sirozha

bulk001 said:

sirozha said:

Remember "Freedom Fries"? It will too blow over. 

I do. And it might. But there are some fundamental differences. France as a sovereign state is not stealing our intellectual property, hacking our companies, detaining our citizens out of spite, trying to annex other countries, putting their citizens into mass enslavement camps, selling telecommunications infrastructure that may allow them to spy on all data that passes through the equipment, forcing our companies to give them access to all data, expanding their military and threatening destabilizing actions like China is in the South China Sea and forcing their citizens to “Buy French”.These are very different to a short term political spat over Iraq. 

I was referring to the Chinese boycott of Apple. 

SpamSandwich said:

ericthehalfbee said:

On a related note, I never saw this bit of news reported.

One of the two homes that are owned by Wanzhou and/or her husband here in Vancouver was the site of a home invasion during the time she was waiting for her bail hearing. The intruders left when someone confronted them, but the timing is awfully suspicious.

Possibly. But Vancouver is also a high crime rate city.

Based on what information are you saying that Vancouver is a high crime rate city? Seriously? Are you pulling this out of your rear end? 

Remember "Freedom Fries"? It will too blow over. 

The question is, Why buy a smart smoke detector and why buy a smart detector compatible with HomeKit? What are the benefits? 

I think the only benefit is to be alerted of smoke or CO in the house while you are not in the house. Otherwise, you can't miss the audible alert. The feature of the upstairs smoke detector calmly telling you in a human voice that there's smoke downstairs is a gimmick. How is that different than simply blaring an alarm. I think you can figure out for yourself where smoke is if the upstairs smoke detector blares the alarm when the downstairs smoke detector detects the smoke. Even dumb smoke detectors alert one another of the detected smoke, and all of them start blaring the alarm as long as dumb smoke detectors are hard-wired to the residential smoke-detector wiring. 

FirstAlert tried to integrate the speakers and the microphone in the previous version, and that didn't work too well. For one, I really would not want to have a microphone phoning everything I say home to Amazon. I think this is where I draw a line. One day we will find out how Amazon and Google have abused all the information they overheard from the devices that they planted in our houses like we are learning now about Facebook having abused the information that the users entrusted in it. Even with the Ecobee thermostats, I refuse to buy Ecobee 4 for the same reason: Alexa integration. I was fortunate to purchase Ecobee 3 before they were discontinued, but if I had to do it now, I would buy Ecobee 3 Lite, which lacks the motion sensor feature in it, but at least it doesn't have the microphone to phone home to Amazon. 

So, the Alexa integration was not a good idea, but does it mean that the smart smoke detectors cannot have additional features? For example, why not have motion sensors built in to the smoke detectors? This would provide an inconspicuous way to alert of an intrusion via HomeKit. Some home security systems are now becoming HomeKit aware, so a third-party motion sensor may be capable of being integrated into a home security system. Maybe have a version of a smoke detector with a camera in it. Perhaps integrate a Wi-FI mesh Access Point into a smoke detector. For example, partner with one (or more) of the Wi-Fi mesh system manufacturers and make such a hybrid device. I think there are plenty of additional features that a smart smoke detector can assume to become worth it for the consumer compared to a dumb smoke detector. But for now, I think I'll pass. 

If AI tells us that the Apple products are affordable luxury, what excuse does anyone have to claim that they are unaffordable luxury?