Call me cynical or just disappointed and jaded, but short of some EU consumer advocacy group pushing for it, I don't see how anything would realistically happen. 99% of laws are made after something bad-bad has already happened.
Often because the government is threatening to impose regulation. I’m not sure how many examples there are of industries independently choosing to collaborate to regulate themselves.
For example, if I pull the thermostat off my wall, the furnace should drop into a fallback mode that keeps the heat above freezing (I'm in Canada where this is a concern.)
I moved into a new house and did not set up the lawn irrigation system. Despite being disconnected from the cloud service, the system kept running its schedule, when I would have expected it turn off in order to conserve water.
So it's perfectly reasonable for the furnace to turn off when it is disconnected, because disconnection would be a very strong signal for an error state instead of regular intermittent network/service issues.
Certainly, the standard smart thermostat set up is that your ecobee is connected to the Internet, but controls the furnace using good old-fashioned signal wires
The overwhelmingly most common connection between a thermostat and furnace is a contact closure when calling for heat, with no ability to differentiate between “thermostat is present but not calling for heat” and “thermostat is not present” as both present as "these T-T contacts are not closed/shorted together".
While it is controllable via the cloud, even without wifi it continues to function.
You could in theory put one next to the furnace in your machine closet but that would be dumb and expensive
Fail "safe"...not Fail "keep running"
It is extraordinarily hard to design something that can withstand that pressure and still be fit for purpose. The item needs to be able to withstand pressures in excess of ~10k psi for -10c, with the pressure rising as temp decreases.
The standard solution for people that need to winterize a building that will not be heated is to drain as much water as possible from the lines, and then fill them with a liquid with a lower freezing point.
Not running when disconnected is definitely a safe default, but I'm not sure it's automatically desired. If I found out I couldn't use my sprinkler system unless it was connected to the internet, I'd be annoyed at the unnecessary gating of such functionality.
What we need is a “in the event of X - keep doing Y”.
I'd consider this a very important feature
I'd have expected (and strongly prefer) that it keep running with whatever the last settings were. That's almost surely going to be healthier for the lawn, ornamentals, and vegetable garden than shutting off.
I would wager that most people with automated irrigation systems prefer plant growth/protection over water conservation.
I'm not sure how you'd program a furnace to run to keep a house above freezing without any temperature feedback from the house. You could potentially run it until the area immediately surrounding the furnace itself was above freezing, but that would be nowhere near enough in some cases and way, way more than needed in other cases. You might able to use outdoor weather compensation (easier/more effective/comfortable with hydronic heat distribution than with ducted air heating) if programmed correctly, but my experience is that most are either not installed or are configured to be far too hot [because call-backs are expensive and paid by the HVAC company usually].
The furnace defaults to on to save the water pipes. The sprinkler defaults to off to conserve water as the system is potentially unmonitored and a burst pipe could cause issues.
A thermostat and controls are a necessary requirement for HVAC systems and defaulting anything to "run" if your control plane doesn't exist anymore is definitely not the safe option.
The other issue is that in almost all situations (like this one) what you think is a safe and sane default won't align with what other people think.
There should be defaults and they should be clearly defined, but I don't think it's always obvious to determine what they are.
While I agree with your overall point, this clause is irrelevant to/not supportive of it. The presence of a thermostat wasn't going to help you here either and there are vastly more furnaces with connected thermostats than disconnected to worry about.
CO detectors and alarms are needed to address this risk.
Freezing water pipes are bad, but a furnace running non-stop is going to exceed its duty cycle and pose a greater hazard.
Furnaces have multiple checks when they turned on, even on the dumbest furnaces. There are multiple safety mechanisms preventing it from getting too hot. CO leak - what thermostat will do for you here?
A standard furnace and thermostat won’t even know if you pull the thermostat off the wall, much less have any way to handle it beyond “full blast heat 24/7”
More challenging: you expected the sprinkler setup to do the opposite. Instead of following its last-known plan (the schedule) it should stop doing anything (possibly killing the plants it’s watering)
Good off-line only mode in a reasonable plan for what to do without the Internet makes a lot of sense, but at some point, there’s a control system and you need to change it (or even just have one in the thermostat example)
I agree it's not likely (especially if the system is running as-scheduled), but it was a surprise is all. What if I didn't set up the service at all, and it dropped below 0 C? I would be in for a nasty surprise in the spring.
More interestingly (to me): did it have a local interface or was the only way to update it tied to the internet?
Why does the control system have to live on someone else's server in "the cloud"?
There's no reason for smart home devices to require an internet connection to the producer's service. Companies could just as easily put compute on device, or sell some sort of "bridge" (aka a home server appliance) that runs the compute and the accessories connect to.
Fully offline, local network only.
Save the online stuff just for analytics or other value-add features, but core functionality shouldn't require a web service.
The only reason it's 100% internet connection required all the time is to sell subscriptions, aka consumer hostile behavior.
In both cases the control system is physically in your house. It sounds like the sprinkler system did work completely offline (though it's not clear if you'd actually be able to change anything without internet - that would be a problem if not), they didn't set up an account so the system was in "offline" mode and dutifully ran the sprinklers on the last known schedule.
For the thermostat the example was physically removing the control system, which is typically not connected to the furnace through any sort of internet connection, and expecting the furnace to know what to do.
When it comes to safety it’s a bit more clear cut. The job of a heating system is to heat so don’t turn off heating when this can endanger people and houses.
The job of a lawn irrigation system is to irrigate. Who wants a dead lawn just because the internet or wifi are down, or to conserve water only when the system is disconnected from the internet but not from electricity?
That isn't the case, and so if the safe default is off, that definitely hampers utility, which isn't a very good selling point, heh.
edit: a more succinct way of expressing my thinking is to say "the less software the better" by which which normies are are often amused.
It's also not very well supported in things like homeassistant, despite what they say.
One of the overlooked features of the Apple Home app is its ability to firewall your IoT devices. If you have a compatible router:
Home Settings → Wi-Fi Network & Routers → HomeKit Accessory Security
The options are:
Restrict to Home
Automatic
No Restriction
I've found that "Restrict to Home" occasionally causes problems with older devices.
I actually have a router that supports it, but I don’t dare turn it on because I have no confidence on it continuing to exist and the migration path back off it looks like a pain.
Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don't recognize.
(stolen from @PPathole on Twitter)
This is the earliest version I have found: <https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L>
Maybe that's the best option TBH.
I told my electrician to redo lighting in a more sensible and modern way but basically nothing involving smart devices -- to which he wholeheartedly agreed. There are a couple things that aren't quite convenient related to how everything is positioned and because a couple of motion detectors weren't reconnected. And I'll deal with those with unconnected devices.
So I had an opportunity to make the house "smart" and basically passed.
(Will probably add some remote monitoring over time but nothing fancy and mostly Raspberry Pi-based.)
If I had an electrician redo the wiring, I'd do the same thing without the "smart".
(He also took out a ton of knob and tube wiring which gives you some idea of when the original wiring dated to even if a lot had been incrementally upgraded over the years.)
It was a great way to keep the fridge alive, the thermostat was already a replacement and it never worked properly, so that sometimes things were frozen, sometimes barely cold. ~24 years old. A new one would be more efficient, but then I woudln't be able to log when I opened the fridge anymore (only with something battery powered and long transmit intervals).
But I do have Zigbee sensors and switches, all of which connect to my home server and Home Assistant. None of them see the internet. But Home Assistant is accessible from the internet through a reverse proxy from whitelisted IPs.
Edit: I'm not talking on a day to day basis, but when I go on a trip. And I don't have a porch nor I like beer.
Amazing that some people downvote for stating the obvious, which is that you can lose some convenience. There's trade offs when you connect something to the Internet? That's also obvious.
When I get back home in the summer from a short trip away, with a toddler and a million bags it is definitely convenient for me to have a cool home and not a 40+ degrees celsius one.
My Ecobee is convenient but will probably go back to an offline model when it dies or loses support. Once I dialed in my preferred schedule, I rarely touch it except to lock a set temperature when going out of town.
so the rule stays the same with slight modification - nothing every gets connected to wifi unless you have phd in networking :)
I've had good luck with the TP-Link/Kasa/Tapo wall switches and bulbs.
Difficult if you're not there though? Whereas a smart bulb/switch can turn it on when you're not there (crime deterrence) or when you're almost home (handy in hallway with no light.)
(Niche uses, perhaps, but "I just use my hands" is reductive silliness.)
In fact you could even use an simple analog switch if you want the lights to go on at certain times. And for the hallway I would suggest the tried and true motion sensor.
Sure for really complex logic and a lot of flexibility you might want an micro controller eventually but those are truly niche uses.
"Smart" devices are insanely overengineered for the simple problems they solve and the huge problems they can cause.
More than once I got stuck standing outside in the rain waiting for the smart door lock to come back online after a squirrel jiggled the cable drop by running down it or some k8s pod in the cloud service got knocked over by a chaos gremlin or someone was using a vacuum cleaner that generated too much noise in the wifi spectrum or who even knows what.
For instance, most people who want a reliable mattress would buy one that doesn't require, or allow configuration.
It seems to me that most of the home automation enthusiasts are actually into configuration and troubleshooting as a hobby. And maybe doing party tricks. There's nothing wrong with that. But I don't think there are enough people to really make this badge work.
It's a huge project but only the smaller IoT companies are taking it seriously
1) they aren't smart
2) they are answers to questions/need that don't exist in the first place
I think it would be smart for Matter to lean into the "offline local control" aspect of their branding and certification requirements.
I haven't actually tried this, but:
- The Home Assistant Matter commissioning tool doesn't have any documentation at all about how the network is selected AFAICS.
- The Thread organization seems extremely proud of how Thread devices can access the Internet. Apple TV doesn't seem friendly at all to preventing its Thread Border Router from forwarding to the Internet. Home Assistant's OTBR add-on has no useful configuration whatsoever AFAICS. The easiest way to get it right would seem to be to buy something like a Sonoff POE-capable Thread dongle and sticking it on a VLAN, except that those, for some reason, seem to support Thread RCP but not being a Border Router themselves, and then you're back to managing your own OTBR installation.
Are you sure this isn't a case of different matter version support? In which case, in my experience, thread border router works just fine, but the controller needs to support such devices.
1. Must work offline on my local network (like Matter through Home Assistant)
2. Must have a physical button for operation when there is no network available or someone doesn't want/have a phone.
My rule #1 in home automation is making sure none of the technology fails its original function without connection.
I implement Home Assistant to assist in homes for non-technologist. Every single thing i implement must function independently, without the vendor or any internet connection. i.e., z-Wave locks must function with or without connectivity. Switches must switch on/off with or without zigbee, and valves must be able to close/open without that wifi.
There are a few sub-certifications:
- OF: Offline-First as you mentioned
- JE: Jailbreak-Escrow -- the firmware install keys are held in escrow and will be published if the company goes defunct -- allowing ongoing repair & control.
- FE: Firmware-Escrow -- firmware source will be published if the company goes defunct.
- FA: Firmware-Audit -- firmware is compiled by certifiers to verify BOM, security, privacy & online dependencies.
Another benefit would be a "nutrition label" showing active online traffic & data shared.
Hey, I got myself a water-pressure powered bidet so it still works without power.
This would only work out for the companies if the average consumer actually cared about "offline-first", which they very much don't. It would be a very small and ever shrinking market.
We had a monolith (but not monorepo) that had big Conway’s Law problems. We wanted to start making microservices. We had a couple sidecars that I either wrote or did reconstructive surgery on, but the few microservices we had were dumb. One created head-of-line problems for fanout, asking a question that could have been a Consul long poll. The other really could have been run entirely in Bamboo if we hadn’t cheaped out on agent size.
I killed the former, but the latter used a larger slice of all of our modules than all of the sidecars combined. It was also an offline process, writing into dark content in S3. So I could break it for an hour without anyone noticing, and in some environments I could go a full work day without rolling it back as long as I watched for production alerts (and I was on the team that did).
If I got rid of it then all library and runtime upgrades would get harder, though half the team ignored my advice anyway and then we had occasional P1s or 2s because of it.
My experience, there and elsewhere, is that offline logic of any flavor at least pays for itself in terms of code-build-test cycles, fairly quickly and self-evidently. But some people think it sounds counterintuitive and push people to “go fast” without it. Which only happens if they double down and cut more corners.
If there's a subscription, then it doesn't work offline.
Camping for me is 30lbs in a backpack. Definitely no fans or power banks.
gulp
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/aws-crash-causes-2000-...
Yeah, I've got one of those.
Also those images, wow, I really would have preferred no images over these soulless, generic AI-generated impressions.
I think we can just immediately write this site off as "probably complete-trash blogspam"
> Picture this: You're tucked in, ready for a night of optimized REM cycles, when your app pings an error. No more tweaking the chill to a crisp 55°F or firing up the "cool mode" for those midnight hot flashes.
> The core temperature control? Utterly crippled without the cloud. Users reported the app freezing on loading screens, refusing to connect, and leaving them stranded in whatever thermal hell their last setting dictated.
Toothless rhetorical questions, false or confusing stakes, awkward attempts at flippant tone…
Why would they have set it to an hellacious temperature? Wtf mattress goes to 55 degrees? Why are these stakes existential? Sleep on the couch or the floor ffs…
> The hits kept coming. Smart sleep tracking? Dead in the water—no logging of phases, no biometric insights, just a void where your sleep score should be.
These stakes seem low. I guess it sells, but…
And then a roundup of internet comments like “unacceptable” with unfunny padding.
If this is what the future of “internet journalism” looks like, I’m optimistic that enough demand will remain for the real thing that they’ll find a way to fund some.
It's not journalism. It's a blog post from a blockchain company.
He didn’t thought about… unplugging the bed?
TBQH I don't even see why heated mattresses exist when heated blankets are so effective and doubtlessly cheaper. Now, a cooling mattress is another story..
Multiple people have died, because the power went out during a fire, and they couldn't figure out how to evacuate without a working garage door for opener.
It captured the image locally so the opticians where back and forth checking them manually.
>“Eight Sleep confirmed there’s no offline mode yet, but they’re working on it.”
Although googling on the subject, there are other articles in other websites on the same subject.
https://trufflesecurity.com/blog/removing-jeff-bezos-from-my...
Oh well, I guess it'll remain a fantasy.
Mattresses disconnecting from the global God Computer and ruining everyones sleep, just .. I can't.
Its far, far too funny.
I'm pretty sure Mattress Software Developers are on the Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B. Or maybe, C.
Unrelated: That entire article and illustrations are all gen-AI. yuck.
[1] https://fntalk.com/tech/dead-roombas-stranded-packages-and-d...
I wonder whether the first pushback will be when people who worked on IoT products have trouble finding jobs at companies doing anything else (other than clubbing baby seals, or running blockchain scams).
HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43129439
> Eight Sleep's system, which relies on backend servers for everything from real-time adjustments to data syncing, had no fallback. "It's unacceptable," fumed one early complainant on X, echoing the frustration of many who shelled out for "seamless" smart sleep only to face analog purgatory.
I'm guessing that this is a typical "smart" device setup where the cloud is essentially a tunnel between the app and the device that also saves a copy of all transmitted state for backup and data mining. The simplest design from the company's POV, but the worst design for resilience.
The real question: Was this an explicit or implicit product decision? ie, was it an explicit PM decision that local comms didn't match product requirements, or did they outsource it to the lowest bidder and have no idea this was a ticking time bomb, or did eng have to cut features to make some deadline, etc? If Eight Sleep doesn't have an at least an internal postmortem then someone should lose their job.
As a user, I would prefer the devices communicate locally and use a cloud tunnel only as backup. But this means engineering has to support two communication stacks, which is obviously more expensive than one. And the local network option is probably harder to build since cloud-based has so much tooling available.
My baseline expectation - that I can't believe I'm actually typing out - is that an appliance should operate as expected without Internet access. My only smart device is a door lock because a PIN is easier than a house key for our lifestyle, but even that isn't connected to Wi-Fi.
These wifi based smart home devices just fundamentally don't serve their customers.
1. You pay money for a device
2. You pay money for monthly service
3. They sell your private data on the backend, not to worry though, it's "anonymized", but of course it gets sold and then deanonymized
4. AWS goes down and your house doesn't work
5. Eventually they go out of business or get bored and you have to buy and install all new stuff.
jerlam•3h ago