Title text:
It’s important for devices to have internet connectivity so the manufacturer can patch remote exploits.
Transcript:
[A store salesman, Hairy, is showing Cueball a dehumidifier, with a “SALE” label on it. Several other unidentified devices, possibly other dehumidifier models, are shown in the store as well.]
Salesman: This dehumidifier model features built-in WiFi for remote updates.
Cueball: Great! That will be really useful if they discover a new kind of water.
Source: https://xkcd.com/3109/
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Meanwhile here I am installing ESP32C3’s into everything in my house to automate everything.
I can turn on my floor heat, hallway light, or even open a vent from an app on my phone. And bonus, no shady manufacturers to spy on me. Just China.
that vent thing is surprisingly clever, thumbs up 👍
Hey thanks, I’ve got tons of cool projects and gifs like these, and I love to share them and read the comments, but I don’t know where to post them on Lemmy. I used to post them to Reddit but they started shadowbanning my github for some reason. Didn’t even find out until the ESP32 mod messaged me and was like “we can’t even manually approve your posts”.
I just installed motorized dampers in my crawl space using Shelly smart relays! Now I have an automatic schedule so I’m not cooling rooms that aren’t in use (like the bedrooms during the day and the lower level of the house at night). Already seen significant power savings!
Can you flush toilets tho
I can do that but I don’t wanna - Bart Simpson
I’ve looked into many WiFi dehumidifier’s and the one thing I wanted from it was to notify my phone if it’s full. None of them do that. All they do is let you change speed and stuff. Nothing that is important to me. I just want to know if I need to go to the basement and empty it or not.
Right? Like half of what I want from these things is when is the battery low? When is the outbox full? When is the feeder empty? And metrics to verify the device is generally operating safely.
Controlling the device? We’ve known how to do that for 50+ years. Help me maintain the device.
I feel you, trying to find a smart gadget that is actually smart in 2025 and not just a data collector is nearly impossible. Learning to DIY a lot of these projects. Throw one of these or similar in there with a little control board set to email you if 0 changes to 1 or w/e
I need to look into this and see if I can have it send me a text or something when it’s full. Another diy project to add to the list.
Hey if your list of projects isn’t insurmountable what are you even doing with your life?
Most carriers have an email to sms gateway address Usually your number@carrier.com or similar.
Do they at least tell you how wet your wifi is?
Haha no they don’t which is why I went with one that didn’t have WiFi to save like 20$
Do they have a model with AI?
Shh shh shh, don’t give them ideas.
Or Alexa?
But does it have AI?
You joke but my dehumidifier has an automatic comfort mode of some sort.
I guarantee that next run will have that button with screen print AI something something above it instead.
There must be some way to remove the “smart” controller from a device and replace it with a dumb one, like an arduino or something. I want to lobotomize these devices.
If I can turn it on remotely, that’s a good feature. I have solar, I want it to work when the sun is out and I’m producing excess energy.
Yes, I know I can use other peripherals to do this (sometimes) but its always nicer if its just built in so I don’t need to waste carbon on other things.The only thing I want when manufacturers add wifi to these things is to appeal to open source principles like allowing us to connect to it and communicate with it openly and not tie it down to some cloud service they run.
I mean there’s heavy water
which we already know of, innit ?
I work at a dispensary. In theory this could actually be helpful for my job.
In theory the IoT could be secure. -In theory.
I’m still trying to figure out my network settings so that I can have my IoT one one network while still being able to access my home assistant from the other network.
Unfortunately, my ISP is also my cable company, and I have to use their modem/router combo else the cable boxes won’t accept the cable signal. I’m using my own wireless access point (which also doubles as a switch for the handful of Ethernet devices I have), and it can split off a separate SSID, but that’s not really doing much.
I have a separate IoT network. It’s basically just a guest wifi for IoT. Anything coming in on that network gets a VLAN tag and only previous & established connections can get out. Honestly, it’s kinda a pain in the ass with homeassistant because I keep HA on the other network so I have to manually find devices. It might be easier to just block it at the ip level or blacklist outgoing ip ranges to Tuya or whatever.
I have HA on a separate VLAN from IoT devices and have set up mDNS reflection so it can find them.
There really is an xkcd for everything.
