Why you should buy the dumbest appliances you can find.
That’s always my philosophy. We’re planning to finally get a true “big screen” television (our current one, over a decade old, is 37 inch). I’d like to just buy a monitor, but they don’t seem to really make them. I am absolutely not going to buy a television that insists that I give it my wifi password.
The next vehicle I buy will be a Willys Jeep, built in the 1940s. Nary a computer to be seen.
I went shopping recently for a replacement for my old Oral-B electric toothbrush and I had difficulty finding one without Bluetooth connectivity. I don’t know if that falls under the definition of IOT, but it’s just as silly.
Doesn’t everybody need a toaster or kettle with a microprocessor and internet connectivity? Just askin’.
Had to buy a new kettle a while ago. There were models from A$20 to A$200 depending on the sophistication. This is to boil water FFS. We bought the $27 one.
TVs are made in large quantities, so the prices are pretty low. Large monitors are not, so they’re much more expensive for the same size. Just get one that isn’t “smart”. We have 2 Seiki 42 inch 4K TVs which we use solely as monitors. No WiFi, no smartness. Just LOTS of pixels.
We have a ‘smart TV’ because there wasn’t much choice when we bought it. But it’s never been connected to the Internet, and never will be.
If, one day, we buy a TV that refuses to run without an Internet connection, it will be going back to the store.
I might prefer my coffeemaker to have internet capability for one reason only: so I don’t have to keep resetting the damn clock. (The idea of a coffeemaker without a clock confuses and frightens me.)
I guess they don’t make a coffeemaker that syncs with WWV like those battery powered “atomic” wall clocks?
I’m guessing the wi-fi connection is less expensive. As long as the network is limited to NTP it should be safe. But best double check the firewall to be sure the coffeemaker isn’t poking any holes.
But Rand, the “dumbest” appliance I can find would be the one with the highest Internet connectivity?
This reminds me of what’s wrong with people’s thoughts about living on mars. For the exact same reason you don’t need smart appliances unless you want the novelty, living on mars doesn’t require the IOT either. Novelties and luxuries will exist but not missed by most.
Living on mars should be novelty enough.
People are so stupid they think making a pencil REQUIRES a world wide economy. It doesn’t, until such time that it does.
Also, people imagine everything must start out full blown at scale, when it doesn’t. The big jump is to be able to do a thing at all. Scaling up is just a normal expectation that happens incrementally.
“It can’t be done” always seems to end up being “doing it was simple and obvious” in a surprising short time in a large percentage of cases.
I just wish we’d get past the initial log jam.