Smart Appliances Promise Convenience and Innovation. But Is Your Privacy Worth the Price? - Consumer Reports
www.consumerreports.org
Consumer Reports found that smart appliances collect a ton of data on how and when consumers use them. Here are the privacy risks of these appliances.

Obviously unwise consumers with an under-developed sense of privacy and security are happy to buy any and all kinds of smart appliances. Marketing works wonders on people – esp. these people who see only the benefits and have a huge blind spot on the anti-feature realities.

So I am left wondering: do I need to cancel ALL smart appliances? The reason to even ask is that the market and demand for non-smart appliances is shrinking. So our choices will increasingly approach a buy a smart-appliance or nothing dichotomy. Televisions are likely already there. Before we reach that dichotomy on large appliances, the non-smart appliances will just be a bad deal because of lack of competition.

Obviously there is a possibility to buy a wi-fi dishwasher then either disable it or not give it a means of connection. But then there is a risk of sacrificing functionality. Not just upgrades but a risk that the appliance is IoT-dependent out of the box.

ATM, I think the only sensible approach is to simply cancel all smart appliances and only buy non-smart appliances. Is there a quick and easy way to separate the cloud-dependent smart appliances from the non-cloud-dependent smart appliances?

  • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
    61·
    2 months ago

    I dunno about OP, but that’s when I rip out the electronics and drop in an ESP32 or something (not Arduino since they’re doing fucky licensing stuff now).

    Washing machines at their core are a motor, a bearing, a water pump, and a tub. The easiest stuff on earth to reverse engineer and control yourself

    • evenwichtOPEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      I like the idea. I am facing this problem right now. I have been washing my clothes by hand because my washing machine is kill-switched. Every component works (proven by hotwiring) but the controller refuses to run programs.

      Though it must be a huge project. An ESP32 is just the microcontroller. So I would have to buy several relays that it controls and write all the software from scratch, correct? I suppose the relays are the easy part… but the sensors are likely somewhat unique. Different pressure sensors probably give different voltages. And different tachometers probably give different voltages too, I would think.