RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/117084609641127385
I should not have to say this, but I'd strongly recommend avoiding any product where the continued survival of any living creature is dependent on AWS us-east-1 uptime or whatever, for actual fuck's sake.
@tommorris i know someone who bought one that used esp32 for it's connectivity stuff. So he just flashed the chip and put his own stuff on it
Aug 13, 2026, 10:25 AM@tommorris Surely it's just a timer.. why is it dependent on the internet to even work?
Oh yeah, capitalism.
@tony I have no idea why they need an internet connection There are ones you can get on Amazon for £20-30 that run off a 9V battery that rotate every X hours (user settable) and the battery usually lasts for a year or so.
Aug 13, 2026, 2:11 PM@tommorris that actually rules out all of AWS, which actually is a Good Thing™️
Maybe we should coin a phrase ""Smart things are dumb by default".