<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/06/22/misunderstanding-locks-amazon-user-out-of-smart-home-voice-control-for-a-week__trashed/>
"The “smart” internet of things era was supposed to usher forth a new era of
convenience. Instead, it often manages to advertise how dumber technology can
be the smarter option, and you’re not being particularly innovative if your
product actually makes life harder. From “smart” door locks that are easily
hackable to hackable “smart” TVs that are so smart they spy on you, there are
near daily examples showing how connecting old tech to the internet and calling
it innovation — may not be innovative.
And if you still choose to wander down the smart home rabbit hole, it’s very
important to build flexible, interoperable home networks that don’t rely too
heavily on a singular point of failure or control.
Take this poor sod’s experience as the latest example.
Microsoft engineer Brandon Jackson recently found himself locked completely out
of the voice controls for his Amazon-controlled smart home automation system.
In a blog post, he details how his loss of control made it impossible to use
voice controls to manage any of countless home security and automation devices:
I have a smart home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the
devices and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This
incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices, a silent Alexa,
and a lot of questions.
Now he’s quick to note he
still had control over most of the individual
devices, but only because he’d implemented a lot of third party systems and
hosting options to ensure reliability and interoperability. So it’s not like he
froze to death in his underpants hiding in the garage in terror from the smart
vac, like some sort of
Black Mirror episode."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
