Ever ask Alexia?

[John Connor]

I named her Echo so that the TV doesn't trip her.

 

[destrekor]

You, someone so paranoid and privacy-conscious, bought an Echo? Holy shit I think I just saw a pig overhead!

 

[John Connor]

I'm security conscious, but not about an Echo. I mean, yeah, my websites have layers and so does my network and computers. If I'm talking about something important I'll just pull the power cord. No harm no foul. I wouldn't trust mute.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I don't trust any of the "IoT" stuff out there with a 10 foot pole. The ones that run locally are probably fine, a lot of the issue with them being hacked is idiots that port forward to them or turn on upnp on their routers. But a lot of it is cloud based too, would not trust that at all, especially stuff that could have ability to track my IRL conversations, movement etc. It's just creepy.

Technically I should not even own a cell, the current generation of cells are basically spy devices. I really need to look into custom ROMs and experiment with them. Probably once I get a new phone, then I'll be able to play with it before I transfer the service to it.

One thing I was thinking about a while back is cells do make a great trojan horse to get stuff on your network if you don't split up wifi from the main network. When you go on data, you're basically wide open, there is no firewall, no NAT. You're connected directly to the internet. So a 0 day exploit could easily load something on your phone that goes dormant, then when you connect to wifi... bang your network is hacked. I have not heard of anything like this, and I'm actually surprised. It would be a genius way to get a piece of code to run behind a firewall. How many companies have a wifi that is on the same vlan as the corporate network, for example.

 

[John Connor]

Well, if you can think it, it will become reality. I discovered that many times over coming up with ideas. I'm an inventor of sorts. Everything I think of I patent search and lo and behold some asshat made it already. The big ones are companies. They're patent suckers!

Android, despite being Linux is flawed. There is a blackphone from SilentCirlce, but I wonder what you get with that? I mean features and what not. Probably pretty striped down. At that point you might as well buy a low grade piece of shit pre-payed smartphone you buy with cash.

I look at it this way: Less privacy for capability. I mean, you ever see all the asinine permissions you have to give to some of these Apps? UNREAL!

 

[MrSquished]

Yeah I don't trust any of the "IoT" stuff out there with a 10 foot pole. The ones that run locally are probably fine, a lot of the issue with them being hacked is idiots that port forward to them or turn on upnp on their routers. But a lot of it is cloud based too, would not trust that at all, especially stuff that could have ability to track my IRL conversations, movement etc. It's just creepy.

Technically I should not even own a cell, the current generation of cells are basically spy devices. I really need to look into custom ROMs and experiment with them. Probably once I get a new phone, then I'll be able to play with it before I transfer the service to it.

One thing I was thinking about a while back is cells do make a great trojan horse to get stuff on your network if you don't split up wifi from the main network. When you go on data, you're basically wide open, there is no firewall, no NAT. You're connected directly to the internet. So a 0 day exploit could easily load something on your phone that goes dormant, then when you connect to wifi... bang your network is hacked. I have not heard of anything like this, and I'm actually surprised. It would be a genius way to get a piece of code to run behind a firewall. How many companies have a wifi that is on the same vlan as the corporate network, for example.

you should go off the grid dude

 

[John Connor]

 

[John Connor]

LOL I play the damn video and my Echo Dot keeps going off. I should for the funny of it -- HTML5 some Alexia audio that plays automatically on my websites. Teehee.

 

[zinfamous]

You, someone so paranoid and privacy-conscious, bought an Echo? Holy shit I think I just saw a pig overhead!

seriously.

 

[clamum]

Mine has had the blue ring get triggered when the commercial comes on TV, but it doesn't happen every time. I'm kinda surprised it didn't go "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that" afterward.

 

[Crono]

Alexa, not Alexia. Same name as the website ranking/metrics system that has been around for years. And it's the last personal assistant/AI/bot I'd use, as I'd prefer a device from a hardware company, not a company trying to get me to buy more stuff (Prime is bad enough). Also I don't like that Amazon promotes it's own devices and services; you can't find the Apple TV on Amazon, which may be Apple's fault for not allowing Amazon on their devices, but in my mind that makes both companies worse options for consumers.

Not that I'm interested in AI assistants yet, though. They aren't useful enough or smart enough yet for them to not annoy me. The things they do well may be good enough for a lot of people, but I'm waiting 5 years when I expect they'll be more reliable and feature-rich. Right now I can reliably play music, do searches, turn on/off devices, etc easily manually or using my phone. False triggering, poor or non-existent conversational understanding, limited third-party services and devices integration, and other issues keep me from being excited about "AI" right now. Not looking to beta test these devices for companies - I have enough flaky tech in my life already, thanks.

When we get close to Jarvis or Cortana (from the Halo series, not the Microsoft product named after her) I probably will be the first to start using it.

 

[Imp]

I want to ask her if she's a slut...

 

[John Connor]

I want to ask her if she's a slut...

It said, "That's not the sort of conversation I'm capable of having."

 

[Ken g6]

You, someone so paranoid and privacy-conscious, bought an Echo? Holy shit I think I just saw a pig overhead!

I sometimes ask Google things, but I don't even let my phone listen unless I click the microphone.

 

[destrekor]

Alexa, not Alexia. Same name as the website ranking/metrics system that has been around for years. And it's the last personal assistant/AI/bot I'd use, as I'd prefer a device from a hardware company, not a company trying to get me to buy more stuff (Prime is bad enough). Also I don't like that Amazon promotes it's own devices and services; you can't find the Apple TV on Amazon, which may be Apple's fault for not allowing Amazon on their devices, but in my mind that makes both companies worse options for consumers.

Not that I'm interested in AI assistants yet, though. They aren't useful enough or smart enough yet for them to not annoy me. The things they do well may be good enough for a lot of people, but I'm waiting 5 years when I expect they'll be more reliable and feature-rich. Right now I can reliably play music, do searches, turn on/off devices, etc easily manually or using my phone. False triggering, poor or non-existent conversational understanding, limited third-party services and devices integration, and other issues keep me from being excited about "AI" right now. Not looking to beta test these devices for companies - I have enough flaky tech in my life already, thanks.

When we get close to Jarvis or Cortana (from the Halo series, not the Microsoft product named after her) I probably will be the first to start using it.

Meh, I've got an Echo but I haven't hooked it up yet - it's for my next place, should be closing on soon. Gonna be a smart home eventually, adding more when I can. Will start with Hue lights and will get the Harmony Hub and replace my current Harmony remote.

The big thing with IoT is taking security seriously. You can still get it connected to the internet, but you need to know what you are shopping for, and for christ's sake, change the damn default configurations and passphrases! That's what is powering Mirai and similar botnets: default passwords or stupidly simple passwords.

And there are common devices in their as well, some with hard coded passwords. Look them up, and steer clear! I'll be focusing my searches on those details and trying to keep everything locked down as much as possible.

But while your main complaint is Amazon selling Amazon goods and services, the biggest benefit is the numerous tie-ins it has, and it keeps getting better. So many smart devices tie into it, it can be literally the central hub to control an entire smart home. And that's my goal. I am very curious how the Google Hub will shape up over time, but for now Alexa has all the star support.

 

[Squisher]

I'd swear I heard the wife having an argument with the Echo the other day. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but by the tone neither one sounded pleased.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Mine has had the blue ring get triggered when the commercial comes on TV, but it doesn't happen every time. I'm kinda surprised it didn't go "I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that" afterward.

That happened to my mom in church with Siri on her phone. We have a service where instead of a preacher, anyone can get up and say something. Someone got up near us and she had her phone out using a Bible app and when the person started to talk Siri just came on "I'm sorry, I did not quite understand that" while my mom is scrambling to shut her up lol.

 

[Crono]

Meh, I've got an Echo but I haven't hooked it up yet - it's for my next place, should be closing on soon. Gonna be a smart home eventually, adding more when I can. Will start with Hue lights and will get the Harmony Hub and replace my current Harmony remote.

The big thing with IoT is taking security seriously. You can still get it connected to the internet, but you need to know what you are shopping for, and for christ's sake, change the damn default configurations and passphrases! That's what is powering Mirai and similar botnets: default passwords or stupidly simple passwords.

And there are common devices in their as well, some with hard coded passwords. Look them up, and steer clear! I'll be focusing my searches on those details and trying to keep everything locked down as much as possible.

But while your main complaint is Amazon selling Amazon goods and services, the biggest benefit is the numerous tie-ins it has, and it keeps getting better. So many smart devices tie into it, it can be literally the central hub to control an entire smart home. And that's my goal. I am very curious how the Google Hub will shape up over time, but for now Alexa has all the star support.

I'm wondering how long all those devices get support, and how long they will get updates. Even the smartphone OS situation has only recently started to mature while IoT is still nascent in this regard. I'd rather wait a few years to see which companies and devices stick around than spend a few hundred or thousand dollars now for devices with limited utility now and even less in the future.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd swear I heard the wife having an argument with the Echo the other day. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but by the tone neither one sounded pleased.

A surly ai might get me to buy into the tech :^D

All my stuff is dumb(ish). I don't do anything that couldn't be done on a 486. It's just faster, and looks better.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I'm wondering how long all those devices get support, and how long they will get updates. Even the smartphone OS situation has only recently started to mature while IoT is still nascent in this regard. I'd rather wait a few years to see which companies and devices stick around than spend a few hundred or thousand dollars now for devices with limited utility now and even less in the future.

That would be one of my concerns too, all this stuff is really proprietary. I feel there needs to be a standard protocol for IoT things and all companies should use said protocol, so that you can buy a "hub" from any company and individual devices from any company and they all work together. But good luck with that, companies like to do their own thing, and often patent it so nobody else can do it.

I personally like just designing my own stuff. Been brainstorming a new system as mine is kinda rudimentary and not easily expandable. What I have in mind is a basic bus protocol and each plug in module will be a microcontroller which then breaks out to 1-wire, i2c, and dry contacts, relays etc depending on the module. Everything will just terminate inside a cabinet and I can add more stuff using said plug in modules. When you add a new module it would show up in the GUI and you can configure it. The front end will probably be a Raspberry Pi and all the plug in modules will probably be atmel MCUs. Stuff like hvac control would simply be a separate program running on the RPI that reads the sensors and sends commands to relays.

Could later on add voice commands to all that stuff too as I'm sure there must be some open source voice recognition/synthesizer libraries out there I could play with. But other than the coolness factor I don't see myself using it much. Once I have the system working I'd then try to add as much stuff as I can to it. Even monitor the temperature of the fridge, freezer etc. Get an alert if it goes out of range.

 

[destrekor]

That would be one of my concerns too, all this stuff is really proprietary. I feel there needs to be a standard protocol for IoT things and all companies should use said protocol, so that you can buy a "hub" from any company and individual devices from any company and they all work together. But good luck with that, companies like to do their own thing, and often patent it so nobody else can do it.

I personally like just designing my own stuff. Been brainstorming a new system as mine is kinda rudimentary and not easily expandable. What I have in mind is a basic bus protocol and each plug in module will be a microcontroller which then breaks out to 1-wire, i2c, and dry contacts, relays etc depending on the module. Everything will just terminate inside a cabinet and I can add more stuff using said plug in modules. When you add a new module it would show up in the GUI and you can configure it. The front end will probably be a Raspberry Pi and all the plug in modules will probably be atmel MCUs. Stuff like hvac control would simply be a separate program running on the RPI that reads the sensors and sends commands to relays.

Could alter on add voice commands to all that stuff too. But other than the coolness factor I don't see myself using it much. Once I have the system working I'd then try to add as much stuff as I can to it. Even monitor the temperature of the fridge, freezer etc. Get an alert if it goes out of range.

There are a few major standard protocols. ZigBee and Z-Wave are the biggest ones. Samsung's SmartThings brand has a hub that works with both those two protocols. ZigBee is actually based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It's not the standard per se, but it is a widely supported standard. There's another 802.15.4 IoT standard that is hoping to become THE standard (aren't they all? lol) that is IPv6 based, and that's called Thread. Thread is partly originated by Google but also by a huge consortium of IoT players: Alphabet/Google (as well as Nest, now likely spearheaded by Google's new hardware division), Samsung, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm, NXP/Freescale, Silicon Labs, OSRAM, Tyco, and Yale (lock company). Google is specifically pushing their Android-lite Brillo OS for IoT, which includes the Weave APIs to configure and interface over the Thread specification.
Of course standards take some time to truly develop into consumer products, but this one might just have a major chance with so many major players as backers. Basically all of the IoT SoC manufacturers? Major software providers, in Google and Samsung? (who are also OEMs, though for Google, that's only true in a way)

Thread actually has some teeth behind it, but until Thread is a big thing, Zigbee is really one of the best platforms to utilize if you are just starting out. It seems to have more major consumer products. Z-wave seems to be pretty popular in the security sector, but what's great is the majority of IoT hubs can control devices over both protocols.

Which is really all a long-winded way to say the standards issue is really a moot point.

 

[Homerboy]

I'd swear I heard the wife having an argument with the Echo the other day. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but by the tone neither one sounded pleased.

You were just hoping for one of those slumber party pillow fights you saw in the movies.

 

[zinfamous]

You should ask your echo how old the earth is and, for that matter, the universe

 

[nakedfrog]

It's a trap!

 

[RossMAN]

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-build-your-own-amazon-echo-with-a-raspberry-pi-1787726931