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The Internet of Every Damn Last Thing
We had our last full house for a while this Christmas. One never knows from year-to-year where everyone will be but I do know the lad will not be home in 2024. He’ll be in the middle of his second sailing at the Academy next December.
As everyone one made their way home I was alerted to their arrival by my phone. The app that controls my wifi router would announce “A new device has joined your network.” And then every time they opened a new device: Laptop alert. iPad alert. X-box alert. Desktop alert. Smart television alert. Alert! Alert! Alert!
By Christmas night there were 28 separate devices sucking at the internet teat. The kids bought my father-in-law a smart tv. Alert! His other grandchildren sent him a fire stick with a Disney+ subscription on it. Alert!
My Marine bought me a new Keurig. (Something about the brick I was using to keep the lid closed or something bothered him.) I was not allowed to register the purchase unless – you guessed it – I hooked it up to the internet.
Here I draw my line in the sand. I don’t want to have to open carry lest my coffee maker go sentient on me.
Published in General
Wait’ll your pistol requires a connection so you can use the loading app. See, that’s how they get you.
And each individual cartridge…
Someone in the PIT was just talking about this sort of thing — having to download and activate an app on her device in order to use a non-internet-connected device.
Supposedly if I preload a pod at night I could start the brew from my phone. But, it ain’t like it’s going to serve me in bed. No, all they really want is my email to sell some subscription-based delivery of product.
I don’t want to communicate with any of my kitchen appliances. I have people in my life I’m not thrilled with having to talk to, let alone the microwave or the refrigerator.
I’ve used Keurig a few times when coffee was not available. It’s a reasonable substitute.
Have you thought of installing a complicated password or network key on your router, so it takes some effort to connect to your wi-fi?
Where I live, if I did not do that, there are probably a few hundred residences within wi-fi range which could connect and use my wi-fi for whatever.
A neighbor just bought a new oven and found out it’s connected to the internet. She had to have her kids come in to figure out how to turn it on.
Or just so you can keep using the device you bought. cf. BMW subscription heated seats, etc.
Seems likely that the various people had the password from previous visits. Otherwise they wouldn’t have connected as soon as they got into range.
It doesn’t matter how complicated your password is, if you give it to people.
When my boys are away I’m the only one who drinks coffee. It’s the only alternative.
There is. But I haven’t found a way to keep it away from the kids.
I use it 5 days a week and brew a pot the other two. My wife only drinks decaf, i.e., “not coffee”.
Why the H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks do you need an internet-connected oven? Is this so that when the Rulers see us trying to feed ourselves, they can turn our ovens off?
Or any other appliance?
We just got a new GE stove, and we didn’t set it up with Wi-Fi to the company, and it is working well.
The sales associate told us that every appliance has software for which the company issues updates from time to time. So far we haven’t connected ours. But apparently that’s what the app is for. (And as EJ Hill said, for pushing more products in ads. I don’t give my phone number to any company. Except Ricochet.)
Just to throw this out there: one repairman told me years ago on my old stove (about ten years old) that if anything goes wrong on your stove, shut it off at the fuse box and then turn it back on. He said it’s a computer now, and sometimes you have to reboot it. :) :)
Thank you, @MarciN ! I will remember that.
Also, our new stove sent a message to my husband’s computer just the other day, even though we had steadfastly refused to set up the WiFi app offered with and by said stove. Quite a shock.
“I’m not messing around here!”
This still holds up:
Nothing is more endearing to one’s children than referring to them as “various people.”
Our old refrigerator did just that a couple of times. And it often tormented us with the “Change filter” water light that never seemed to go out when we changed the filter, which we were supposed to do every couple of months. (We think the appliance companies saw HP make millions giving printers away but then charging for ink cartridges. They are trying the same pricing model but with water filters. :) :) )
The water filter light drove us crazy! We finally got rid of that fridge, and now our newish three-year-old fridge has no bells and whistles. We are very happy. :) :) We make our own ice cubes, and we keep a jug of plain water in the fridge. It’s wonderful. :) And so simple. :)
Didn’t sound like they were all children. At least not all YOUR children.
Only if you see some benefit in unnecessarily complicating a routine task to get a similar end product of less quantity than simply loading a potfull of water into an old style drip coffee machine and setting the start time for 15 minutes before wake up call. Coffee is simple, all these ‘improvements’ are really just a way to sell unneeded appurtenances and optional variations on a simple theme. My drip coffee using tap water and dark roast of any brand has never failed to meet the expectations of all who partake. At a reasonable cost in both time and money.
So to the coffee snobs that turn up their noses I say, “Bah Humbug!”
We replaced our major kitchen appliances this past summer. Every time SWMBO showed me a listing for a new cooktop/oven/fridge, I looked to see if it required an internet hook-up. If it did, I vetoed it.
Ditto when she wanted to take advantage of our power company’s offer for a “free” Nest thermostat. I said not just “No,” but “Hell No!”
Our oven is app-enabled, but nah. The washer-drier is internet-savvy, so it can download new and exciting washing protocols and send alerts to my wristwatch, but nah. My thermostats run on a little network I can adjust from anywhere so the house is warm before I get home; that’s nice. I run the home lights off my phone. Buy my Keurig? Nay.
I think Keurig tried a new proprietary tech a while ago that rejected non-Keurig pods, and people hated it. It was like a printer that phoned home when it detected a generic ink cartridge, and refused to work. I never use those horrid plastic pods, but have a reusable filter I fill with finely granulated Cafe Bustelo, and mmmm, that’s good.
I’ve seen some kind of new Keurig thing that still seems to be around, K2 isn’t it? Or maybe that’s just the mountain… For sure I never see the variety of flavors etc that regular Keurig has, because other companies also make stuff for them.
I’m not a coffee drinker, but Keurig never made sense to me just because the plastic pods seem to be basically instant coffee. Or maybe that’s just the “hot chocolate” ones.
Yes, the benefit is that it takes less time and makes better coffee. Bah Humbug all you want. I value my time and good coffee. (I use a hand grinder and an Aeropress or French press, depending.)
In a similar way I’ve moved the plug for our refrigerator (2 years old) to an outlet that I can access without moving the unit since I’ve had to do an unplug/plug reboot several times. Usually it starts doing odd things like the interior lights don’t come on or the display shows odd things. Rebooting solves the problem so far, fingers crossed.
Can you imagine explaining to our grandparents about “rebooting” the refrigerator?
We are the grand parents ;>)
Our power went out in a snowstorm, and so the WiFi went down. The TVs didn’t work, the stereo didn’t work, there was no radio, no way to get a weather report. The only things that still worked were the hot water heater, which uses natural gas, the fireplace, and the gas range. Our iPhones could theoretically connect to the internet using cellular data, but apparently we’re too far from a tower for that. They normally connect by WiFi.
As they learned in the nuclear sub fleet, for maximum reliability when things go south use old technology.