Amazon's customers with "smart homes" were left in the lurch this week when the company suffered an outage.
Users of the company's Internet of Things products were angry when they couldn't turn on their Christmas lights or even use the voice assistant, because of the Amazon Web Service outage.
One user asked how they could get into their home when the account confirmed the outage. I don't remember the code. I use my app all the time.
The effect of the Amazon Web Services outage on Ring shows the dangers of making home security hardware rely on the cloud. One user said that the company's customers' home security is at risk.
The only products affected were Ring and Alexa. Anyone with products that connect to the cloud computing service could have been affected.
During the nine-hour outage, voice-activated lightbulbs, smart fridges, and Roomba vacuums were out of luck.
It was a big deal for many people, but it was also an example of why Amazon is so dangerous and why everyone that uses it should be aware of it.
The point of the outage is that there is no compelling reason why every piece of tech we own should be connected to the internet.
Jim Nivison put it perfectly, "Why does a fridge need to be connected to anything but a power outlet?"
Jim, why? Yes, why indeed.
Amazon is quietly researching how to block out the sun.
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