Comment on Logitech will brick its $100 Pop smart home buttons on October 15 - Ars Technica

spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This is why it’s a great idea to refuse to install everything that’s possible, including smart switches, cameras, lights etc. that rely on the good will of some company to keep running.

  Even then you can get fucked over. I’ve used Hue lights for years, and back when I bought them, you didn’t need an account to use them, just an app and network connection. Years later, they forced an online login for the app, requiring you to be online to interface with the bulbs. You can kind of work around it with Home Assistant, but you still need the account now to add the bulbs, and I don’t think scenes work without an account either now.

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  • B0rax@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    But you can buy a 10-20€ zigbee stick and connect them directly to home assistant. No hue bridge or account required.

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    • tomkatt@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I have a Zigbee antenna. Will have to double check. I’m pretty sure the lights work with the antenna, but scenes are only possible if you’ve integrated them (generally via hue through something like Homekit).

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      • B0rax@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Zigbee2mqtt can do scenes, no problem.

        The only thing you miss is the hue app.

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  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    When I was in the market for bulbs Hue was just starting that BS. They lost that sale and I’ve been in the process of removing network access for everything possible and severely restricting it when not. My old Honeywell wifi thermostat is gone, smart appliances are disconnected from wifi, and TVs are blocked by my firewall when they aren’t actually being used. Next up, Graphene OS.

    Sometimes I’d like to move to a tropical island with no news or Internet at all.

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    • JigglySackles@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I want to move to a cabin in the mountains near the ocean. Maybe the northern fjords of scandinavia. Somewhere cold. Fuck sitting still and sweating. But otherwise I’m on board with this idea too. lol

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• aoude@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Not to be pedantic, but you mean TP-Link (Kasa) smart lights right? I have these but haven’t bothered to block any sort of telemetry with my adguard home server. I see several domains queried that match .tplink.com but I wouldn’t want to reduce functionality as you mentioned

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  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes. I had them blocked via my firewall because of the constant traffic they generated and blocking Internet access causes constant bulb resets. The resets are known to TP-Link and according to a couple of sources they created a private firmware release that fixed it. TP-Link failed to publically release that firmware, and last time I checked deny it ever existed. I replaced the bulbs with 3rd Reality Zigbee bulbs that work perfectly.

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• metaStatic@kbin.earth ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Plex wants us to log into their servers to watch content we're hosting ourselves.

  I hate Plex as much as the next Jellyfin user but you can just whitelist your local network, although people who understand that aren't the target audience are they? ...

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  • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I didn’t get that far. When they demanded I log in I just removed it. Jellyfin is working OK without having to figure out how to bypass defaults.

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