Re: smart plugs???

On Thu, 16 Jan 2025 20:55:46 -0000 (UTC), Rich wrote:

Which is how all the other IoT stuff should be too.  Sadly, too many
companies don't even think to offer the "non-cloud" option.

Some of the original decisions were made based on the edge devices not
having the compute power. A good example is Alexa. The edge device can
recognize the wake word but after that all the processing is done in the
cloud. That brings in many issues including bandwidth, security, and the
necessity to add processing power to handle thousands or millions of
concurrent requests.

I chose Alexa as an example since that has been a money sink for Amazon.
The theory was people would use Alexa to order stuff; the practice is
people use Alexa to turn on the radio and so forth.

It may change as more companies realize the cloud is costing them a lot of
money particularly for AWS or other commercial providers. Some have went
back to running their own servers.

Meanwhile it is annoying. My Fitbit device won't synch with the
application on the phone without an internet connection. Leaving aside I
don't enjoy being radio-collared by Google I sometimes have to jockey the
phone around to get a connection.