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Internet of Things: are we already there?
Thirith
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've recently heard a lot about the Internet of Things, and while so far I've mainly dismissed it as a gimmick that may become important in the future, I've been wondering if there are some applications that are already interesting, useful or simply cool enough to check out. There've been some technological advances in the past that I simply wasn't aware of until they'd become established, so I was wondering: have people here already been exposed to the Internet of Things? What sort of tech and applications have you interacted with? Which of these do you think are already at a point where they're of interest to others than just technophile early adopters?
Edit: It's quite possible that a number of things I've already got in my daily life would count as IoT, but I'm simply not aware of all the things included in the term.
Edit: It's quite possible that a number of things I've already got in my daily life would count as IoT, but I'm simply not aware of all the things included in the term.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Thirith on
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We're at the start of the "IoT era" in that companies are still basically throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad, and a lot of that will also depend on what an individual likes/dislikes. I know a lot of people who think the nest thermostat is the dumbest thing ever, while others love it. There are countless other examples that a person could come up with.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/behold-chinas-answer-amazon-echo-linglong-dingdong/
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
I'm still resisting the siren song of the IoT connected household. Mainly because I know it will be a project and a half to tackle a lot of issues like, but not limited to, 1) my light bulbs aren't phoning home, 2) they aren't being used in a dyn-style attack, 3) they are sufficiently guarded from attack and misuse by a random goose in the area. 4) Setting up an internal controller that doesn't rely on phoning into a third party service (this will require reverse engineering the protocols or the ability to side-load customer firmware)
However, the promise of coupling some geofencing with a controller that will turn on lights and start playing some music when I get home after work is p. tempting.
Give it two generations and IoT will be ubiquitous in the first world doing things that sounds silly today.
But *what* will it be doing? Webguy touched on some commercial stuff, but has anyone heard of any potentially revolutionary consumer stuff coming down the pipeline? Personally I don't get the point of nest, alexa, etc, and the whole thing seems way overhyped to me, but I'd love to be wrong.
ever been in your bed and went "gosh I'm hot, I really don't want to go turn the central air on"
that's what nest fills in
smart homes are absolutely amazing and revolutionary just like smart phones were
I've actually saved almost $150 this year in electric because I have really finite control over what my furnace does. I can start cooling/warming my house in different ways or schedule it in a way better and easier way than those honeywell "programmable" thermostats that no one actually ever programmed anyways.
I can override if I'm extra cold or hot and all that.
If I had security system (camera) I'd probably use that too. I don't know if I necessarily need a fridge with a camera in it, but that's cool, I guess there's benefits there "shit do we have milk for mashed potatoes tonight?" and then you'd know because you can take a quick peek to see it.
The sky is the limit.
I'm all for the connected home, but why does it have to be on the Internet? Are Wifi lights the wave of the future? I'd say we need more a centralized server setup for the smart home versus everything being connected to the net.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Being able to control this stuff while I'm not home is a big deal to me.
There was a really hot day in the middle of march where it hit 90 and I wanted to precool the house on my way home but my system was still on heat mode. I was at one of those 5+ minute intersections and I loaded up my NEST app and switched it to cool in about 5 seconds.
Lots of practicality with the internet there. I agree not everything needs to be on the IoT, but smart homes I think are going to play heavily with it especially for fridges/pantries to see what you've got in stock.
I imagine with AI it'll even give you an inventory as you move things around and take/add. Alerts, etc.
front doors that unlock and open when you are in proximity courtesy of smart usage of bluetooth or rfid
whenever you are on vacation, being able to have your house cycle through various activities to keep things looking lived-in, and notify you if something is broken (home is overly hot the AC needs maintenance, fridge broken, water leak) and allow you to let a service person in to resolve the problem without needing to be there.
Riffing on that - when friends or family are in town giving them temporary token access to your home for 3 days or a week so they can go in without you and you dont need to hand off spare keys or do something terribly insecure like hiding them under a rock or doormat.
I could go on.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
What if your air conditioner knew your face.
What if your shoes knew what your feet normally smelled like.
What if your shower could tell if you had someone in there with you.
What if your mechanical pencil knew if it was about to run out of lead or eraser nub.
What if the floor noticed that your pulse had changed.
What if your soap dispenser knew if you were using toilet paper.
What if your car knew you didn't close the garage on your way to work.
What if everything you normally use could fulfill its function without you even knowing about it
And what if all of these things could work together towards dozens of different goals all at once, like keeping you healthy, well-rested, happy, and comfortable
And then they sold that data to anyone who wanted it in one neat little package.
You wouldn't want to give it the ability to ping or send packets at random, but rather only listen and respond to an incoming request.
Think more arduino than raspberry pi.
But I know at the end of the day it's just going to be easier to make it do "everything" and become easily exploitable.
Well, wait until you hear about Amazon's latest idea!
There is only one correct response:
I want to get to the point where we do have permissions-driven access to our homes, so long as we remain the arbiters.
Allow delivery people in the home for one minute, let them drop packages off, know they are being monitored, and then if they don't leave escalate to me so I can contact authorities / turn on alarm, etc.
Allow service people to enter the home when you are away but notify me with push that the person is in the home and run the cameras while they are there.
Allow cleaners access to my apartment within specified windows of time without having to give them a key they can use literally any time they want.
Allow friends from out of town a 3 day "token" to my apartment to enter and use as if I gave them a key.
None of these things feel bad to me
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
One word: piggybacking. Giving the delivery man access isn't so great if the burglar is right behind him.
There's your sticking point right there.
It's not accomplishing much that just having one of those realtor locks with a key inside it that uses a four button code to open doesn't accomplish, except for the monitoring thing which we'll get to in a second. Both are incredibly easy to break and very difficult to verify as secure.
As for the monitoring thing, if you want to go that route connect an offline camera that watches the door and record that to local storage. Also set up an alarm that sends notification that a door has been opened, but is not connected to other online systems.
The camera that is broadcasting online to you is actually the one that I find creepiest. There aren't many connected camera devices that we haven't, at some point or another, been able to crack and access as an unauthorized user. You don't want streaming cameras in your home.
Could be good on a gate, too.