this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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FWIW I think you're thinking of cats. A loyal dog will often starve to death before harming their master.
All that being said, I think this is one of those hills where it's not worth dying on for FOSS. There are services out there that are designed to do this and have round-the-clock monitoring. Do you really want to trust that your jury-rig solution is fool proof enough to save her? As you said, if you are out of the house, it does no good. Just something like lifealert is probably better here.
Agreed. I could run water sensors and solenoid valves for my basement water heater off of an arduino or rpi. I could also use a commercial product that has a warranty and a product engineering team and a QA department and etc etc...
I'm going commercial. The potential for damage to be done is too high for some hack job.
I've been in FOSS software for more than 20 years but honestly find the absolutism insufferable. It's not always practical and there are more important hills to die on.
It's worth consideration in cases where the industry has been monopolized by some kind of "smart tech" product. Like if for your example the only company selling water heaters was Meta, and you needed to sign your soul away and had no right to repair your water heater, then jury rigging as you describe might make sense. But as long as there is a product available which provides a minimally invasive option, it isn't worth trying to roll your own.
I wonder if Mozilla tested them. The report on cars was 🤦🏽♀️ and they don’t even tell you, unless I misunderstood. I thought it was some sort of implied consent to…sell your most intimate details, down to ssn, sexual preferences/proclivities and obviously if it listens for commands, it’s listening, searching dba for something similar to what it heard.
Dogs can and do eat people. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/animals/would-your-dog-eat-you-if-you-died-get-the-facts
I do agree that OP should look into already existing services that are actively monitored.
Well that devolved fast, hah. But i thought it too. You’re dead, they’re starving 🍽 . But depending on overall mobility, rom, vision, a fog/cat can trap you up. I was amazed the lady that broke her hip up the street didn’t get pneumonia, but…she got up and did her pt 2-3 times a day instead of laying up or unable to get up and getting pneumonia. I get it. I’m feeling my age and old/new injuries and aches and I feel like i don’t want to walk, too hut/cold/rainy/mosquitoes but I feel it if i miss a few days.
If I could find a wireless doorbell that would send me a push notification that would be perfect!
That still leaves you as the point of failure. What if your phone battery dies, you are somewhere without mobile service, you go to bed early, you have a bit too much to drink, etc.
At the end of the day, it makes far more sense to just accept a bit of proprietary software if it means that there is always someone available when she presses the button.