>It's annoying (from a privacy and security perspective) how 'smart'-ening even the most innocuous things can be quite appealing to the end-user, and how nasty (again, from a privacy and security perspective) the implementations that make it to market end up being.
I agree. The benefits of "smart" devices could be a great boon to all of us, far beyond the examples you gave.
In fact, most IOT devices would be most welcome in my home if, and only if, they only pushed data to a local source directly under my control.
At that point, as long as I can manage the flow of data, I would be perfectly happy with a voice assistant (which connected to the Internet only to service specific requests and didn't pass my voice data to "the cloud") or an entertainment device which would connect to the service(s) of my choice and retrieve/stream voice/video/music when I direct it to do so.
Video door entry systems, room-by-room climate/lighting control, automated oven pre-heating and a raft of other conveniences would be fabulous too.
The problem isn't the technology, but rather how it's implemented. And these ideas aren't anything new either. Heinlein, The Jetsons and many, many other sources predicted home automation like this decades ago.
The real barriers to such locally managed systems is widespread adoption of protocols and software to locally manage this stuff.
But it's a chicken and egg problem. Why would home owners/builders/renovators include such systems when the IoT devices all phone home and specifically forbid reverse engineering and re-purposing?
And why would device manufacturers implement such open protocols and integration with locally controlled/managed systems when there's both no market for it, and they can increase revenues by selling all that tasty, tasty data?
There's a multi-billion dollar industry for locally controlled/managed home automation/IoT systems that could be created and cultivated, but the current barriers to entry are pretty high and (given that general-purpose computing devices for the home are on the decline) getting higher.
I agree. The benefits of "smart" devices could be a great boon to all of us, far beyond the examples you gave.
In fact, most IOT devices would be most welcome in my home if, and only if, they only pushed data to a local source directly under my control.
At that point, as long as I can manage the flow of data, I would be perfectly happy with a voice assistant (which connected to the Internet only to service specific requests and didn't pass my voice data to "the cloud") or an entertainment device which would connect to the service(s) of my choice and retrieve/stream voice/video/music when I direct it to do so.
Video door entry systems, room-by-room climate/lighting control, automated oven pre-heating and a raft of other conveniences would be fabulous too.
The problem isn't the technology, but rather how it's implemented. And these ideas aren't anything new either. Heinlein, The Jetsons and many, many other sources predicted home automation like this decades ago.
The real barriers to such locally managed systems is widespread adoption of protocols and software to locally manage this stuff.
But it's a chicken and egg problem. Why would home owners/builders/renovators include such systems when the IoT devices all phone home and specifically forbid reverse engineering and re-purposing?
And why would device manufacturers implement such open protocols and integration with locally controlled/managed systems when there's both no market for it, and they can increase revenues by selling all that tasty, tasty data?
There's a multi-billion dollar industry for locally controlled/managed home automation/IoT systems that could be created and cultivated, but the current barriers to entry are pretty high and (given that general-purpose computing devices for the home are on the decline) getting higher.
More's the pity.