AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/aws-crash-causes-2000-smart-beds-to-overheat-and-get-stuck-upright-3272251/Open linkView original on lemmings.world652
Comments147https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/aws-crash-causes-2000-smart-beds-to-overheat-and-get-stuck-upright-3272251/Open linkView original on lemmings.world
You know this bed is great and all, but what it's really missing is a mandatory connection to the Internet!
...jfc
“Carla! Carla! What the fuck is this? I know you sleep on a 25. A 25 or a 30 if you fuck up swiping. I know for a fucking fact that you would NEVER choose to sleep on a 60, and yet I found a goddamn record of a 60 when I was out last week. Who was it? Who was here?”
I really can’t see any other reason. A dial isn’t sexy but it’s far easier in every way
Look you wanted a smart bed. We either incorporate that locally and jack the price and size 50%, or we offload the processing to a server farm and require internet
People in the 80's: "In the year 2025 we're going to have hoverboards and flying cars!"
2025: "I can't use my bed because the servers are down"
Stop making the future stupid. Never buy anything that needs to be connected to a server to work for no good reason.
Smart products themselves are not the issue. The issue is making everything cloud based. The solution is companies designing their products so they can be controlled over the network.
It's a fucking bed! It doesn't need a persistent connection to some server. The problem is that they also want to mine and sell your data.
That's the key. They want to mine and sell the data
Smart products are named oxymoronically.
Smart products are part of the issue, and smart products that fail in dumb ways are a really big part of the issue.
Any smart product, pretty much by definition, has to have a computer in it. Anything with a computer in it can be hacked. There's really no good reason that your bed should have an attack surface.
If you are going to have smarts in something, it really needs to fail well. Like, for a bed, it should have something that bypasses the smarts and lets it go back to "dumb bed" mode no matter what. No matter what position it's in, it should be possible to make it go flat even if you have no Internet connection. In fact, even if the smart parts are not working at all, there should be a way to make it go flat, even if that's a purely mechanical system that allows you to bypass the motors.
The easiest way to implement this is to avoid the IoT entirely. I strive to avoid any smart products that cannot be perpetually used offline (a.k.a. most of them).
It's true, and there's nothing IoT that is absolutely essential. But, if they were secure and safe, there are a lot of IoT things I'd like to have.
Also people in the 80's: "I love my waterbed, but my back is killing me for some reason."
lol, e-waste beds.
I’ve heard these beds are actually quite effective at helping you sleep and then wake up more naturally.
But they have wrapped entirely local events (it’s all just timers, folks) behind a cloud-exclusive subscription and the product is useless on a sunny day like we had yesterday.
They’re enormously expensive and the subscription serves no useful purpose other than to line the pockets of the investors.
I have a strict rule of no cloud dependency in my house. Otherwise, I’d be interested - if the price was remotely reasonable.
You can get other versions than eight sleep. I had an insert for my pillow. Can't remember the brand though. It ran locally via an app and Bluetooth. I ended up returning within the trial period, due to it forming bubbles in the circulation, which woke me up
I just hammer my brain with melatonin on top of alcohol, weed and extreme fatigue. It's nature's remedy for sleeplessness.
You can flash your own firmware if you want.
"sorry honey just a bit longer, I'm in the process of flashing the bed, we can go to bed soon...god damn sig faults!"
Ah, bed bugs.
Huh? It’s the exact same thing as any other electronic in any home assistant smart house. Put firmware on it that you control. Why would you need to do anything about it at night.
Because that’s when you have the time to do the maintenance.
Why would you need to do maintenance at all?
Sometimes you get a new dream machine that has internal ipv6 disabled by default and only your matter over WiFi lights stop working, but you think they're thread, which shouldn't leak ipv6 past the otbr. So you work on getting them reconnected to the Internet by removing your firewall policy that kept them local, but Ubiquity now has Zones as well, and your dumbass did a little of each. Plus, for some reason, they'll negotiate an ipv4 and drop off the network, and there's no easy way to identify a bulb by it's IP or mac address. It's not like the Mac addresss is printed on the bulb, so you try to judge by signal strength. But then your buddy who's been helping you troubleshoot for the past couple hours tells you to link him the lights from your order history, so only then do you realize they're matter over WiFi and not matter over thread, and enabling ipv6 locally does the trick. Now you've just got a set up your automations again, because you had the bright idea to put actual switches in the walls that depend on home assistant, and the automations don't know the new entities so none of your wall switches work until that's fixed. And eventually you'll get around to reinstating that firewall policy to block them from the Internet, but not today because you've spent long enough for one day on fighting with your light bulbs.
Or so I hear.
You don’t fluff your pillows or make your bed or wash the linens? Bed stuff needs daily maintenance; hopefully flashing the firmware on your smart pillow wouldn’t be daily, but you want to keep the bed bugs away, Shirley?
I don't do the first two, and I wash them weekly. My home assistant stuff never needs maintenance, so no I'd wager that if I set it up locally it would work fine if the software was stable. But you said that's when you'd do maintenance, at bedtime, which is also not when you'd be making the bed or fluffing the pillows or washing the sheets.
I wonder how it compares in functionality - to be clear, there’s no functionality I’m aware of that would require cloud (perhaps historical data).
Still, they’re wildly expensive.
I bought a brand new one of these on Marketplace because I really need a cooler bed, but I'll be damned if I get sucked into a subscription for a fucking bed!! The hack i used was a workaround where you setup your own server that will set the bed temperature automatically at bedtime and can update it once again at some point during the morning (so you can wake up to a warm bed, for instance). It worked alright, but then the main unit crapped out after 2 weeks.
You should definitely be able to fix the main unit. It’s just a heat pump. The value is the tech in the mattress cover.
It's actually not the pump, but the power supply that crapped out. I kept the unit because I'm sure it's just a PC power supply, but I haven't taken the time to crack it open. Oddly enough, there's no information online about what the part number might be.
Ah dang. I though the nine sleep repo listed the parts but it doesn’t.
Don’t know what version you have but found these photos! https://imgur.com/a/eight-sleep-pod-2-teardown-hky0334
Expensive but super worth it. Honestly best improvement to my sleep ever. More so than any new mattress or pillow or sheets or anything else has ever done.
That sounds wonderful, to have an air gapped smart bed on open source software. Just like having the perfect nuclear missile launch system on Windows XP made by clever engineers. No updates, just dreams.
Reminds me that nurse interview in Spain during the blackout:
"But your hospital doesn't have a backup generator?? -Oh we have solar panels, we could be running off the grid! But the power management system requires an Internet connection, and it's down!"
The nurse knew that the power management system required an Internet connection? That's one geeky nurse.
Still, I have hope with things like solar panels. I think these are likely to be teething pains there. Being off-grid on a solar panel is probably a pretty common situation, so they're probably going to eventually work out the kinks. As long as there isn't a monopoly on power management systems, or regulatory capture by the companies that make them, probably the ability to work disconnected from both the power and Internet grids will eventually happen. But, with Internet-of-Things stuff, there's often a commercial incentive to mine people's data and lock them into a subscription service model. So, that's really going to require regulation to fix.
So, what would be the community that is the opposite of buy it for life?
Seriously, I get that internet is ubiquitous in some areas, but everything should have the ability to function correctly without internet access.
there was also one called "internetofshit" but forgot on which instance
![email protected]
I feel like if I was gonna put a computer attached to a motor & heater inside a bed, the very first step would be making sure that if the software goes wrong, it always defaults to staying bed shaped and not catching fire.
I know I know hindsight is 20/20, I'm sure I'm just missing something. Venture capitalists would just give their money to any random idiot with a pitch, right?
why? what if they want more money and decide to make it go subscription based? do you and the shareholders want to risk people just....unplugging them and continuing to use them? the mere idea made me drop my monocle .
It's already subscription based lol
why do people buy these things!?!?!
Because their favourite YouTuber tells them how much better they're feeling after getting one.
It's why sponsorships are an outright negative for me when looking at products. They abuse the authority influencers seem to get. "Oh I like him and his videos, he wouldn't lie to me." Yeah right.
Absolutely, some youtubers are nothing but paid shills.
On the other hand, there are some who have a lot of integrity. If TechMoan for example tells us that something actually works, I'll be very inclined to believe him.
Because bored Western middle class in a consumerist society.
Because they sold their house they paid 12 acorns for for $2M and grandpa already has a Corvette.
Wow, imagine having to pay a subscription to have a 2-year warranty.
Laughs in European
This is their European site. They would have to provide the 2 years anyway so this is misleading and I'm sure it's on purpose.
Yeah, exactly.
Reminds me of the Naked Gun folding bed scene, haha
https://youtu.be/v664Yaqjw0g
Who the fuck is stupid enough to buy a fucking “smart” bed. Ffs
How about a Kohler toilet that watches you poop for an annual subscription.
"Smart" toilets are a privacy nightmare.
Having said that, in the distant future, if we don't drown the world, or kill ourselves in some other way, smart toilets are actually a smart idea.
Look how often a medical check-up requires either a stool sample or a urine sample. It makes sense. It's the waste products our body produces, so there's going to be a lot of data there. Now, imagine if you could get a basic medical check-up every time you used the toilet. You could catch so many problems early. It would be an entirely non-invasive medical check-up and if done right you wouldn't even need to change your routine. You'd just use the toilet as normal and if the toilet detected anything that required a more detailed check, it could give you a packet of data you could give to your doctor.
At the very least, imagine if instead of trying to pee into a cup at the doctor's office -- or worse, trying to collect a stool sample, you could just use the "Medical Toilet" the way you use any other toilet and it would collect the sample for you.
But, of course, the wealth of medical information it could provide is exactly why it would be a privacy nightmare in the current world. I don't know why Kohler is jumping into this now. Even if they see it as some way to generate revenue, they have to know it's going to generate lawsuits too, and when inevitably there's a privacy breach it's going to put their good name in the toilet.
Probably people with "help, my possessed bed folded me inside it, and now I'm trapped" fetishes
To help people with paralysis shimmy into their wheelchairs in the morning and to keep the elderly in poorly insulated homes from freezing in the night.
okay sounds good. why the cloud thou
Thou must use the cloud so that thine company hast a recurring revenue stream.
Likely has remote monitoring and control functionality for nursing staff or families
From what I've seen, it's actually a really good product. Just that the company is trash and forces subscriptions and the mattresses to be always online.
Bahahahaha!
How can that possibly be a good product?
The tech and the physical product is good. The software and the system around it is bad.
A subscription for a mattress. This is where we are now.
I am more shocked that there are people who are interested in "smart" furnitures and appliance.
Smart devices are fine - it usually just means remote control or status. Plenty of use in that.
The problem is that no one can be arsed to buy a local hub and figure out how to connect it, so every company just builds an app and makes it cloud connected. That way they can farm your stupidity.
It’s not hard to make a device that works locally (it’s way easier than making a cloud service) but it’s far less lucrative.
That being said if I bought a $2000 mattress cover and it didn’t work offline I’d have gotten my fucking money back.
I can completely understand it, if you ignore all the privacy issues and potential hacks.
For example, a smart fridge. Imagine a fridge that tracks the expiry date of everything inside and warns you before something goes bad -- or detects when something goes bad based on the off-gassing that it produces. Imagine it gets to know your purchase patterns and suggests items for your grocery list when you're running low. Or, if you fully trust it, it could even order those things for you.
Or, smart lights. Imagine lights that are nice and bright in the winter when you don't get enough sunlight. Then imagine those lights are smart enough to start dimming and getting "warmer" at a certain point in the evening on your personal schedule, making your body more prepared for sleep. Add motion / presence sensors so that the lights turn on when you go into a room, and turn off when everybody leaves the room. Most of the time a light switch isn't a burden, but if you're carrying things it can be a bit annoying, and we all know kids are pretty bad about turning things off when they leave a room.
In a world where you didn't have to worry about the privacy issues, the bugs had all been worked out, and so-on, smart appliances could be great. But, we're on v0.1 and so I'm extremely cautious in every "smart" device I use.
There is special category for Internet of Shit devices, that not only are cloud based but also require a persistent connection to a server to even execute basic functions.
Not that it isn’t wildly ridiculous and stupid to have an internet connected bed, but couldn’t you just unplug it if it’s overheating?
That's what customer support would have told the poor clueless customers if the hotline had not been an AI agent running on AWS!
Dont blame the victim, those poor people couldn't sleep, as if they could critically think /s
But then it’s not a smart beer, is it Todd?
They would have to know it does that first
Look at how much capitalism creates progress and drives us as a species to better ourselves. Next step, how to make money off people breathing air and sell them a subscription for it so they can continue to consume
Hail skroob
I was today years old when I realized that Skroob is an anagram of Brooks.
Whaaaaaaaat
Nestle enters the chat
"Water isn't a human right"
thats easy, pollute the air so much that you have to buy consumable gas mask filters to breathe
Exactly what I was thinking. Petroleum companies have been working on it for years I’m sure
Then tens of thousands or millions would die when a server goes down, but "shit happens" and there was a small line in the EULA where the provider deny all responsability if anythind bad happens from a service failure.
Thoughts and prayers, though!
Did you know that with our Super+ package, you get redundant servers switching automatically to the next working one?
Of course someone made a bed whose controls require an API with internet access..
A reminder to not buy "smart" home appliances unless you can self-host it's internet connectivity or its "smart" features are optional.
You had me until "unless".
smart home appliances are tolerable if they have 0 (zero, cero, null, ling, sifr, mee-then, noll) internet access
Yup, Zigbee all the way! Although that new Matter protocol seems kinda promising as well
You also have wifi with tasmota or esphome. Some products come with optional cloud features turned off by default (and no automatic updates), like Shelly. You can also flash them, but the factory firmware is so unobtrusive that I don't bother.
What a stupid fucking product.
Sorry, I meant to say "stupid fucking people buying stupid fucking products."
Beds are often used for fucking. Beds are fucking products.
Right, and we should protect them by passing laws penalizing companies from such shitty software. Cuz the average person can't access the source code.
Health reasons? There's a reason hospital beds can go upright.
Or just leisure, if they have a TV in the bedroom, or they use a laptop in bed, etc.
Terrible design. There's no reason it shouldn't be possible with local connectivity. And realistically it should also have physical buttons as a backup.
I guess you have an app for it on your phone, that is already connected to the Internet. Setting up a local device to device connection can be tricky. I had some app controlled robot toy that would only by disconnecting the wifi from the router, and use it to build its own exclusive connection to the toy to stream camera feed, command etc.
Bluetooth has a very limited range and might not work through walls. And by using a cheap controller with WiFi, the company saves on physical buttons and displays.
Yes, but there are standards that exist specifically to help with this. Matter, Thread, Zigbee. And proprietary solutions Google Home, Apple HomeKit. They could have used any of these.
I have awful acid reflux and have an adjustable bed frame. Having the top half slightly raised is a life saver since I can raise it for worse reflux and lower it for better sleep. I just use a remote, though. Doing it on an app through the internet is just stupid.
Because, and this may surprise you, some (most?) people don't think about how their stuff works. They just see it has an app and goes "neat!".
I don't know why my dishwasher should be online. But I've been with people who's smart watches twinkled to alert them that their dishwasher, located 30min away, was out of rinse aid. I can think of no scenario in which that is relevant. Rant warning There's a God damn light on the front of the unit, that tells you the same damn thing, and you can't do anything about without being at the unit. What are you going to do? Drop whatever you're doing at work and take an hour lunch break early to drive home and deal with it? Didn't think so.
BUT the person had seen the dishwasher and thought it was neat, modern, and needed a new dishwasher. And that's whywe end up with a lot of "smart" devices, which are just "ordinary devices with an cloud based remote control"
Bought a new dryer recently and ended paying more for one that didn't have internet connectivity. It's entire operation requires physical presence, why would i need ever need remote access. It's just something else to go wrong.
Different appliance, same experience.
First off, the "smart" part is just another thing that can break.
Secondly, why is it cheaper than the older/dumb device? Don't try to tell me it's because the manufacturer had to develop new electronics, with pricier components. Isn't it far more plausible, that it's because my personal data is part of the price, without my knowledge?
Thirdly, what happens when the manufacturer gets liquidated? and the new owner decides that I need a subscription to use the device effectively either bricking it or raping me. Like we saw with Futurehome https://newsletter.openhomefoundation.org/you-dont-own-it-if-they-can-break-it/
Or what about when the manufacturer decides that they don't like you and decides to snuff your account? Like amazon did when a driver https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/amazon-customer-claims-company-locked-him-out-smart-home-devices-over-bogus-racism-allegations sure, if you're abusive towards staff, then by all means act on it. But lockjng people out of their smart home, without giving them a chance to respond to the accusations first?
I swear I took my ADHD meds this morning, I don't know why I get so riled up by this. But please understand, that I have had to take a conscious decision to stop ranting on.
The same people are dropping their jaws when their car has a big-ass tablet in the middle of the dashboard instead of physical buttons.
You have to find the controls for windshield wiper’s speed 3 submenus deep, but it looks so modern and cool!
That's the reason I don't drive a VW ID3. I wanted one, I really really wanted one. But during my test drive, I got a 10s timeout from the display, for apparently tapping too fast while trying to adjust the AC, WTF? And don't get me started on the stupid mood lighting.
Too bad, it was in my price range, rear wheel drive, 236hp and a decent range. And there's soo many of them on the roads in my country that spare parts wouldn't be an issue.
Luckily it looks like some car manufactures have decided to ditch the ginormous look-at-me-I'm-just-like-a-tesla touch-screens. Kia, hyundai and VW at least according to https://www.slashgear.com/1995254/major-automakers-removing-touch-screen-dashboards/
But with all the shit I need to control in my car, how would we fit all the physical buttons?
Like, if I need to contain the warp core and reroute auxiliary power to medical while applying a new shield matrix because I am facing off some unexplained space deity. How is that supposed to work with buttons?
Have you tried using crystals instead of touch screens? If it was good enough for Kirk it's good enough for Janeway.
Or maybe just go and get some more rinse aid in the way home.... You don't need to jump to rediculous conclusions.
We're all different, I do realize that, but I don't do just-in-time delivery for my household products. I'll buy a couple of bottles of rinse aid, and once the last bottle is empty I put it on the grocery list.
I don't need to know that the dishwasher has run out, I'll deal with it when I see it.
And do not tell me where to jump or not 😀 I'll jump in front/on top/behind of ridiculous conclusions if I please /s
In my defense I only said you maybe don't NEED to. If it satisfies your soul in ways I can't possibly understand that entirely up to you lol
Waiting for the reports that cars couldn't be used because of the aws issue
So instead of it defaulting to last known good settings, it couldn’t poll AWS to retrieve the user settings and either just went into debug alert mode or the hardcoded defaults are full upright and max temp. More premium products kneecapped by poor management in a race to enshittify everything
$2000 is very mid for a bed.
No it is not.
Check out Sleep Number or Duxiana beds for examples of common beds that start at twice that amount.
What? The frame? The most important part of the bed is the mattress!
Sleep Number, Personal Comfort, and Duxiana are some examples. You can find their stores all over, even in malls, and they are readily available for delivery without waiting for bespoke orders. The frames are often "free" for basic adjustable options in their packaging.
I paid $700 CAD for my king size. You bougie
Perhaps, but it is a fact that several common manufacturers offer discounts or "gift" sheet packages that are more than what you paid for your bed. I'm glad you found what works for you.
The heck are you talking about. My tuft and needle mint WITH the added cost of extra pillows and a sheet set wasn't even a full $2000 it's one of the best mattresses I've ever seen in my life I've had it for like 5 years now and there's still zero indication of any type of settling or imprinting on the foam, it's the perfect mix of firm supportive but comfortable and shape fitting. And every time I've seen a bed more expensive than that it's felt terrible and basically just been about buying the brand name or some stupid exotic material it's made of
People. You don't need this shit. I promise.
The only thing my bed has that my previous beds didn't was a removable charging outlet with USBs and stuff. That's it. That requires only electricity and is literally something that could have existed last century with no problem.
I have a Sunbeam heated mattress pad. I like sleeping in a cool room but in a panini press. I'm weird.
People who buy an internet connected bed have more dollars than sense.
Ha, this reminds me of the death of the guy that gave the world lead poisoning.
He also invented CFCs, the chemical that nearly destroyed the earth's protective ozone layer. Quite a guy.
A one man environmental disaster. J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history"
It adjusts temperature (can heat OR cool and in some versions it can heat one side and cool the other) and I think the even more expensive version can morph a bit to your liking, and according to them, reduce snoring.
What they don't mention is that regardless of whether you get the 3600 euro option or the 5800 euro option, you still have to SUPPLY YOUR OWN MATTRESS. It's also a subscription service.
If you didn't hate it enough, it's also advertised as being "powered by AI". Which almost certainly is just some temperature adjustment algorithm, maybe even a deterministic one.
Here I am like a plebe using a hot water bottle when cold and less bedsheets when hot. If only I knew there was a technical solution for a problem that's already been solved hundreds of times over!
I just wait till it gets hot when cold because I'm a furnace. Mostly it's hot though. That problem hasn't been solved. Lack of bedsheets doesn't cool things down.
You don't need the internet to do those things though
That's definitely true, I just explained why the mattress has tech inside it in the first place. Or the mattress cover, really.
It'd easily be accomplished with a couple of buttons too.
Dumbest fucking timeline
I thought I was terminally online but this is the moment I am hearing about smart beds. I guess the appeal is that it beams ads directly into your dreams?
Smart devices are just dandy when they don't require an internet connection. Got a cheapo smart thermostat that works no matter what. Google could cancel my Minis and my internet could go offline, I can still control it with buttons.
Bought that 5-years ago. At this point I assume all IoT devices require internet.
Yeah you might as well "work overnight to fix this," because you can't go to bed anyway
Never buying smart anything. Wish we could buy a smart president though.
I am torn between 1) people aren't smart and 2) smart appliances aren't smart.
Also, if you're having an issue with your smart appliances, just open copilot and get the AI to connect you to the other virtual ai assistant for your product which is hopefully not running in AWS which will just ask if you need to talk to a human who doesn't have a solution for "AWS is down and you bought an internet connected bed my dude"
#internetofshit #thisrantaintover
We're about to go through about 10 years of vibe coded garbage aren't we.
No, only 2 years. Don't forget about the nuclear war.
L.O.L! Cant wait to the next solarflare hope they swat the sleepers like flies
Build your shit to be fail safe. The idea that this was less bad if you self hosted is ridiculous. You will have much more outages that way.
You may be right to criticize cloud everything, but as I said, just not the problem here. Only the trigger.
Brilliant!
this is worse than getting locked out of your smart oven for not paying subscription
Online first, and they're only now working on offline mode? Okay...
This is why I made my own bed, with my own two hands, out of solid Douglas for and southern pine. Let's see AWS crash an inert object made of wood and metal.
I carved mine out of an old olive tree. Good luck stealing it.
Ulysses?
Might wanna get that return shipment prepped, my insomniac friends out there.
smart BEDS? Look, I got a bed that has a removal part that has USB chargers, that is all I need... What the FUCK do I need a bed with an internet connection?