Obviously at any point the brand can send a firmware update down the wire that does send a realtime video feed from my home right to Chairman Xi's bedroom. I'm aware of that, but the reality also is that the European/US brands currently don't get anywhere near the Chinese price/quality ratio, and I didn't want to muck about with Valetudo, I'm not courageous enough for that.
I'm not super happy about this situation but I am super happy about the robot. It's really very good.
IMO the random bouncing of older Roombas was unfairly pilloried. Sure, it didn't look great, but in practice it was effective at cleaning.
Happy with it but note that I dont have carpets, I guess for carpets you need something with more features.
Q Revo has an IR sensor which doesn't transmit that data anywhere.
Are you thinking of the S8 line? That's the one with the MaxV model.
list of coffee machines for under ($60-$18):
https://www.google.com/search?q=coffee+machine+under+%2442
m5stack camera: $7.10 https://shop.m5stack.com/products/unit-cam-wi-fi-camera-ov26...
m5 stack microphone: $3.50 https://shop.m5stack.com/products/pdm-microphone-unit-spm142...
m5stack atom light S3 controller: $7.50 https://shop.m5stack.com/products/atom-lite-esp32-developmen...
rather than buying it from scamazon
But I have some questions, if you've got a moment.
Why does the kettle's firmware need updating? What inhibits a future firmware update from controlling the kettle and collecting data? How would you or any other owner of this style of kettle know if it had shifted gears?
(And remember: Since the kettle has a radio and a network connection, data collection isn't necessarily limited to kettle operations. Deducing location is easy for a motivated party using wifi and/or bluetooth signals in populated areas where others are using wireless technologies; see, for example: https://www.qualcomm.com/internet-of-things/solutions/qualco... )
It's a Fellow EKG Pro kettle. They've got release notes here: https://help.fellowproducts.com/hc/en-us/articles/9593179929...
Notably, bug fixes to the same features that your drip coffee maker has (clock/scheduling stuff stuff), and the addition of new languages to the UI.
> What inhibits a future firmware update from controlling the kettle and collecting data? How would you or any other owner of this style of kettle know if it had shifted gears?
I assume these are somewhat rhetorical questions where we both know the answers - I'm not harbouring illusions here - as with any internet-connected software you have to trust the vendor.
If it were up to me, I'd prefer a Z-Wave-connected kettle that received its firmware updates via Home Assistant... but fancy pour-over kettles are niche enough that a market for a Z-Wave one simply doesn't exist.
As-is, I've got enough trust in Fellow that I'm leaving my kettle connected for firmware updates. Of course, that may change.
We do have a different out-of-band/disconnected/not-wifi way of doing firmware things, and perhaps we should use it more than we do: Bluetooth. It's about as universal as it gets.
I mean: Imagine a Venn diagram, with two groups. One group represents people who update the firmware in their kettles. The other group represents people who have Bluetooth-capable pocket supercomputers.
The two groups overlap so neatly that the diagram is indistinguishable from a circle. :)
I'd like to think that they should have reasonable security with my best interests in mind, but I really have no way of investigating what the baseband is or is not doing.