For those who are interested, here’s the WSJ article on smart TVs I mentioned earlier. It’s behind a paywall though. We’ve got a regular 50” HD tv we bought just over 2 years ago and a 4K 55” Ultra HD smart TV we scored on a deal last year. Again though, my wife’ just finds it easier to connect the Fire TV with Kodi and Apple TV or just airplay with her iPad instead of dealing with the built in stuff that is stripped down in comparison. The article talks about how for example Samsung has a program where you can get a new TV every 2 years to stay up to date. Yeah … whatever. If it were up to me, we’d have a 19” black and white boo tube TV, but alas … darn sighted people want their nice images and stuff.
I don’t expect us even considering getting a new TV for a good long while. Much less every 2 years. We’d upgrade the Fire TV and Apple TV before getting a new TV at that point. https://www.wsj.com/articles/your-smart-tv-is-only-going-to-get-dumber-1543154401 Cristóbal Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 8:41 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Your Expensive Smart Appliance May Not Last A Decade I’m not even going to argue over the point of a fridge being smart. I mean, personally, I think it’s dumb or at least hype, but that’s just me. I’m incredulous over the idea of a smart range or washer/dryer. After all, someone’s got to put the clothes or food in them. No app or smartphone’s ever going to do that for you. Because I’m lazy, I may be talked into say perhaps a smart toaster oven where I can access all the menus on my phone, but a 2 or 3 or whatever hundred dollar oven isn’t the same as a full blown state of the art range either. It’s the premium price tag that’s slapped on these appliances for these extra features when in all reality as the article goes over, what type of lifespan are you realistically looking at? Again, going back to the Instant Pot, I hope the IP company stays in business for many, many years and the iOS app is kept up to date for as long as I have it, but I’m not placing any bets on me still being able to connect to my Bluetooth connected IP 10 or 12 years from now. Same goes for my Drop Kitchen scale that I paid around $60 for last year. Who knows what things will even look like by then. And that’s really the point. I mean, dropping maybe 1 or 2 or 3 hundred bucks on a connected item is no where near the commitment of dropping thousands of bucks on a piece of equipment that is drastically reduced in its functionality simply because it can’t be updated to a 128 bit processor or whatever security protocol is going to take over in 5 or whatever years. This smacks of built in obsolescence. Cristóbal From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of Mary Otten Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 7:42 PM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: Your Expensive Smart Appliance May Not Last A Decade Christopher, the amount of time saved by being able to use a washer as a post to handwashing and then using a ringer to dry is exponential. You’re probably not old enough to remember that. A smart refrigerator is stupid. I’m sorry, but nobody needs to have the contents of the refrigerator displayed on their phone. And especially not for $4000. Do you know how insecure all this crap is? When the grid goes down and the Internet goes down due to a foreign cyber attack, then what is all your smart stuff going to do for you? If somebody has a physical disability, I am absolutely all in favor of them having accessible appliances. Everybody else can get up off their fat butt and go and do. It doesn’t kill anybody to walk downstairs to check on their laundry. It never has and never will. The amount of marketing dollars wasted on creating the artificial hype around this stuff is astonishing. And the cost to the planet in terms of built-in obsolescence and the cost in dollars is also astonishing. That’s not arrogance. It’s just smart. I would say the arrogance is on the part of the people who own the companies and hire all the psychologists to make sure that they hype this stuff up in ways that they know are going to appeal to people. They make people want things that in their hearts, they know they do not need. And they really don’t save that much time. The article did a great job of pointing out the problems. And the security risks which are huge. Mary Sent from my iPhone On Jan 23, 2019, at 5:04 PM, Christopher Chaltain <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: This attitude has always perplexed me. I don't see people complaining about clothes washers so they don't have to wash everything by hand, or clothes dryers so they don't have to hang their clothes on a clothes line, or dishwashers so they don't have to wash their dishes by hand, or TV remotes so they don't have to get up and change the channel when they're channel surfing and so on. Where do you draw the line when you're talking about convenience? I'd love a smart thermostat so I can adjust the temperature from anywhere or a smart washer/dryer combination so I can check on the status of my laundry without having to run downstairs and so on. I get that someone may not appreciate or want such smart features, but I just don't get people who think that just because they don't like a certain feature it therefore must be stupid or worthless to everyone. I'm just not that unimaginative or arrogant myself. This article points out some serious issues with smart appliances. Hopefully the smart appliance companies are listening and addressing these issues. These issues, as the article points out though, doesn't mean that smart appliances aren't worthwhile. On 1/23/19 1:59 PM, Mary Otten wrote: I couldn’t agree with you more. I think the whole Smart appliance thing is incredibly over sold. I mean really. A smart refrigerator? Who really needs that? The description of what you could do with that Samsung refrigerator just made me scratch my head and wonderment as to why anybody would spend all that money for stuff that is so not necessary. The only thing that interests me about smart appliances is possible Accessibility. Because so many appliances come with inaccessible interfaces that can’t be modified easily with dots or braille, like you used to be able to do with older appliances, the ability to have an app on your phone, say, that would let you control a device is kind of attractive. Maybe even necessary. When our washer died several years ago, I went looking for one that I could use. I was lucky to find something still had a kind of a pointer on the dial, so I could put labels in strategic places. I still can’t do everything that you were supposed to be able to do with this washer or the dryer. But it’s good enough. But I saw a lot of machines that werenot usable at all by a blind person because they could not be modified to make controlling and accessible. I don’t imagine that trend is changing. And that’s a problem. I hope I don’t ever end up having to buy something with a whole bunch of stupid features I don’t need the cost more that I want to spend just because I need accessibility to the basic functionality. Sent from my iPhone On Jan 23, 2019, at 11:21 AM, Cristóbal Muñoz <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Interesting article I thought I’d post. I know the topics of things like the Instant Pot and other smart appliances/devices around the house have come up before and the concern about whether they’d still be accessible after X period of time. I’m perfectly happy with my instant pot Bluetooth and as a pressure cooker, I expect it to last a good long while. Accessibility or the maintenance of the app though… that’s a separate issue. IN general, outside of the IP, Ring video doorbell and a Bluetooth kitchen scale, our home really isn’t smart. We do have a 4K TV with some built in apps, but for convenience, the wife just has a hacked Fire TV and Apple TV plugged into it. We don’t’ even use the apps included in our Dish Hopper III. Our fridge, washer and drier are around 14 years old now and while the washer’s needed some YouTube intervention a couple of times, they’re still going strong. I wasn’t really keen on upgrading to smart appliances in general and the realities that this article points out doesn’t really do anything to make me reassess my opinion. The WSJ put out a similar article having to do with smart TVs a few months back and it was more or less the same thing. Good luck trying to keep that super expensive smart TV smart. I don’t mind spending 30 or 50 or maybe 100 or 200 dollars on a smart device, but if you’re talking close to $1000 and more, smart’s nice and all, but at that point, give me longevity and reliability. https://www.howtogeek.com/401635/your-expensive-smart-appliance-may-not-last-a-decade/ Cristóbal -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . To post to this group, send email to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Christopher (CJ) Chaltain at Gmail -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. 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