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0 pointsyetihehe1y ago0 comments

Cheapness. It would require to be at least semi secure, application on phone would need to find those devices locally and it should be synchronized with cloud anyway, synchronization is error prone and we had problems with devices sometimes responding twice or very slowly through local interface (through cloud was much faster, no idea why, not our firmware). Also not enough people requesting that feature, most don't care and think that losing internet is not often enough to warrant worrying about this.

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MostlyStable1y ago

Why not offer an either/or rather than both? Some people (I am one of them) actively do not want these kinds of things to be managed through the cloud servers. I don't want it to sync, I want to fully turn that off. I want to locally host, and I'm willing to take responsibility for that feature, including when it breaks. All I want is access to whatever the data reporting and control APIs are.

I get that I'm a tiny minority, and that very few customers want what I want. But A) it seems like giving me what I want should be very cheap (i.e should not entail ongoing customer support costs beyond normal, and in fact would get rid of the small cloud hosting cost) and B) I'd be willing to pay a premium to get it.

wmf1y ago

In some areas like cameras there are a decent number of cloud-free alternatives. Hopefully as the IOT market grows we'll get cloud-free versions of everything.

I think you're too optimistic about costs though. Providing any support at all, even one-time during the install, is expensive and cloud-free IOT is going to require support due to home networks being broken.

MostlyStable1y ago

Yes, support is expensive, but what I am proposing will, if anything, reduce support. I'm imagining something where, if I opt into local control, I am giving up all rights to any support that is not related to the core functionality of the device. For example the solar panels/inverters in the article. If I opt in to local control, then the only support I am entitled to is the solar panels stop generating power or if the inverter stops inverting. Anything that is network related is no longer the companies problem, because I have assumed complete responsibility for that. I'd even be willing to agree that, in the case that I ever decide I don't want local control, and I want to switch to the cloud hosting, that I will pay for the support required to switch me back over.

So if my home network breaks, that is not their problem. And they don't need to set it up, they just need to make it possible for me to set up, including figuring out how to make it work with my potentially broken home network. If it requires a new router because mine doesn't provide some necessary functionality? Not their problem. Etc. Etc.

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lucianbr1y ago

I have some shelly devices which manage to do all that, and cost next to nothing. Work with local rest services or cloud, password protection, TLS. Sure, it costs more than zero, but not much.

In the end, freedom goes away because we could not be arsed to ask for it at least, let alone fight.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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MostlyStable1y ago

wmf1y ago

In some areas like cameras there are a decent number of cloud-free alternatives. Hopefully as the IOT market grows we'll get cloud-free versions of everything.

MostlyStable1y ago

2 more replies

lucianbr1y ago

I have some shelly devices which manage to do all that, and cost next to nothing. Work with local rest services or cloud, password protection, TLS. Sure, it costs more than zero, but not much.

In the end, freedom goes away because we could not be arsed to ask for it at least, let alone fight.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse