A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
CAFE by GE for those who are wondering.
We are renovating our house including all new appliances. I have told my partner to make sure we get non smart appliances. This is why.
Yes I can setup a VLAN for it to be on but that's not the point.
You didn't buy an oven. You bought a node for someone else's botnet.
Whenever someone designs or purchases a smart device, this is what they need to be told. Is it really worth the risk for potential harm?
Hanlon's razor, but its interesting to imagine that some Russian, US, Israeli, Chinese, etc agents infiltrated management at appliance manufacturers and convinced them to make all their devices smart, just so they could build bigger botnets
If you didn't immediately take this back and demand a refund you're part of the reason enshittification is getting worse
Or American with fuck all in the way of consumer rights, one of the two
99% of people couldn't give less of a fuck. The only way we get out of this death spiral is with smart legislation.
Oh no. I don't be needin' no internet enabled legislation! Good, old fahsioned, airgapped legislation was good enough before, and it's good enough today!
Yeah I would immediately return honestly, there are plenty other espresso makers that don't require wifi
It's an oven, old bean
they're using the Wi-fi radiation to cook your meals /s
Thats really, really dumb. I can understand maybe wanting the option of having your oven ping your phone when the timer goes off, but what could it possibly need internet access for in order to turn on the heating element and a fan for a set period of time??
It doesn't need it. That's exactly the point.
Even though air frying doesn't need Internet, the manufacturer is restricting that feature as a way to force you to set up the WiFi, so they can then slurp up all your data.
They're literally holding the feature hostage, as motivation.
I had a bakery/kiosk mix of shop, where I baked bread every morning for 13 years or so. There was a customer who questioned my oven, because she actually does not know if it really radiates. And how I can be this sure about it. Its a damn oven! Like one in every household, just a bit bigger. People are really this dumb. Besides, it wouldn't be legal... oh man still upsets me. Not because of being accused for, but it upset me that people like her have the right to vote.
they’re using the Wi-fi radiation to cook your meals
You're thinking of microwaves.
The microwave region extends from 1,000 to 300,000 MHz (or 30 cm to 1 mm wavelength).
Source: https://www.britannica.com/science/electromagnetic-radiation/Microwaves
2.4Ghz, and 5Ghz are microwaves. Your typical microwave oven operates at about 2.45GHz due to resonance frequency of water. 2.4Ghz wifi is literally a typical microwave's neighbor.
The difference is sheer amount of power and shielding. Not the type of radiation.
That's a big, honking "no" from me.
It'd be one thing if the "smart" features were there but only supplemented the basic functionality. It's another entirely for those basic features to require an internet connection.
Out of curiosity, did the product description indicate the internet connection was required? I'm soon to be replacing some appliances and want to know what to look out for (besides all mentions of "wifi" or "smart").
Why the fuck does an oven have a touch screen? That's a horrible idea. Good luck cleaning your kitchen without accidentally hitting "buttons" on the oven! And heaven forbid food splatter turns on your oven broiler.
How about the motherboard dying before the oven does
I don't love touch screens on ovens either, but you just press the lock button and then you can clean to your hearts content.
Smart appliances are such a ridiculous scam.
I can totally see a point in some of the features.
The other day my wife and I got 20 minutes from home before I said "oh shit I don't know if I turned the oven off". Turns out I did, but we had to drive home to check. I would have loved to pull up an app that told me it was actually off, or even if I was on be able to turn it off from there.
With that said, it's not worth all the extra bullshit in my opinion.
For OUR best experience ( not yours )
F&&& that. Send it back.
We can't say the word "Fuck" here? Serious question; why did you self censor?
Do what you like, friend, as I did. Why? I don't swear a lot in person, and for me, I communicate the same online and off.
Good point. Not everyone swears like a trooper. I'm ex British army so can live with it. But I wouldn't swear in mixed company or in front of my daughter, even though she is over 21.
So basically you paid money to store someone else's oven. How long before we are installing vending machines in our kitchens instead of fridge and stove.
But they told me I can just not connect it to the internet and it'll be just like any dumb device.
Eventually these things will come with modems built in so you can't even do that.
My APAP machine has a sim card and unless I am careful to not disable airplane mode every time I start it up, it will send all of my health data to company that I have signed no agreement with.
I explicitly declined to agree to the privacy policy of the company that sold it to me.
If I find my data in a breach, lawyers will be involved.
Cars already do that with having their own cell connection that you can't turn off. It's dystopian.
My microwave is a 1977 Amanda Radarange. It can boil a cup of water in ⅕ of the time a modern microwave can.
Now granted, it has zero fancy settings and a simple number pad that does nothing but set how long you want the microwave to run.
But honestly, this simplicity is a large part of it’s charm. No connectivity needs, no features locked behind paywalls, no extraneous bullshit or never-used features. Just a tool that does only one thing, and does it exceptionally well.
I got a "retrowave" in mint green. It's dumb, uses a turn dial to set the cook time, stands on little feet like it's from Rocko's Modern Life, and looks like it's from the 50's. Have a matching toaster and eventually want a matching fridge.
It's been 4 years and no issues which is more than I can say about a lot of other new appliances we've gotten for the house.
For dumb appliances with a fun aesthetics look up 'retro (name of appliance here) and you'll get all the brands who make stuff like that. It's the only way I've been able to avoid smart garbage so far.
It's only a matter of time before corporate WANs like Amazon sidewalk and/or the ever decreasing cost of cellular modems and IOT contracts mean they won't even ask anymore.
In the mean time, these things are usually programmed with minimal effort. I have to wonder if there's an actual unlock process or if giving it a completely isolated subnet would satisfy the check.
It’s only a matter of time before corporate WANs like Amazon sidewalk and/or the ever decreasing cost of cellular modems and IOT contracts mean they won’t even ask anymore.
Then it's time to heat up the soldering iron and disable the wireless connectivity in hardware.
which is great until you realize that if it cant connect to a server somewhere to download the latest Ad manifest it crashes the OvenOS and now your warranty is void AND you can't bake a cake.
I bought one of those ge induction ovens to swap out a gas one. The only smart feature I liked was the ability to turn my oven on to preheat from my phone. Guess what feature just doesn't work no matter the tech support help i get with it.
Why the fuck can't we make things hot without the internet? FFS
Fire: "I got you, bro."
A fire is what you may get when a hacker decides to turn the oven on for you.
Please say there isn't a subscription
Stop! The MBAs can only get so erect
I wonder if they will eventually make a toilet bowl to connect to the Internet. Can't flush until you connects to the Internet just because....
There are toilets that analyse your waste and send the results to your doctor. They ID you by scanning your anus since everyone's anus is unique. Maybe one day the results can be sent to your kitchen and your fridge and airfryer can deny you access to unhealthy foods when your toilet tells them to.
It's so you can have the New Turkey Mode
Seems to me like they do not know how to make a good oven.
If they will be running a botnet with your net at least it should be a fair pay.
Our GE Profile oven did the same. Of course the software is so shit, it tripped up connecting to the VLAN I set up and now it has air fry mode and no wifi.
Maybe try switching to airplane mode on your phone while trying to onboard the oven? I’m sure it’s too late for that.
They are smart because they know how to spy on you without telling you.