Amazon will automatically connect your devices to something called Sidewalk Network. Fortunately, I don't happen to own any of them. The article talks about Ring and Echo devices. It has a link to a list.
They mention Ring camera. I don't see it on my Ring doorbell. I did opt out on the Echo though.
Hmm, allowing anyone with a Dot within WiFi range to get into your network. What could possibly go wrong?
Yeah Yeah, I know, they have security ... until they don't.
When I bought this house two years ago, part of the Smart Home system included an Echo and a Dot. Those two devices are still in their boxes.
Why? I use mine every day to control lights and music in the bedroom. I can even start my car with it.
More fool you.
Because they have major privacy issues.
I actually paid money for one of those, probabl the Echo.
It works pretty well at moderate volumes, but i use it mainly when I'm trying to fall asleep, and at low volumes, a lot seems to be mumbling.
Webpages suggested getter a bluetooth speaker, What! I just bought this, which has a speaker and they want me to buy a speaker for the speaker! I was ticked. But a few days later it dawned on me that it was right next to my fairly new table radio which has aux, usb, and bluetooth inputs. So I use that to play what should be coming out of the Echo, and it works much better. It's not muddled at low volumes, plus the radio has 30 volume levels and the Echo has only 7 I think. If it was too loud and I turned it down, it wasn't loud enough, and vice versa.
It plays off the wifi, and you can say Play Cartalk and it will play the latest rerun. C-span radio is good on Saturday nights after 11PM ET, they play lectures about history, mostly, at bookstores, like Poetry and Prose in DC, and others around the country.
I'm pretty sure** it has Science Zone Radio too, if you're tired of listening to politics, AM radio, sports or music. It's all science all day and all night long, some of it really interesting.
You can also say, Play soft music, or Play slow music, etc. but various versions of tha didnt' work well. In one case it was interrupted by louder commercials iirc. When I used other words, the andante movement was followed by a scherzo that woke me up. My friend told me to try Chopin, and the first time was pretty good, but by coincidence, my problem sleeping disappeared about then, or I found a news show that I liked.
Another probem with echo is that it's harder to change stations and to change back. You have to say something and then wait at least a couple seconds. With push button tuning on a table radio you change in a split second. But if I want to change from the Echo, I turn th volume down until I can't hear it and then I turn on another radio. that's easier than changing from Bluetooth to FM, losing and having to reestablish later the bluetooth connection to Echo (although I think I'm actually wrong about that and all I have to do is go back to bluetooth mode on the radio and it connects again.) But when I change to FM and break the bluetooth connection, then Echo starts playing directly and I have to stop that.
Also once in a while even when I speak clearly, it claims to not understand.
**I think it has it because it's on Tune-in. It's also in radiomaximus, but that's not directly playable via wifi, only via the PC.
There?s a list of Sidewalk compatible Ring devices at the link below.
Some doorbells are on the list and the link mentions that other devices will be added later. I doubt you?ll be directly informed if one of your devices gets added. I?m guessing it?s on you to keep checking and opt out as soon as you can.
On Wed, 02 Jun 2021 19:01:02 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com posted for all of us to digest...
Just like JBS & Colonial Pipeline?
Oh, you are being too genteel. ;-)
By size: "The 56 Biggest Data Breaches (Updated for 2021)
According to the RiskBased Data Breach QuickView Report 2019 Q3, at the end of September, there were 5,183 breaches, exposing 7.9 billion records.
My pet peeve regarding data breaches and the free credit monitoring offerings:
My, my, my...how generous they are. A free year of credit monitoring.
News flash: The bad guys are very patient. Once your info has been been stolen/sold/spread around, 1 year isn't nearly long enough. A co-worker is still having her info used more than a decade after she first became aware that it was out there.
Lucky for her there has never been any real damage done - yet. She first became aware of the problem after the feds charged a guy with fraud, found her data in his records and contacted her. Throughout the trial (which was 8 states away) she was updated with the progress and even invited to address the court at the sentencing hearing.
Unfortunately, he was the only one that was caught using her info. It's a pain in the arse to be filing police reports and contacting utility, cell phone and credit card companies - all across the US - once or twice a year for going on 12 years.
I agree with Joyce on this one. I am not interested in Echo.
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