacuum and none of my smart devices are devices I want to access when I'm not home, personally, so I'm not "for" cloud-based stuff anyway.

[sixtyj]

My comment is that despite all the automation we don't see the potential fuckups that occur with a subcritical number of customers - see infotainment and "modern" controls in cars today. Then it leads to Ford coming out with a "mechanically" controlled car and everyone can go nuts for it.

So the question was, do we really need a vacuum cleaner connected to a proprietary cloud? And is there a critical number of people using it so a supplier can maintain and run cloud for a long time?

Off topic: A few days ago there was a discussion that someone tried to turn off connecting to the Chinese cloud and the device stopped working altogether...

[rkomorn]

> do we really need a vacuum cleaner connected to a proprietary cloud?

"Really need" is a such a high bar that you're basically ensuring a "no" answer, so why ask? Rhetorically?

I think there are features that can benefit from some sort of off-device (eg: proprietary cloud) server. I also think that the percentage of customers who would want to self-host this is inconsequentially small, so the vendor has a compelling reason to build a proprietary cloud solution, but not much of a compelling reason to make it open.

But two things can be true at the same time: there could be uses for a vendor's proprietary cloud, and the vendor could (through malice, incompetence, etc) end up being a bad actor.

Personally, I'd argue that any vendor that bricks devices should legally owe their customers a (at the very least prorated) refund on what they paid for the device, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for consumer protections from any country I've lived in so far.

[stuaxo]

For the smart vac to go unattended your floor must be clear, all your wires for things must be off the floor (it will eat them), your doors all open.

The vac has to not be full.

You also need to semi regularly clear the brush of hair etc.

The robot vac is useful, but turning it on by pressing the button is not hard, especially if you have areas with stairs you need to move it anyway.

There's no need for it to have cloud.

[rkomorn]

Honestly don't see what this has to do with my comment, especially when I end my comment with:

> I don't have a smart vacuum and none of my smart devices are devices I want to access when I'm not home, personally, so I'm not "for" cloud-based stuff anyway.

I was giving example responses to the question:

"Why the hell would I need the cloud to control a vacuum cleaner?"

So if you want to reply "you don't need the cloud", I guess go reply to that parent comment?

[drdaeman]

I’m afraid you’re mixing at least two different things together.

Possible reasons for wanting remote control of home systems while away from home is one thing.

Engineering home systems in a way that they depend (to some extent varying from case to case) on external computers is another thing.

I don’t think there’s any single answer to either of those, but there are a lot of possible reasons.

Personally, I had a use case where I ran a vacuum remotely. I was on a work trip, and thanks to a robot vacuum I returned back to a clean home. That was a convenient and desirable outcome. Others’ reasons may vary.

As for engineering, I imagine reasons must be complex, consisting of at least tradition, cost, state of home network connectivity, and current disparity between consumer and corporate interests.