xkcd #3109: Dehumidifier

Title text:

It’s important for devices to have internet connectivity so the manufacturer can patch remote exploits.

Transcript:

[A store salesman, Hairy, is showing Cueball a dehumidifier, with a “SALE” label on it. Several other unidentified devices, possibly other dehumidifier models, are shown in the store as well.]

Salesman: This dehumidifier model features built-in WiFi for remote updates.
Cueball: Great! That will be really useful if they discover a new kind of water.

Source: https://xkcd.com/3109/

explainxkcd for #3109

  • yucandu@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    1 month ago

    Meanwhile here I am installing ESP32C3’s into everything in my house to automate everything.

    I can turn on my floor heat, hallway light, or even open a vent from an app on my phone. And bonus, no shady manufacturers to spy on me. Just China.

      • yucandu@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        1 month ago

        Hey thanks, I’ve got tons of cool projects and gifs like these, and I love to share them and read the comments, but I don’t know where to post them on Lemmy. I used to post them to Reddit but they started shadowbanning my github for some reason. Didn’t even find out until the ESP32 mod messaged me and was like “we can’t even manually approve your posts”.

          • yucandu@lemmy.worldEnglish
            5·
            1 month ago

            What about [email protected]?

            I tried there but my posts never showed up. Tried twice. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. I’m on old.lemmy.world so it looks like old reddit.

            • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
              1·
              1 month ago

              That’s odd. How far did you get? Any error?

              Federation from your instance Lemmy.world to the instance the community is on (programming.dev) is healthy, so that doesn’t seem to be the issue.

              My guess would be that you’ve tried to upload an image that is over the size limit - I think this is imposed by your own instance (Lemmy.world), and I’m not sure what the size limit is but I think 5MB per image is pretty common. If you drop the image size or upload elsewhere then link it, does that work?

              • yucandu@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                1 month ago

                I just hit submit and it spat me back out to the new posts, but mine wasn’t there.

                I wasn’t trying to directly upload an image, just directly link to an imgur gifv.

    • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      1 month ago

      I just installed motorized dampers in my crawl space using Shelly smart relays! Now I have an automatic schedule so I’m not cooling rooms that aren’t in use (like the bedrooms during the day and the lower level of the house at night). Already seen significant power savings!

    • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      7·
      1 month ago

      It would be a lot more difficult to hide a backdoor on a bare ESP device, than a proprietary Tuya one, just putting that out there. Regardless, I still block internet access from my ESPHome devices, because I don’t want to feel like I need to constantly be on top of updates, that can cause things to break at times. I do them every couple months when I have the time to sit down and make sure everything’s still working, or roll it back where it’s not.