spinning up new tech startup: nah forget it. you don’t even have to watch videos
Maybe it needs a connection cause it takes a picture of your feces and sends it to an AI analysis service. If anomalies are detected, it tells you that you should take the stool sample to a laboratory for further study, then lets you flush. Poof, smart toilet. I could see people with too much money buying this.
Edit: Thought about it some more… why stop at feces images? Why not also have a high resolution camera pointed at your anus taking crowning shots and analyzing those. Tell users if anythings wrong. The future is
brightbrown boys. The future is brown.Edit2: You could even have motion based security… alert if anyone broke in through your bathroom. Cameras in toilets people! What could go wrong?
Edit3: Hear me out. User controlled bidet mode + anus camera. Take out your phone and clean your ass in first person. Score points if you clean your whole ass and compete on an online scoreboard. Tech sure is amazing.
a little bit like this?
There is no reason it needs an always on connection for this. Even if there was a camera in the bowl taking pictures of poo (which raises so many privacy questions), the device could easily save hundreds of HD+ quality picture (assuming a toilet camera had that resolution) and send them next time connection is secure.
Always online functionality only makes sense when the function itself is an online task such as a video call or looking up information not saved locally.
Having an always online connection for a toilet suggest it’s gathering much more information passively from your home, using voice activated as a cover to always be listening and thus relaying what it records to server/data center to be filtered through for marketable or exploitable data.
Toilet’s chipset is only good for network connection and video recording. Business logic is on servers. As I said, users want to know if their shit is good before they flush so they dont lose a sample in case it is bad.
You may have stumbled on multiplayer shitting though. Conference call with random strangers on the internet, biggest splashback, fastest bowel movement… endless possibilities. Yeah I think always online is the best course of action here.
this reminds me of a joke whose punchline revolves around the meaning of the acronym ATR.
they can always ask chatgpt how to fix the problem
Making “smart” devices that can’t do routine mundane things without an active internet connection is completely fucking stupid.
Has nobody else pointed out this is clearly not real?
I honestly could not tell. It’s completely believable that something this stupid would exist. Like I didn’t necessarily believe it was but I wasn’t confident in either direction.
Yeah first thing I did was search the web for more information. Zero results…
I bet most of these other commenters also complain about boomers eating up fake news.
Telegram messages won’t show up search results, but sure we may expect some news article about it. The message is here
Just searching around got me their link: https://t.me/ctobtch , and their channel posted this post a few days ago.
I have become the red shirt from my favorite SMBC comic
However, my feelings regarding smart devices remain intact
Oh we’re the idiots. Never saw that coming
Day 3,801 of thanking God I was born a Luddite
Anyone who thought their toilet would be improved by having an internet connection deserves this
I mean, it could be. Imagine getting a push notification when it overflows. The lowest pipe in my house is a toilet. Luckily my wife was nearby but it could’ve gone worse if we didn’t see for a bit.
This is a job for water detectors, which I have no qualms about connecting to the internet. They have the added benefit of detecting leaky pipes as well
I could also see push notifications about adding bleach tablets or whatever to it periodically if that’s your thing. I have a smart fridge (probably the dumbest smart fridge you can get feature wise, doesn’t do much). I can check and adjust the temperature from my phone and get filter replacement reminders. It can send push notifications if the door isn’t shut which would be more useful if I had kids. Just because you don’t think you’d have uses for it doesn’t mean it can’t be useful.
Again, with the huge caveat that the toilet be capable of manually flushing.
I’m not a Luddite, shit just has to be reliable and actually useful without violating my privacy. Wait a minute…
I’m kind of far away fyom being a luddite, senior software developer, codes for fun, builds electronic stuff with wifi etc.
My toilet was built and installed before internet was invented and will not be changed for anything smart, neither is my toaster, dish washer, stove, locks, etc. etc. Ever. Over my dead body (if you want to be disinherited).
Sure but I’m also all for innovating and watching these things fail. Isn’t there a value in letting dumb rich people with money waste their wealth on dumb ideas. It keeps them from doing things like buying Twitter
The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams was a huge fan of Apple.
Adams’s law.
Okay, I get the idea of smart AC for example - be elsewhere, turn it on remotely so that it’s comfortable when you get home. Fine. But a toilet? You are physically present there, you can push a button to flush. Or are you telling me that you’re shitting remotely now too?
Wait, so you’re not subscribed to shitme™? For a low monthly subscription they send you a sealed, self-addressed and postage-paid container to deposit your feces in, it gets sent to a sorting facility and distributed via drones or delivery drivers directly to your home toilet, where the feces are flushed in the privacy and safety of your own home! The peace-of-mind alone is worth the $39.98 a month. Up until now, the only challenge has been flushing the toilet while you’re still at the office, this way you NEVER have to go home!
you’re shitting remotely now too?
Do we tell them about the remote shit technology that just landed from Uranus?
It’s not that great anyway. Your local toilet will surreptitiously grab and analyze your poop, dispose of it so you don’t need to flush, and have the remote toilet extrude an identical copy someone else has to flush.
Hands free means you don’t have to touch the handle with dirty hands, but you can do that with a motion sensor too.
Personally I would much rather touch my phone with my dirty hands than a toilet handle
Home assistant everything is a yaml away
And yet I hear dumbshits bragging all time about how alexa controls my (insert thing that definitely does not need automation here).
These sort of people never think beyond tomorrow and it shows.
Well, shit.
Well put.
I think of this often
Don’t put the gun within reach of the printer, come on
I keep it in a voice activated safe plugged into the 110
The more I hear from big tech companies the more I want to reject it. I don’t even own a printer.
Go for older laser printers. They’re bulletproof, cheap on toner, free of DRM, and even if they only come with an LPT port you can always build your own print server that gives you all the bells and whistles like AirPrint.
Bulletproof? Sounds dangerous. What do I do if it makes a weird noise?
Can confirm. I’m a tech worker. No smart devices. Laser printer. Very close to going back to a flip phone.
I am looking at some smart locks, but they’re able to be used as dumb locks with PIN code and physical key also. And they have a usb power port on the outside you could plug a battery into.
I’ve gone down the smart home route a decade ago and only did non-cloud integrated devices with physical controls also. But it’s a part time hobby to maintain it.
usb power port on the outside you could plug a battery into.
Until someone with a flipper figures out that port transfers data too, lmao.
Ha yeah. I would absolutely confirm there is no data connection
flip phone
Almost all such phones are actually smart phones in a flip phone Edgar Suit. Especially if it has maps or YouTube or any kind of an App Store. I see a crapton of flip phones that run Android, which has all sorts of Google spyware piggybacking along.
I think there may be only two or three dumb flip phones or feature flip phones left on the market, and IIRC two are locked to specific networks.
If you want a bona-fide dumb phone, you might be limited to something like the rotary un-smartphone.
I had a Sharp SH-03L for a while, it’s a business version of one of their flip phones that didn’t even have a camera.
The OS was actually android 8.0 but really stripped down to basically only do the whatever apps a flip phone has.
I was able to sideload apks through ADB, but ironically, I actually wanted the google stuff to work since a lot of the apps required it to log in and other things.
The thing was pretty cheap though, paid like $15 for it
Go check in Aliexpress: there are tons of non-smart phones, especially the stuff marked as “senior phone”, and they’re pretty cheap too (like $15 for a mobile phone that just does calls and SMS).
If you want the stuff that’s not glitzy and heavy on marketing you need to get it from where the factories are, not were the brands are - basic mobile phone tech is a thoroughly solved problem and highly integrated nowadays and well within range for even smallish electronics manufacturers to design themselves.
Also check HMD, the Finnish mobile maker who bought Nokia’s mobile business, who also have several non-smart models (including old Nokia models).
Edit:
No idea if any are flip-phones though.Here’s an example flip phone
build your own print server that gives you all the bells and whistles like AirPrint.
…why? CUPS is print server. You don’t need anything else.
He’s talking about the hardware and you’re talking about the software.
Why would I get a laser printer? I don’t want a printer.
Because it shoots lasers
Because they are like two fifty on the flea market and will run on one cartridge for 10 years. I print all my tickets everytime, I’m that old
How else will I print out MapQuest directions?
About 3-4 years ago I took a bit of a dive into the firmware of IoT devices. The utter lack of security and the amount of information being hoovered up to the mothership made me swear to never build anything “smart” into the renovations of my current home. Sure, there will be automation. There will be CCTV. There will be solar with battery backup for essentials. There will be conveniences of all kinds. But virtually all will be air gapped, incapable of remote rooting, and under my full control.
Hell, even my laser printers are HP models over two decades old - an HP 4050DTN and an HP 5000DTN - that are totally devoid of any DRM or “smart features” and can trivially take generic overstuffed cartridges that can do 20,000 sheets at 5% coverage.
Remember, the “s” in IoT stands for “security”.
And the ‘p’ for privacy.
I worked for Cisco during the time IoT was being pushed into everything. You don’t want to know how bad it is. If I was malicious I could have easily written several backdoors into their products without anyone knowing. I wrote kernel code in their IOS operating system. There are no checks on that shit and the entire switching team does next to zero peer review on kernel security.
Yes, there products that (at the time) touched upwards of 95% of all packets sent over the Internet.
The only upside to this state of things is that it keeps alive my fantasies of one day being a Watchdogs-style techno-sorcerer that can wirelessly hack anything that runs on electrons and a WiFi signal.
… Although the nightmare is that people far more evil can probably already do that.
That printer is a 2000’s HP LaserJet
FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS
I will bulk purchase grey-market bootleg toner from shady overseas websites before I go back to a inkjet…
If you’re lucky it might be cut with something cheaper like pure cocaine
It’s fine, you only ever need to replace it like once a decade or so
Is there a community for those of us with late 90s early 2000 HP laserjets? Somewhere we can discuss maintenance, feeding, and overall care?
There used to be but the moderators forgot to sign up for HP Smart® Instant Ink™ and used non-authorized ink (first party ink ordered directly from HPs website) so it got shut down 😔
Tell me you’re a NRA fan without telling me you’re a NRA fan.
I’ve put a few smart lights/switches/sensors/power points in at home. Definitely helps mum as we can have wireless switches for the lights, and motion sensors to turn the hallway lights on automatically as well.
For ALL of them, I make sure there is a manual control that will work as a backup regardless. Even if a smart light is “off” due to the motion sensor not detecting movement, all you need to do is turn the old regular light switch off then back on and the light will default to being back on.
Ye. I have all Ikea smart stuff, by default everything is running a local mesh network with physical remotes and that light switch backup.
You don’t even need to connect any of it to the net, buying a hub to get app & google home/alexa/etc control is entirely optional with the exception of a few sensors, like the moisture/water leak one. And even then, the app & hub work on local wifi with no internet anyway.
I don’t think any of these people know what “smart” is supposed to mean cause these must be the dumbest ideas for any product I’ve heard so far.
‘Smart’ means it can send your lifestyle data to the company, and make you dependent on their services.
You want to change your toilet provider? Best of luck holding your poo in for three days while the transfer is processed.
My sister’s new apartment’s front door has a “smart lock”, hooked up to Ring, naturally. No keyhole, you open it with your phone. It also runs on batteries.
Do I really need to say any more? We were baffled.
EDIT: Correction - there IS a keyhole but the actual tenants don’t have access to it. Only the property management. Creepy. :|
“Hello amazon I’m a police, I need you to unlock this door at 123 Rainy St, Arlen TX 76043”
“Ok Mr. Police right away!”
Sounds great!
I’ve seen landlords put these things on doors, too, and use them to allow entrance to anyone they think has a reason to be inside, whether the resident knows and consents or not.
Actually, yeah, I edited above but it did have a little keyhole: Except the management office said it was for themselves alone.
That’s just…eegh…
Yeah fuck that.
Actually that is illegal (at least in my area), they’re required to give at least 24hr notice for maintenance or the landlord themselves coming by, etc. Exception is cops, they can always let in cops (and EMS and Fire I think).
I think that’s been the law everywhere I’ve lived, too, but not always followed…
LOL relevant meme attached:
Arlen TX
Weird coincidence seeing this right after finishing an episode of King of the Hill. LOL
“Yo man dang’ol smartlock open up man left my daggum phone in there tell ya what.”
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
It was one of the jailbreaks, LLMs are just too eager to help.
Oh my god that’s hilarious, I hope that really worked!
As to KOTH:
“Unlock my door or I’ll kick your digital ass!”
*crying* “My door won’t let me in, Hank! Everyone leaves me, Lenoire left and now even my house left me!”
Dale however never got one, his house is still secured by Daletech. Shishishaaaaa!
I have a smart deadbolt that is keypad operated. It’s awful.
Never used the smart features, and there isn’t a bypass to unlock the door when the batteries die — which happens a lot, especially in the winter. I tried using rechargeable batteries in it, but they last less than half the time of normal batteries.
There is nothing more frustrating than punching in the key code and hearing the death of HAL9000 voice before the deadbolt fully unlocks. Luckily I have a back door that isn’t smart.
I’m replacing the lockset soon and this won’t be a problem anymore, but holy shit is it frustrating and wasteful.
Kwikset keypad works great for me. There’s a keyhole, a real button keypad, and the batteries last a while with quite a bit of warning before they’re actually dead.
I got a Proteus IV system. Now I’m dead and my wife is knocked up.
I have one too but it has an emergency physical “master key”. Also there’s a port to provide power to it through a battery bank, in case you really run out of juice though it’s potentially another point of failure. No internet connection
I have a Nuki this one still works with a normal key, since you install it on top of your existing double cylinder (you should only install it on one that can have two keys inserted at the same time or with a turn knob on one side). The Nuki just turns the key or thumb turn of the cylinder. Also means you can’t see that a smart lock is installed from the outside. Battery is not a problem since they last for about 5 months. And you get a warning when it reaches 20%.
I was watching a friend’s dogs while she was on vacation when the batteries in her door lock died. I had to climb in a back window to get inside and feed them. Luckily, there was a back door with a dumb lock, but I had to get inside first and borrow her keys for that to help.
What if there was no internet connection? Would they be able to get in their house?
