Re: Disabling answering the phone.

On Wed, 17 Apr 2024, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 13/04/2024 7:44 pm, D wrote:

  On Fri, 12 Apr 2024, John McCue wrote:
 

Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid> wrote:
<snip>

 How did we get to the point where one has to do a web search just to be
able to answer the infernal device?

 No kidding!  Also I have a hard time hanging up the "smart"
phone.  These phones do not make using it as a phone easy.
I am not far from tossing it out the window and going to a
dumb phone.

 Do it! I haven't had a smartphone for about 5 years or so and I love it! The highest price I pay is not being able to get Über taxis so I pay about 3x the price with a regular taxi, and I also miss the wireless sharing functionality.
 But in many cases it is possible to Stallman yourself an Übertaxi.

>
Increasingly many things just assume you have a smart phone, and that you want to use it to control your purchase. The Tesla Powerwall 2 is one such.
>
As originally supplied it also had a web interface to which one could connect directly, and which could be used to exert some control over it, but Tesla have increasingly locked that down, and now it's pretty much smartphone or nothing.
>
Sylvia.
>

I know, I ran into that trap once, and ever since, I always make sure in the rare cases when I buy a new gadget, that I can control it without a smart phone.
In emergencies, it is possible to install an android emulator on my laptop and use it, but it is very cumbersome and the thought of having a GB-level VM just to use some bad service or gadget make me sick, so I seldom do it.