Vocal Voices

Or not so smart. Wales online is reporting on a which concern about support for so called smart devices.

This is something I've been aware of for a while as TV, Bluray player and other smart products lose updates and eventually become pulled.

I lost a smart socket from Dlink just at the end of Dec, they pulled the cloud service and it became a dud. I have moved my power products to Meross for whom the product is their core business.

My LG TV became a dumb TV about 5 years ago. TV is still fine but the ancient apps on it are all virtually useless.

I manage this in my own way. I use an Amazon FireTV connected to my TV for the smart stuff. It gets updates for 5-6 years then dies. However a new FireTV stick can be as low as £25 in Amazon sales. The cube is a bit more expensive and the microphone is embedded in the device (I don't use voice, alexa or Google assistant), so not as desirable. I have downgraded my controller for the FireTV to a V1 controller. No microphone in it. Works just as well.

This is my personal attempt to use consumer devices in a smart way without having to have a house full of computers and write my own code.

I used to use a Raspberry Pi for a lot of the smart stuff until I found I could get Kodi on the FireTV. As I can't get Netflix on a Pi, it had to go in favour of the FireTV.

You can get an android box which is faster than the FireTV, but it has the same updates issues. You wind up stuck on an older version of Android and things slowly stop working.

I constantly monitor the Pi situation but neither Netflix nor Amazon seem interested in fixing the situation.

Amazon I can understand, it is a competitor on hardware.

Just some thoughts on the situation.

I am a bit of a Diplodocus when it comes to "smart" stuff - I just can't be bothered.

The Samsung TV was smart, now dumb. The apps were crap, anyway. The TV works fine as a TV, which is all I want from it. Mind you it is such an onerous task picking up the zap gun, pointing it near the TV and then having to press a button - if only there was some other millisecond saving way.

I have a couple of TV dongles, a PCTV and an August, that can plug in to either the TV or my laptop. Again the apps that come with them are not very good so I use DVBViewer Pro. It works with just about any TV stick, DVR or disc player using its own, regularly updated, interface.

I don't need the fridge to tell me I am running out of milk as I can see just that, nor do I need a display to tell me that the kettle's on when I have just filled it to make a brew.

"Alexa - have yourself a good long sleep. Wake up in 2053."
"Yes Frank."

I certainly have little time for Alexa (or dipshit as I'd like to call it but they won't let me), nor Google Arsistant.

That being said I do have a lot of use for some devices. The most recent I bought were two underfloor heating controllers. The one's which came with the heating mats were wifi enabled but would never connect to the wifi. They were totally stupid and lost all configuration as soon as the power went off. The two meross controllers I have work perfectly, it took about 5 minutes to set up and the schedule worked perfectly. It is now off until we get another guest and I know that if the power comes back on it will revert to the off condition it was last at.

I also use smart sockets for my computers. This means I can power off my desk pc and my VM server and they will stay off even if the power goes off and on. However I can be in the UK, pull out my mobile phone, power on the desktop or the virtual server and it will start up automatically. I do what I need to do and then I power them down again. It saves quite a lot of power and money.

I'm also starting to fit smart light controllers. This is saving me time and pain when Mrs S insists that I close up the walls and ceiling then decides she wants a light switch put in somewhere else. Up until now the answer has been "I asked you this specifically and told you I'd need to rip out the ceiling and walls to do it". Today the answer is becoming, "where do you want it". I then pair a "smart" switch with the controller take it to where she wants it and screw it to the wall.

This is the kind of progress which makes sense to me. It does require some planning as you need to make the smart controller available to pair new switches or to replace when (not if), it fails. I buy smart switches with 433 RF built in. Yes I can pull my mobile out and switch it on on off but anyone can just press the switches.

I have mentioned that I have been trying to transfer photos from my phone to my computer.
A friend has now shown me how to do it without needing a cable.
Because I have a Google phone all the photos are saved in Cloud. I then only have to arrange to transfer them tio the hard drive on the computer.
So simple and easy and no need for a cable.
It may not be a "Smart Device" but it has helped me.

I have a google phone too. My photo's are not saved to my google account because I don't allow it.

What you have is a "smart device", the phone, connected to the cloud. You can then go to the cloud with your pc and get the data. It is a combination of smart devices and cloud computing.

I prefer to connect a cable.