corporations are just a new and improved form of feudalism.

Smart devices aren't so much the issue as internet connected ones. I use a number of ZWave smart devices, but I avoid buying any smart device that connects with wifi. You do need some kind of hub device ultimately but even in that case you can use your own hardware and software for that.

especially cameras inside their houses if you need a security cameras to monitor whats happening outside your house go pay someone to install them this way you control the access instead of trusting a 3rd party with info about when your home or not

It's so crazy to me that people will install spying devices in their homes that X number of random faraway people can access and they will PAY to do it. Even if everything is 100% honorable and well-run initially, most everything changes given enough time.

I don’t understand how anyone still trusts any off-the-shelf smart device. Even the companies that explicitly promise not to do something have been found doing it.

They 'trust' it for the same stupid reasons anyone trusts bad ideas, uncritically. They don't think it'll happen to 'them'. Same reason people drunk drive. Same reason people smoke. Same reason people have unprotected sex. Same reason they do anything. It only ever exists as an abstract notion until the crosshairs visibly point in their own direction, and they suffer consequences as a result.

I thought I took privacy seriously as a person that's fairly conscious of it, until I turned my own, 'advanced', layman OSINT skills upon myself, and was shocked at what I was able to uncover. In detail; incidentally. And I was never prompted to do that, until I lost a job opportunity which involved an extremely 'extensive' background check, that included a 'highly' speculative interpretation of a few key events of my life, which were completely inconsequential.

And most people will continue to behave the same way, until something similar forces them to revise their prior thoughts on it. It's like thinking you're going to defeat prostitution through moral lectures; and you won't. Not until people experience loss or pain. Pain's always a more instructive teacher for people, because pain always raises the question of 'why' it's there. It forces you to think about how you ended up where you are. Unfortunately, most people are just blissfully ignorant.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

Of all the places, why the fuck would you install one of these in your bathroom? I just don’t get some people

The same kind of idiots that would put them in their home to begin with.

Gotta keep an eye on the pristine toilet paper usage. It's supposedly the first thing we'll run out of in case of an disaster.

Hasn't 2020 taught you anything? /s

I'm running esp32 cameras on zoneminder. They don't make esp32 compatible cameras without the ir filter but I found one seller that sells them with only a little blop of superglue holding it together. The ir filter is also at the back where it can be carved out with a knife instead of at the front of the lense where it's 100% impossible to remove. They probably get paid money by smart camera manufactures to not sell ir filter removable cameras.

The night vision isn't very good because the maximum exposure the camera can do isnt very high but it's still a hell of a lot better than the conventional options of either 1)an affordable smartphone app based camera that spies on you or 2) a "proper" rtsp camera that can cost over $700 just for a non wireless non night vision one. I bought a ir led light bar to immuninate the fuck out of it which works well enough.

Until they start doing a more effective job at cracking down on sellers selling ov2460 cameras that have an easily removable ir filter, this is the best option for now.