BLOG: Fitbit Says It’s Time for a $300 Rebate!

[m00npie]

Back in 2017 I decided to try my hardest to lose some weight. I cut out as many carbs and as much sugar as I could, and started walking a mile a day. I ended up losing close to 50 pounds in 3 months. (I really should do this again.) To assist me in my […] [...]

Source: https://www.robohara.com/?p=14078

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I wouldn't say I live in fear of items catching fire, but I would prefer they don't. I gotta think, yeah, there aren't too many devices I would risk keeping it for. I'd feel like a giant asshole if there was a 0.01% chance of my watch burning my house down and causing my pets to die screaming if it spontaneously burst and I wasn't home. Because you'd presumably be out the watch, too, if it suddenly created Biblical hellfire. There really isn't a positive towards keeping it. :/

[Flack]

The average American has about a 1% chance of dying in a car crash in their lifetime. I feel like 0.005% of my watch killing me isn't bad. The last time I had surgery they made me sign something that said I could die from the anesthesia. Life's all about risks!

[obliterator918]

Life's all about risks!

What's funny to me is that we are okay with a 1 in 10,000 chance of catastrophe because we intuitively know how unlikely that is. And yet somehow the lottery still exists, and people buy up lottery tickets when there is 1 in several million chance of a significant payout. Cool with the low chance of dying cause that won't happen. Gotta buy a lottery ticket because you could win.

Personally I don't like to think about the rechargeable batteries all over the house. I added small battery backups to each of my wifi mesh nodes a while back, and I was thinking, the Chinese company that made these could easily have just printed all these electrical certifications and who is monitoring that? am I setting up ticking time bombs around my house? Of course I still did it...

[Flack]

I will one up you. A couple of years ago I saw this little robotic "pet" on Amazon that looked like fun, so I ended up getting it. It's probably 4" cubed and looks like a cross between a dog and a tank. It's super cute and the "face" is touch sensitive so when you pet it or touch it, the LED eyes light up and it smiles at you!

It's also programmed to wander around your house and return to its charging station, which it does by mapping your house (like a Roomba) and sends all of its information to China. To react to your environment, it has cameras and microphones that are always on -- that, in theory, also broadcast 24/7 back to China.

It was the cutest toy ever and after the battery died I never recharged it.

[obliterator918]

Yeah, I have drawn the line at random household "IoT" stuff that has cameras. We have an automated vaccum but it does not have an optical camera (it uses lasers and other sensors). My YoLink devices for sensors (fridge temps, door sensors, stuff like that) all runs on a hub that is completely isolated from the rest of the network on its own LAN. And I won't buy any of the ones that offer actual control of things like my garage doors.

But of course I carry a supercomputer that is connected to the internet 24/7 that has three cameras, two microphones, and a GPS system built into it, and it tags all of my photos and uploads them to the cloud automatically for me.