I think they’ve taken “avoid accidental resets” there to ridiculous levels. I picture the engineers going “It’s going to be a very rare event, and you don’t want it to be so quick your buddy Joe can prank you by turning the mains switch on and off a couple of times.”
I had better be very rare if they expect people to not abandon the system all together though.
How the heck do you know what time you made the coffee, then?
Actually, I prefer to think of it as a clock that also makes coffee, kinda like my radio that I can drive around in.
That seems like it would be a less useful video, because the person would need to get a timer and try to get the timings right on their own. With this video, someone who wants to reset it can just watch the video and turn on/off their bulb in sync with the video, which seems the easy way. I don’t rthink the design is good, but filming the whole reset process makes perfect sense, and just filming someone saying ‘here, repeat four times’ would be a much worse video.
Well, this video is more idiotproof I guess but you hardly need a timer. Turn on, one thunder, two thunder,…,8 thunder, Turn off, one thunder…
It’s a stupid process, but as long as that is the process, doing it like this in the video makes sense. Anyone can just follow along with the video, no need to count the cycles or use a stopwatch.
A much smarter way would be to tell the process, then demonstrate it if you want to let some people follow along. Some people might want to just go do it rather than have their smartphone in hand running a video.
Those instructions remind me of the TBBT episode where Wolowitz and Sheldon are trying to re-set the drone/helicopter when it isn’t working. “Turn the switch on and off at least 10 times until the red light flashes” (may not be exactly right, but close), which of course drove Sheldon nuts.
So, accepting this is real, then what comes next? How do you sync these back to a phone? Is that easy?
My vote is for:
Yeah, that last one. 
It’s poor design. Why do you have to turn it on and off so many times? One or two cycles of “off and on” would be plenty to reset things.
What if halfway through you miscount and hold on for seven seconds? Do you have to start over again? If you go to nine seconds? If it’s off for four seconds instead of two?
Not to mention it’s easy to miscount (was that the second time I turned it off and on or the third? The dog barking made me lose track).
This was designed by people who had no clue as to practicality.
Software is always cheaper than hardware. Adding a “pair” button to every lightbulb means the whole production will cost more. Even if it’s $0.10 per bulb, that’s $10,000 less profit if you are producing 100,000 bulbs. Whereas adding software code to detect a specific pattern to each bulb is zero (assuming the bulb has a microprocessor to begin with, which it must, since it’s a smart bulb).
It’s the same reason why so many modern appliances & electronics require pressing multiple buttons for certain functions. Adding a button costs money. Software code to detect when multiple buttons are pressed at the same time is basically free.
I would guess it goes into “pair” mode the first time it’s turned on after a factory reset, until you pair it. There is a vanishingly small risk that someone will be trying to control your light bulb at the exact moment you are installing your bulb and setting it up for the first time.
The problem with a ‘pair’ button on the bulb is that sometimes the bulbs are in fixtures that make it hard to get at them, or they are installed in high ceilings where you’d need a ladder to pair your bulb, etc. So using power cycles makes a certain amount of sense. I’m not saying this UI is a good one, but in UX design you are often faced with tradeoffs, where the best way for one person to do something can be the worst way for someone else.
That said, the idea that GE produces optimal UI’s is laughable. They have good divisions and bad divisions when it comes to UX work, and I’m going to guess that the lightbulb division does not contain the cream of the crop in digital UX professionals. The UI was probably just designed by one of the engineers who worked on the communications code, and nobody bothered to challenge it because they didn’t care.
The real question is whether it’s a good idea to turn over basic infrastructure to the internet of things for what are to most people trivial reasons. I’m not letting a remote company have control over my door locks, thermostat, lighting, etc. For one thing, they are collecting data on all of it. A Nest thermostat can report on movements in the house. A smart light bulb might report which rooms in your house are active, and when. Or, a failure in a central service may result in your doors being accidentally locked or unlocked, the temperature in your house to change, whatever.
Companies are trying to sell us internet connected fridges, lightbulbs, door locks, hvac controls and all sorts of other things. Most of them are gimmicks that get installed and then people just go back to using them manually as the hassle and limitations of the automation become clear. In the meantime, as a society we are enabling more surveillance and more single points of failure.
And next we’ll have a video that’s just a voice counting out seconds so that people can time things:
“Thank gawd for YouTube! Otherwise how would I know how long to boil this egg for two minutes?”
Maybe it’s time for people to have to use their brains again and not devolve to the point we need videos instructing us how, and when, to breathe.
Factory reset process #3: Take hammer and smash bulb for 8 seconds. Wait 2 seconds. Smash bulb for 8 seconds.
Why do you think there *isn’t *significant margin built into it? Saying “off for between 1 and 4 seconds, then on for between 6 and 10 seconds” would just be more confusing. Obviously, there must be *some *margin built into it, since humans don’t have nanosecond precision, and it’s very likely that the margin is actually quite high.
With that much margin, though, there’s a greater possibility for false positives. Hence the large number of cycles.
I suspect that almost everyone can get away with a written “Turn off for 2 seconds, on for 8. Repeat 4 times”, and the video is just for people that don’t have a great sense of timing and need something to follow along to.
Back in 1975, I could reboot my PDP-11 (without the reboot sequence in ROM) with less effort than this.
I have nothing against the video itself. In fact the announcer guy seemed on the verge of cracking up about the third “turn on for 8 seconds,” so good for him. This seems like a reset sequence easy to code for, not easy to use.
Why require the light bulb user to know the firmware rev? It may be on the box, but who keeps the box? A year from now, who is going to remember?
Second, why change it in the first place? Did they find the processor in the light bulb was not able to keep up with a 2 second on cycle?
And why 4 cycles? Two would seem more than sufficient. It’s not like drive-by light bulb resets are going to be the worse security issue in a smart house.
This stuff makes me ashamed to be a programmer.
Nope - “this video made me forget about my soulless existence and feel alive for 8 seconds, then dead for 2 seconds, then alive for 8 seconds, then dead for 2 seconds, then”
You said it, my friend. I’ve reviewed two books on IoT and IoT security, and I’m scared as hell. A lot of this stuff is being implemented on outmoded releases of Linux with known security flaws, for example. Top companies may do it right, but what percentage of home IoT stuff is going to low cost stuff. Security patches? Hah!
Light bulbs are far from the worst. Here is a story from the Register about a WiFi enabled vibrator with a camera and lots of security holes. Including, IIRC, the system password hard coded into the firmware.
This article give more examples. It seems wardriving with respect to sex toys is called screwdriving.
Anyone depending on the competence of coders for these things is asking for trouble. I bet most of these guys couldn’t even get close to being hired even by GE’s worst division.
I worked for a ‘top company’ in automation. I guarantee you that they were rarely ‘doing it right’. They didn’t even pen-test their code until fairly recently, and I make no promises about the quality of the penetration testers.
Everyone plans to do perfect security. But it’s amazing how quickly that concern goes out the window when schedules get tight. Add to that the chaos of large, distributed teams and multiple products in varying stages of release, hotfixes, service packs, plus reliance on 3rd party libraries, and it’s not surprising that software gets shipped with security holes.
You’d think the last place you’d want an internet connected camera is on something you use on your hoo-haw. Anyone who believes that imagery from such a device isn’t being viewed by hackers or people in the company is living in fantasy land. Hell, there are stories of especially lurid RING video feeds being shared among developers (who had coded a way to see all of it from any device they wanted). If your NEST security password is hacked, the hacker can watch your video feeds from your house without you knowing. Amazon allows employees to listen to Alexa background audio, ostensibly to ‘improve the experience’. They also do constant speech to text conversion looking for keywords. It’s likely that if you say ‘I’m thinking of buying a new car’ to someone in your home you will start receiving car ads. And no doubt especially lurid or funny stuff gets passed around.
You’d think so…but you’d be sadly wrong. But it’s not just the competence of the coders, it’s the competence and priorities of management. Security is hard, and it’s the easiest thing to cut by an ambitious manager who is determined to deliver on time. Cutting user features is visible and needs explaining. Cutting your security testing short may never be noticed. Hell, the Obama administration granted themselves a waiver to skip security testing for the Obamacare website, which is connected to a zillion government databases. No one cared.
I always assume that security of anything is flawed, and act accordingly. It’s the smart way to bet.