- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
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When AWS went down, users lost access to the app that manages its water-cooled coils, leaving them stuck with whatever setting was last active.
That’s ridiculous. The app should merely talk to the device over wifi, if available. The cloud should only be used to connect from outside the wifi network.
Why is everything so crappy?
IoT devs avoid MQTT and Multicast traffic like the plague.
But even that makes little sense as it should take commands locally and any telemetry should be done after the commands are issued. This method basically says “if we ever miss out on telemetry data, it’s just not worth it to us to give you what you already paid for. “
Because we have webdevs and think of them as devs. They are not devs. They are mostly idiots.
What do you mean? Webdevs are devs, just within a specific platform. And like any dev, they can suck or be great.
It just so happens that overwhelming amount of them do what they should not do - create actual apps (webapps in reality). We could thank Google or frameworks for this, but ultimately their incompetence leads to situations like this. Webdevs thinking of everything as a platform for their stuff that should be working at all times. If they were actual devs they would build proper native apps, think more about how devices actually supposed to work, and rely on cloud less.
What’s wrong with webapps?
I get that many could be static pages, but you’re comparing web vs desktop. And in that case, I prefer web most of the time. Why? It works the same everywhere, and I can probably access it just fine on my phone without having to get their mobile app, which probably has fewer features and more telemetry.
Web doesn’t make sense for everything, but it’s far better than desktop apps for relatively simple use cases. If the app isn’t performance sensitive and doesn’t need to store a ton of data, web is my preferred platform, especially since I’m a Linux user and would likely need to run the app through WINE instead.
Not desktop. Native. You can build native apps for smartphones and pretty much anything. Web comes into play when you decide you won’t build native version of what you want. In some cases that is guided by thoughts like “I know web will fit this project. I know the platform and will remember to keep memory and internet usage low”, but in most cases it’s about “no idea what that startup is about, but I know some AngularJS and they said I can use AWS so that’ll do”.
Similar thing is happening now with Unreal Engine 5. The difference between devs and webdevs became very similar to the difference between coding and vibe coding.
and doesn’t need to store a ton of data
I know by data you mean “data I care about as a dev” but that should also include data that is actually processed and saved on user’s device. And webapps are notoriously bad at keeping their caches and data usage low.
The difference between devs and webdevs
There is no difference, webdev is someone who solves problems with web tech, mobile dev is someone who does mobile apps, embedded dev works with low level components, etc. It’s all development, and often the two will mix.
For example, I worked at a startup using C for embedded stuff, Go for the server stuff, and web tech for the FE. Rust wasn’t out yet, so C was the best option for interfacing with the board components (in this case a math module for our signal processing), Go was a good mix of performance and ease of training new devs, and a web FE was the lowest barrier to getting our customers using our product (basically a high end IOT device). We built a small native FE for certain simulations, and eventually moved it to a server with a web FE.
At my current role, we build a reporting and simulation app for a niche industry. We do everything from simple forms to 3D rendering to simulations that take hours to complete (most are 15-45min). Our customers use crappy laptops, so doing the processing locally isn’t an option (they probably don’t have enough RAM anyway), so we’re going to need a server. Because of that, we decided to build it as a web app. We still have native components (some simulations use C++, another was Fortran until recently, etc), and they’re maintained by Ph.Ds in our field because the hard part isn’t the coding (our JS specialists could handle that, they’ve built a 3D app in the last few months with complex transformations and calculations due to business login needs), but knowing the math behind it all, hence the researchers.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap because they hired a dev team to build a static site, there are apps like the two I mentioned that do interesting things and happen to use web technologies.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap
I didn’t say that. There are always well engineered apps and things. But few. Compared to that, a lot of mainstream desktop apps are now web apps for no good reason. The actual reason is webdevs not challenging themselves to become something else or at least better.
If I read your case correctly, it’s basically “customers use crappy laptops -> we decided to make them use web browsers” which sounds insane to me because web content IS the reason why tons of otherwise unnecessary upgrades are done in recent 10 years or so. Office guys can’t use Chrome with just 8 GB of RAM because it will affect their business performance.
Not that I don’t believe your case doesn’t contain other specifics that make web a right choice. And I don’t need to know more of that. It’s just how it sounded to me.
i heard people got locked in, or out of thier house on thier smart"locks", and also ring cameras were affected because the ALARM SOUNDS WOULDNT TURN OFF.
eh perhaps to collect usage data and somehow benefit from it.
I’m sorry, but why the fuck those exist and WHO THE FUCK is buying them!?..
People wondering why this was designed to need the cloud, it requires a subscription fee. Overpriced greedy product. Its actually a good idea (bed temp control), but too greedy
I feel weird because I’ve like never had a problem with bed temperature lol maybe pillows but even then that hasn’t been a problem for me in years.
anyone who buys a mattress that can’t work without being connected to the internet deserves this
A smart bed that can’t function without checking in with mother ship? That’s the dumbest thing ever. You can always tell the businesses that skipped testing lol.
Its a feature, make the product unusable if its not used as they intend. Take the sim card out of your car and watch it go into limp mode.
I don’t have a smart car though, I use a bike. No registration, no tax, barely any regulations and fewer that are actually enforced.
They crave your data! They made it so that it cannot function without your sweet sweet sleep number!
You can feel the smart in these.
- Invent incredibly dumb device.
- Brand it as “Smart” to lean into Dunning-Kruger effect sales.
- Profit!!
Man, reality is way weirder than i thought…
good. I hope that whole industry fails. plug in anything is bullshit. give me old fashioned!!!
And this is why I only buy “smart” tech that can be used offline, and then put it on a separate vlan with extremely restricted access. Screw the cloud.
Agreed. If it doesn’t work with Home Assistant or requires me to use an account to use it, I’m completely not buying it.
First time I’m hearing of a smart bed… who tf is buying this crap? I still see Teslas out in the open and drives me mad to no end.
NGL if you have the money, a Watercooled bed is amazing.
Getting one that doesn’t work through the internet though, good luck.
Bed goes up. AWS goes down.
This is right up there with the Louvre security being connected to the internet and was hackable. Maybe some old fashioned alarms and guards would’ve been better.
Do you seriously think old alarms were unhackable?
Not being able to do it from a distance would probably be a boon to security.
It doesn’t matter if you can disable it by cutting a wire, it’s the same amount of security in this case.
There were of course alarms that you couldn’t disable by cutting an obvious wire, just like there are smart alarms that you can’t actually hack easily.
Can’t just unplug them?
That would require thought. Something that anyone buying a “smart” device, lack.
Mr robot
