[hs586]

Tangential rant: It’s becoming hard to buy dumb appliances.

I was looking at robot vacuums, and most need internet connection at least for setup - by which point it’s already uploaded your floor plan and who knows what to the cloud.

[gloxkiqcza]

https://valetudo.cloud/

The project was recently discussed on HN as well. It has its issues but it works.

[einsteinx2]

Not sure that’s a great example when you can easily buy a regular vacuum. Robot vacuums are sort of by definition already the “smart appliance” version of the “dumb appliance regular vacuum”.

[hs586]

I understand what you mean, but I disagree. The technology allows for robot vacuums to exist and I don’t see the cloud connection as a mandatory need for it. Similarly, I want my car to have say lane assist but we don’t expect to have cloud connection with it.

[einsteinx2]

That's a fair point. It's frustrating that practically every "smart" anything these days needs a cloud connection (and probably also an app) just to work when they could easily work offline.

[alsetmusic]

We got one this year. "Setup" meant pairing with our devices plus the account we had to create with the manufacturer. It didn't map the place until after that. I assume they all work this way.