Ask Lemmy

Uhh, damn near all of them. But, that's an opinion coming from an able bodied person. A lot can be useful for those with mobility issues.

I disagree on the smart watches, but I know I'm in the minority in how I use them. They actually help me disconnect from my phone better because only select apps send notifications to my watch, so if I get a vibration on my wrist, I check, see if it needs action or not, then move on with my life. In my work I often get messages that need immediate action, but I'm often in situations where I can't be distracted in the moment, so smart watches have been super helpful.

As for all the fitness features or app control, etc. etc, I don't really care. It's nice that I can control my music, I played around with using it as a remote for my camera, but really, all I need is good, controlled notifications on my wrist for ambient awareness.

Pebble watches have always been the best and I'm eagerly awaiting my Pebble Time 2

Definitely agree on the bulbs though. Having color control or a dimmer is great but doesn't need to be an app.

• TVs (would rather have a tv box, not in built to the TV itself)
• Appliances (you mentioned it yeah, but this needed a second hey ho)
• Doors/Locks (do not digitize your locks are you stupid?)
• Cars (as an avid car hater, drivers do not need to be more distracted than they already are. Music/radio whatever but do they really need a fucking 24* in plasma TV in their dash??? (*satire on size))
• Vending Machines (saw some dumb people chucking AI into vending machines and that was a horrible idea)
• Security Networks (no thx on mass surveillance in any way esp ones that violate human privacy rights and use AI to ID people)
• Content (ai generated content or ai within content being video, images, blogs or what nots)

About all we can think of off the top our head. Probably more anti ai at the end but the smart features shoved down our throats have recently been ai this or ai that. Whoops ig lol

I don't have a problem with smart devices. I'm a tech head. I LOVE GADGETS. My issues are that smart devices tattle on me to their corporate daddy without my knowledge or permission. My issues are if they aren't online they don't work. My issues are if their parent company goes out of business, or stops supporting the devices, or decides I've violated a TOS the device becomes a brick. My issues are a lot of smart devices are perfectly pointless and exist solely for the purpose of data harvesting. My issues are I don't own my smart devices, I'm leasing them.

Vibrators. I don't want to use a fuckass app. Include a fucking remote control in your product.

Everything is regressed to a tiny square of a screen, that you barely look at.

This is precisely why I love my smartwatch. With the watch, I get a notification, I look at my wrist and read it, 95% of the time it's nothing important and I dismiss it, and then I go about my day.

Without the watch, I'll get a notification on my phone, 95% of the time it's nothing important and I'll dismiss it, but now I have the entire fucking internet just sitting in my hand so why shouldn't I look up how tall Greg Davies is?

I find that a smartwatch helps me to mitigate distractions, rather than introducing new ones. It's honestly been one piece of tech that I could actually still recommend to people these days.

Cars, and while we're at it, ditch the touch screens as well.

Smartwatches are mainly used for fitness tracking at this point although I do like my Pebble and Fossil Hybrid watches quite a lot

Watches

Smart ones can be useful. It's nice to be able to check which app a notification came from and get a short preview without having to take your phone out of your pocket, which can also help people who suffer from the classic case of "I picked up my phone to check a notification and now I'm on TikTok"

Light Bulbs

I agree these don't usually need to be smart, but there's also good reasons for them. Changing lights/rooms while you're away so it looks like someone's home, setting them to slowly dim throughout the evening so you more naturally get tired on schedule, and the colors can be nice if you need to theme a space. Good for people who often host parties.

Kitchen appliances

Yeah I got nothing here, make 'em all dumb again 🙏

There is still a lot of good uses of "smart" tech, it's just you'll find most companies would rather cram it in everywhere rather than just where it's most useful. For example, it can be good to have smart appliances like your water heater, if you want it to be able to adjust when it pre-heats water based on when it gets used the most, adjust based on the current cost of energy from the grid and output from home solar, etc.

Can also be good to have in something like a thermostat, or electronically connected blinds. You can have them raise and lower automatically based on the angle of the sun to automatically adjust the temperature in your house before relying on a more costly appliance like a heat pump.

Not all smart tech is bad, it's just that most of it is.

Maybe not smart but i hate touch buttons. Give us back the switches and buttons, why were they not enough? My bike light just broke because the annoying touch button barely works. And i hate turning on the light in my pocket.

TVs

streaming apps are useful, but some of these tvs don't even have buttons, and their mobile apps are garbage. they're also marginally slower than conventional tvs

All of those have uses.

They add convenience in various ways. It's kinda neat that my fridge can text me to say the door is open or the filter is due (but I don't have it connected).

Smart watches have barely anything to do with telling time; they're remote terminals for your phone for communication in both directions. Think like not holding you phone while exercising, checking if a text is urgent, tracking your steps, or dismissing timers. I don't have one.

Smart bulbs let you have much more control over your lighting. Have 6 overhead lights over your TV room? Shut the opens over the screen, dim the rest. You can't do that with a normal switch on a single circuit, like most homes will have. Best you can do is dim them all together with a dimmer switch. Sure, it also let's people be extra lazy by not getting up at all. I don't have any.

It's really easy to see how these smart features add convenience. I hate them because they usually come with atrocious security and privacy flaws. Worse, many are specifically sold as spying devices under the guise of convenience. THAT is why when smart devices are the only/best option, I don't connect them. And if setup seems to demand connectivity, I change my wifi password, connect and setup, then change it back.

There is nothing you’re gaining an advantage of, when slapping a screen on any appliance and relying on some unsupported app

Hah, my smart range has physical knobs for most controls!

…. And has a stupid app that alerts my phone at work when the cleaners clean the stovetop

Oh, speakers.

I don't need a speaker to be smart. I just need it to connect to my device so I can play music through it. I don't want to talk to a speaker if I can help it, and I certainly don't want to have to figure out how to ask it to play 'd|| tl | | |' by 65daysofstatic while I'm cooking my dinner.

If we must talk to our things, then sure, have little microphone pucks about the place. But the speakers themselves are perfectly fine just being speakers.

They're stuffed with wireless functionality, just so you can simply change a color or maybe dim it through phone. More unnecessary apps, more unnecessary functions just for cheap attraction.

I got to disagree on this here, my smart lights introduced me to self hosting through Homebridge. I was able to enable HomeKit connections for non-HomeKit enabled devices which then lead me to create automations.

I get home lights turn on, I close a door at a specific time lights turn off. It’s not as terrible as you may think.

I have to disagree on the smart watch, I was of the same feeling at first, tried one for a while, then broke my phone screen. I could still get calls and messages though my watch, most importantly the 2 factor codes for just about everything.

Eh. I like my smart watch.

• Heart tracking. The peace of mind is worth it to me.
• Message peeking. Sometimes I'm waiting for a text while doing something that would make it inconvenient or impolite to pull out my phone.
• Finding my phone. I'm that guy.

Toilet

So many. Its easier to name the opposite

If we define smart as "AI powered", then all of them.

I prefer to have dumb, discrete devices in near all cases. TV, appliances, bulbs AND switches. Watches (mechanical only, please). I don't connect any game consoles to the internet. I can't think of any devices that actually need "smart" features.

Watches, fridges and dishwashers i guess, but i wish some of my coworkers had a smart version

I used to have my lights change color when I had motion in the driveway, and dim at night.

I also had a button for bedtime, it would turn off the main lights, turn on dim red lights, then it would turn on the TV. When I was ready to sleep I had one button that turned the black lights UV light on for a minute, then it turned off the TV and the red lights. Then I would sleep with glow in the dark stars.

I gave up on smart watches. Pain to charge them constantly and I feel it’s another spying device.

Pebble watches were perfect, just smart enough to be useful, while still having a week long always on display.

Tactile buttons means you can control your music/answer calls without even looking ar any screen.

Watches

Fitbits are useful - i didn't ever want one but had to get it for work and i'll admit it's actually super useful for knowing if you're exercising effectively. And it's very satisfying to see the step progress, it's like a million chocolate buttons for my adhd brain.

But you said smart watches, so I'm cheating. Some smart watches have contactless payment - my phone doesn't, and i've fallen very out of love with modern phones because they're too addictive. But buses in my city want people to use contactless tap-on tap-off method, so i figured it woikd be a nice thing to have on a watch one day.

They also make you feel like a spy. But i'd be very unhappy if consumer ones have little cameras attached, that's almost as bad as "smart glasses"

Anyone else get use GadgetBridge instead of the respective brand's app? It goes a long way into keeping your usage data private IMO.

We got a Air Pictionary game where you can draw in the air but displays on TV, but that requires an app WITH a user account to go along with it... So it's sitting unused because I'm not signing up for your stupid app that's harvesting my data!

I like my Garmin smartwatch. It allows me to track my heart rate accurately enough so I can know when to slow down my pace. That's important as I have high blood pressure and congestive heart failure runs in the family, so I have to be careful when pushing myself.

I also like my smart led strip and my smart plug hooked up to my Home Assistant server. Both are pretty useful when paired with automations, like turning on/off as I leave/arrive home, or turning on at certain times to aid me in waking up. It's not necessary but it does add to my life.

But what absolutely doesn't need a smart version imo? Toasters. I've seen smart toasters. I don't need a smart toaster. That's dumb.

Hard disagree on the first two, a maybe on the kitchen appliances.

Smartwatches are awesome. I can read a notification without getting my phone. Activity tracking. Sleep analysis. Payments. Music. GPS. Phone calls. Messages. All for under 200 euros new (I just upgraded to a refurbished Samsung Classic 6 this week for 110 euros including shipping). A basic Chinese one with a a bit fewer functions can be found for 20.

Smart Lightbulbs have allowed my family to not touch a light switch for the last 5 years. Every room turns the lights on based on presence, time of day, day of the week, air quality or status of the garbage bins or what's playing on the TV. Took a few weeks to get it dialed in to the preferences of everyone and has been running reliably since then. Bright white during the day (where needed), cozy warm dim in the evening, red in the middle of the night when you go to the bathroom, unicorn vomit for the kids birthday party. They are like 10 euros a piece, I don't have dumb Lightbulbs anywhere. Led strips add for fun effects like sunrise, aurora or fire.

Kitchen appliances are a bit more convenient. I can start the dishwasher when there's excess solar, preheat the oven when heading home with frozen pizzas or blink the whole house lights blue if someone left the fridge open. Definitely nice to have, probably not life changing. Fridges with screens and AI and shit, or anything that REQUIRES an app... yeah, pass.

I personally use both a smart light bulb and a smart watch. The smart watch is to track my heart rate during running and light bulb for wake up and sleep routine for my 1 year old.

Smart switches can also turn on and off heaters and light bulbs, smart washing machine is very optional but timing it so that it completes when I finish work is nice, some people can time heavy electricity use for night time or peak solar to reduce cost.

None of these need to be smart but there are some benefits for some of them.

Smart interfaces are fine (as long as they connect locally and do not require a cloud connection).

Stop stuffing AI agents and voice controls into everything. It’s just an excuse to have a microphone that’s always recording.

I disagree on the light bulbs, but I agree on your reasoning. It's actually really useful to have lights change the white tone over the course of the day so you get cold white during the day and warm in the evening. Also that my lights can turn on minimum dimness, and the warmest they can be automatically when I turn them on in the middle of the night.

That being said, I'd much rather that light bulbs were semi-smart (i.e. have these capabilities but no wireless control) and the light switches much smarter (i.e. somehow be able to control all of the bulb features, including color through the wiring). It'd allow apps being optional.