but it seems to me that the problems described in this article regarding Amazon Echo and the Web of Things are due primarily to poor engineering. Can someone please tell me why in the world one would ever own a home automation device that was nearly 100% reliant on an Internet connection for control of, say, local lighting? Wouldn’t you think that function would best be handled by a local controller that used the network for backup and other things (like telling the grocery that your web-connected refrigerator was running low on milk and butter)?
It is sheer insanity to think that control of local appliances should depend solely on remote data. I get that the idea is that you can turn your lights on and control your furnace or air conditioner from your phone, even if you’re on vacation in Tahiti and your home is in New York. But it seems like the Echo system has one major missing component: The local control unit that operates as a bridge between local and remote data, and continues to work locally even if the network goes down.
This is, by the way, why I scoff at the cloud data concept. Just when you really, absolutely, must access the data up in the cloud is precisely when the Internet will go down for two hours (or a day, or a week) and you’ll be boned.
Article link is h/t Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor.