Mainstream tech advice treats cheap Wi-Fi smart plugs as harmless convenience, totally glossing over how much telemetry leaks out to overseas cloud servers by default.
Expecting casual users to set up VLANs and firewall drop rules just to stop a £10 light bulb from phoning home is a bit of a joke.
True privacy means local control without corporate middlemen.
Original content by The Unknown Universe, written by a human and not AI generated!
The Smart Home Trap: Is It Really Too Difficult To Use A Light Switch?
The challenge is not the light switch. The challenge is not stubbing your toe on the way to the bed.
yes, actually.
the one of the switches in my office controls one of the only outlets, which has a pc plugged into it. so yes, a zigbee smart bulb is the better option than just flipping the switch. it’s a single widget on my phone, and there’s a remote, and i can control it from my pc. it just runs off home assistant, there’s no internet involved, and i don’t even have to use the wifi for it.
i swear you people just invent difficulty out of nothing.
No, but app-controlled lights are probably also the least useful aspect of a smarthome setup.
You tell that to my kids 😂
Casual users don’t need to setup vlans, because they simply don’t care.
There is no point hand-wringing about this, they don’t care, they don’t need our help for this.
Ah, the deregulation mindset.
“If the user is unaware of it, does it really matter if they are harmed by it?”
One of the main points of society as a whole is protecting the people living in it, even if they don’t know they are being harmed/exploited/poisoned/etc…
There is nothing nothing to be done. Casual users will literally install wiretaps in their own homes.
You cant help people who dont want or care for the help.
I believe that you are both correct. 8 to 10 years ago I realized how much data these companies and governments gather about me, and it scared the shit out of me. I was not aware before that, so I had Alexas all over my house, smart devices, a Samsung SmartThings, the works.
Then my slow walk to privacy started. My home is fully automated now, down to the sprinklers, but it’s all via Home Assistant, frigate for my cameras (inside home assistant), not one of my IoT devices has access to the internet, they live in an isolated VLAN, and I haven’t had any mainstream social network account or WhatsApp for over 8 years now.
The fact is that a lot people don’t care because they don’t know, like me back then, but finally knowing is what jump-started this path.
I do agree that there’s no helping someone that doesn’t want help, that’s a hard fact, but if we do move this information around, we stand to “cure a few normies” along the way.
A few years ago I got some smart bulbs and plugs and wasn’t really aware about any of this and privacy didn’t even cross my mind
Some of us do care when we find out, but maybe caring starts you down a path of no longer being a “casual user”
All my WiFi smart devices are now on a VLAN with no internet access and controlled locally by Home Assistant through with local Tuya integration
You kinda prove my point. Those who care will sell their bulbs or learn vlans. Everyone else won’t.
I too, many years ago now started my smart home journey with cheap Tuya devices and didn’t know any better. The more I used Home Assistant the further I got down the rabbit hole and learnt about privacy. Now I am a privacy advocate and have a dedicated blog 🤓
