Watches
I never saw the point of them. I don’t see the problem with analog or digital watches. Everything is regressed to a tiny square of a screen, that you barely look at. I just find it as an unnecessary distraction.
Light Bulbs
I work in retail and I stock these things all of the time. We have light bulbs, that are smart now because why? They’re stuffed with wireless functionality, just so you can simply change a color or maybe dim it through phone. More unnecessary apps, more unnecessary functions just for cheap attraction.
Kitchen Appliances
I’m bundling them all here.
There is nothing you’re gaining an advantage of, when slapping a screen on any appliance and relying on some unsupported app on your phone for basic functions.
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I don’t have a problem with smart devices. I’m a tech head. I LOVE GADGETS. My issues are that smart devices tattle on me to their corporate daddy without my knowledge or permission. My issues are if they aren’t online they don’t work. My issues are if their parent company goes out of business, or stops supporting the devices, or decides I’ve violated a TOS the device becomes a brick. My issues are a lot of smart devices are perfectly pointless and exist solely for the purpose of data harvesting. My issues are I don’t own my smart devices, I’m leasing them.
Home assistant FTW
All of those have uses.
They add convenience in various ways. It’s kinda neat that my fridge can text me to say the door is open or the filter is due (but I don’t have it connected).
Smart watches have barely anything to do with telling time; they’re remote terminals for your phone for communication in both directions. Think like not holding you phone while exercising, checking if a text is urgent, tracking your steps, or dismissing timers. I don’t have one.
Smart bulbs let you have much more control over your lighting. Have 6 overhead lights over your TV room? Shut the opens over the screen, dim the rest. You can’t do that with a normal switch on a single circuit, like most homes will have. Best you can do is dim them all together with a dimmer switch. Sure, it also let’s people be extra lazy by not getting up at all. I don’t have any.
It’s really easy to see how these smart features add convenience. I hate them because they usually come with atrocious security and privacy flaws. Worse, many are specifically sold as spying devices under the guise of convenience. THAT is why when smart devices are the only/best option, I don’t connect them. And if setup seems to demand connectivity, I change my wifi password, connect and setup, then change it back.
Yeah, the post reads like a rant from someone who can’t put themselves in the shoes of someone else, so it has to be completely worthless.
I’d actually add that one of the biggest uses for so many “unnecessary” devices is opening up ability/convenience to people with various disabilities. Practically every worthless “as seen on TV” gadget has a niche use for someone. Jar openers help arthritis. Pouring gadgets help people with reduced motor control. Smart bulbs help people who are in pain whenever they get up.
I guarantee you dont need 95% of “smart” (I fucking hate that term) devices.
Its wasteful, anti security, and gives corporations more control than they should ever have.
The sole reason they exist is because we peaked in the ways corporations can make money. You CANT make a good washing machine that lasts and does it’s job in capitalist society. It must make quarterly profits either by being un repairable and forcing the owner to buy another, or harvesting data, or forcing subscriptions for shit the device already has built in.
Smart bullshit is just the 2010 version of shoving ai slop unto every possible thing that doesn’t need it. No difference.
- TVs (would rather have a tv box, not in built to the TV itself)
- Appliances (you mentioned it yeah, but this needed a second hey ho)
- Doors/Locks (do not digitize your locks are you stupid?)
- Cars (as an avid car hater, drivers do not need to be more distracted than they already are. Music/radio whatever but do they really need a fucking 24* in plasma TV in their dash??? (*satire on size))
- Vending Machines (saw some dumb people chucking AI into vending machines and that was a horrible idea)
- Security Networks (no thx on mass surveillance in any way esp ones that violate human privacy rights and use AI to ID people)
- Content (ai generated content or ai within content being video, images, blogs or what nots)
About all we can think of off the top our head. Probably more anti ai at the end but the smart features shoved down our throats have recently been ai this or ai that. Whoops ig lol
Oh, speakers.
I don’t need a speaker to be smart. I just need it to connect to my device so I can play music through it. I don’t want to talk to a speaker if I can help it, and I certainly don’t want to have to figure out how to ask it to play ‘d|| tl | | |’ by 65daysofstatic while I’m cooking my dinner.
If we must talk to our things, then sure, have little microphone pucks about the place. But the speakers themselves are perfectly fine just being speakers.
Eh. I like my smart watch.
- Heart tracking. The peace of mind is worth it to me.
- Message peeking. Sometimes I’m waiting for a text while doing something that would make it inconvenient or impolite to pull out my phone.
- Finding my phone. I’m that guy.
Agree, so nice to track my workouts, sleep, messages etc. I’ve got one for Christmas three years ago and it’s turned out to be the best unexpected gift that I’ve come around to enjoy and use
So many. Its easier to name the opposite
Pebble watches were perfect, just smart enough to be useful, while still having a week long always on display.
Tactile buttons means you can control your music/answer calls without even looking ar any screen.
I prefer to have dumb, discrete devices in near all cases. TV, appliances, bulbs AND switches. Watches (mechanical only, please). I don’t connect any game consoles to the internet. I can’t think of any devices that actually need “smart” features.
Anyone else get use GadgetBridge instead of the respective brand’s app? It goes a long way into keeping your usage data private IMO.
We got a Air Pictionary game where you can draw in the air but displays on TV, but that requires an app WITH a user account to go along with it… So it’s sitting unused because I’m not signing up for your stupid app that’s harvesting my data!
GadgetBridge is great!
I just set up HomeAssistant and I don’t buy anything that doesn’t work with it locally.
I like my Garmin smartwatch. It allows me to track my heart rate accurately enough so I can know when to slow down my pace. That’s important as I have high blood pressure and congestive heart failure runs in the family, so I have to be careful when pushing myself.
I also like my smart led strip and my smart plug hooked up to my Home Assistant server. Both are pretty useful when paired with automations, like turning on/off as I leave/arrive home, or turning on at certain times to aid me in waking up. It’s not necessary but it does add to my life.
But what absolutely doesn’t need a smart version imo? Toasters. I’ve seen smart toasters. I don’t need a smart toaster. That’s dumb.
They’re stuffed with wireless functionality, just so you can simply change a color or maybe dim it through phone. More unnecessary apps, more unnecessary functions just for cheap attraction.
I got to disagree on this here, my smart lights introduced me to self hosting through Homebridge. I was able to enable HomeKit connections for non-HomeKit enabled devices which then lead me to create automations.
I get home lights turn on, I close a door at a specific time lights turn off. It’s not as terrible as you may think.
Maybe not smart but i hate touch buttons. Give us back the switches and buttons, why were they not enough? My bike light just broke because the annoying touch button barely works. And i hate turning on the light in my pocket.
There is nothing you’re gaining an advantage of, when slapping a screen on any appliance and relying on some unsupported app
Hah, my smart range has physical knobs for most controls!
…. And has a stupid app that alerts my phone at work when the cleaners clean the stovetop
My dishwasher doesn’t even have a proper screen, just an LED timer, some buttons, and a few status LEDs.
It stopped working about a month ago and I was livid when I learned why.
The tech who came to fix it, said it probably needed a software update, removed the toe plate, plugged a wifi hotspot into a network jack I didn’t know about, and the thing started working fine 5-10 minutes later.
I didn’t even know the thing had software to update.
Smart interfaces are fine (as long as they connect locally and do not require a cloud connection).
Stop stuffing AI agents and voice controls into everything. It’s just an excuse to have a microphone that’s always recording.
