Unless it’s a service animal, I don’t like when dogs are in public buildings. Tired of trying to buy food at the grocery store but having to dodge dogs and avoid stepping over their leashes. This anger is mostly directed at their owners as I’m skittish around dogs I don’t know.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    They're trying to turn way too many things into smart devices nowadays. You get a generally very marginal increase in utility at the expense of higher cost, lower reliability, and the expenditure of Earth's finite and dwindling supply of rare earth metals.

    • Dbumba [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm with you on this, it's also not like the device is even "smart", it's just meaningless buzzword at this point.

      I don't need a smart fridge that one day will refuse to make ice because I didn't download the latest firmware and pay my $3.95 subscription fee

      • Des [she/her, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        plus it's crazy easy to do repairs on the last generation appliances right before everything became "smart". especially stuff in large circulation like brands used commercially.

        i have some used hotel washer and dryer. swap parts out for cheap (less then $40) when heater coils go or other stuff wears out.

        commercial monitors (aka commercial grade TVs) have almost no smart features, extra robust components and heatsinks and sometimes you can even put in your own control board.

      • FloridaBoi [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It is definitely a way to gain a captive consumer who has to buy into an ecosystem but also get them to constantly buy products as old ones become irreparable.

        I like the idea of getting data from stuff like usage and whatnot but for it to be part of the core functioning of the thing is obscene.

    • UlyssesT
      ·
      edit-2
      21 days ago

      deleted by creator

    • pooh [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      They do it because your usage data is another potential source of revenue for them.

    • cawsby [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      We can pull rare earths at higher prices from lots of places including the ocean.

      We will never run out of rare earths, just cheap ones.

      • Blep [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        An honest day of dumping batteries in the ocean guarantees that in 50 years some other honest individual can make a living fishing them back out

    • kristina [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      open source smart stuff is a godsend tho. i have a rug that connects to my wifi and heats up the floor for when i wake up in the morning. doesnt have a crazy app or anything, just a simple html webpage

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Funny as fuck when these companies push updates on big holiday and then suddenly you see a deluge of posts complaining that they cant grill their 4th of July slop because their overpriced grill has a mandatory update on it first.

        Though tbf, theres a big chance they didnt even update in on that day but rather these hogs just never use their grills except to show off on the holidays to extended family.

      • PorkrollPosadist [he/him, they/them]M
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        Imagining an episode of King Of The Hill where Hank is driven to give up propane and embrace charcoal due to the emergence of smart grills.

      • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        I wouldn't mind this if they didn't all suck. My ideal "smart grill" would be a little box, with some knobs and temperature probes, where I can set the "done" temperature for each probe individually. Beep beep, Steak 3 is now rare! Beep beep, potato pack is now crispy! That would kick ass.