The 15-year-old passengers were riding in a driverless autonomous car around San Mateo Monday afternoon. The teens drank alcohol inside the Waymo taxi and shot Orbeez beads with a toy gun toward other vehicles.

A Waymo employee, who was remotely monitoring the car, tricked the unruly teenagers, authorities said. The employee told the young passengers that the Waymo was having mechanical issues and needed to stop.

Unknown to the teens, the employee had also called the San Mateo Police Department to report that a gun was firing from the car.

Here’s how Waymo tricked unruly teen passengers in San Mateo

Is that OK?

Kids shooting (albeit fake) guns out of cars is bad. I've no problem with the long arm of the law feeling their collars.

But what sort of reasonable expectation of privacy do you have when you jump into a driverless car?

If you have a blazing row with your partner while sat in the back of a black cab, the driver's going to hear, right? There's no privacy expectation although you might rely on their discretion.

Take a phone call and arrange a drug deal, the driver might turn you in to the police. They're not a confidant, are they?

Kiss someone you shouldn't and you accept the risk that the driver might both notice and care.

But when there's no driver, there's no risk of your privacy being invaded is there?

Nine former Tesla employees told Reuters that Tesla workers shared customer videos and images recorded by in-car cameras between 2019 and 2022.

Tesla Workers Shared ‘Intimate’ Videos Recorded By In-Car Cameras

Ah.

I don't know how Waymo was alerted to the problems in the car. Perhaps someone called them and reported the numberplate. Perhaps the car heard raised voices and sent an alert. Perhaps Waymo just regularly drops in on all its customers.

Rummaging through Waymo's various privacy policies eventually leads to this rather ambiguous page which describes how they monitor the inside of their vehicles.

Our autonomous vehicles are equipped with an advanced suite of sensors – including cameras and microphones – that act as the 'eyes and ears' of our Waymo Driver.

Cameras inside the car

Cameras are a way for us to make sure that your trip goes smoothly. Among other things, we may use cameras to:

• Make sure that cars are clean
• Find lost items
• Provide help in case of emergency
• Check that in-car rules are being followed [Emphasis added]
• Improve products and services
• Promote safety and security [Emphasis added]

Our Support team may review video under certain circumstances, including after an issue is brought to our attention. Occasionally, in more urgent circumstances, Support may access live video during a trip.

Microphones inside the car

The microphones inside the car are only on during voice calls with Rider Support or when you actively choose to enable microphones inside the car.

To me, that sounds like riders' voices aren't automatically sent back to the mothership. Indeed, they're at pains to say:

Waymo vehicles also have a number of sensors, including our audio-detection system used to detect police and emergency vehicle sirens. Waymo has implemented technical and procedural safeguards designed to limit the collection of any human voice data from these microphones.

So there is some acknowledgement of privacy - for our voices at least. Meanwhile, passengers are all watched over by machines of loving grace or, at the very least, fallible humans with prurient interests.

About a decade ago, people were theorising that a driverless cars would one day deliver to you a rider who died on the journey. I don't think that's happened yet - instead, we have cars watching what what we do. Silently judging us picking our noses. Examining our body language for signs of stress. Tracking our breathing patterns and heart-rates to ensure we aren't going to cause damage to the vehicle.

Not listening though. That would be a step too far.

Besides, who needs to use a microphone when you've got a high-resolution camera backed by AI?

Just as I finished writing this post, a story broke about how a Waymo pulled over and called the police on riders who had "ghost gun". The company said it alerted the authorities after detecting a terms of service violation.

Of course, it didn't say how it detected that!

I also find it curious that in both cases, the alleged perpetrators were juveniles. Maybe children have less of a right to privacy than adults?

I guess when you ride alone, you ride with a snitch.

I'm slowly building a Smart Home. I've security cameras emailing me when a cat has the temerity to walk past a window, a Roomba which tweets me, a thermostat which knows if I'm working from home, and a car which knows when to charge from my solar panels.

Now it's time to focus on something a bit more useful - lighting!

A few months ago I treated myself to a Lifx SmartBulb. It's a cracking bit of kit! There's a widget on my phone's home screen which turns it on or off instantly, it gently wakes me up in the morning, turns off when I leave the house, and has a nifty API.

But the bulb costs SIXTY QUID! A quick count of all the lights in my home... 21! I am not spending £1,260 on lightbulbs! Even if I just wanted them in my lounge, it's £120.

Lest you think I live in some sort of mansion, the previous owner of our house installed a couple of multi-way spotlights in the kitchen.

There's another issue - if the light is turned off at the switch, it can't be controlled from the app. Now, that's pretty obvious - no electricity = no WiFi. But it's a tad annoying if, say, your partner walks out of the room and absent-mindedly switches it off at the wall. Naming no names...

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Welcome to the future - where every lightbulb needs to update its firmware.
For around thirty minutes.... pic.x.com/4an8zuturq

---

Ok, so the obvious solution should be smart light switches, right? Flick the switch at the wall or toggle it from your phone. There are seven light switches I use regularly - controlling 12 light bulbs - which should reduce the cost significantly.

A Raspbery Pi Zero is tiny, cheap, and can contain WiFi. Surely there must be dozens of cheap and cheerful smart switches available?

No so much. They all seem expensive and incompatible.

Firstly, there's the choice of network topology.

1. Each light switch has WiFi and, therefore, its own IP address. Or...
2. A central unit has it's own IP address and connects to each light switch via z-Wave - or some other protocol. Or...
3. Each switch is controlled directly from the phone via BlueTooth.

If the central hub breaks you've lost connection to every switch. Using BlueTooth restricts the amount of smart automation you can do. So, for that reason, I'm drawn to having a direct IP connection to each switch.

WiFi Switches

It's worth pointing out that this comes with its own set of risks - having poorly protected smart gadgets can leak your personal information. But if someone has physical access to my light switches, it's probably game over for security.

Anyway, I can find literally only one WiFi light switch! The Lanbon single gang WiFi light switch.

The cost? Fifty quid! So not much cheaper than buying Lifx bulbs...

The Lanbon Android app has zero reviews and there's no sign of an API for it. And, if I'm honest, I'm slightly sceptical that it'd work with a UK lighting circuit.

*sigh*

Obviously, I'm not going down the Hue route - they have the same drawbacks as Lifx, and a despicable attitude to interoperability.

Ok, back to the hub-and-spoke model of (2).

Z-Wave Switches

There are Z-Wave switches for around £40.

I've already got a Z-Wave module for my Raspberry Pi, so that'll make the hub cheap. That said, the reviews for the switches look particularly poor. Some Z-Wave switches have wiring requirements which UK houses just don't meet.

It's possible to retrofit Z-Wave relays either behind the lightswitches or directly into the wiring. That's quite a lot of DIY and/or electrician effort. And they're around £50 each - taking the price even higher. Also, not exactly portable if we ever move house.

LightWave RF Switches

So, next up is British Company LightWaveRF

As much as I'd like to support a British company, I'm reluctant to trust a closed protocol. There is an official API - although you have to fill in a PDF(?!) in order to get access. It also says:

I agree not to disclose or distribute the API in any form to any third party without the express written permission of JSJS designs.

Which rather clamps down on any Open Source projects I might want to develop.

To get around this, some people have written well documented API documentation.

The prices are relatively cheap - £50 for a LightWaveRF Hub and around £20 for light switches. But the official app gets terrible reviews.

Onwards!

433MHz RF Switches

They're about £20 per switch, which is pretty good - and the hub is £25.

That's about the cheapest of all the options - and the reviews are fairly positive - but is it sufficiently secured and does it have an open API?

Well... Sort of! There are some attempts at creating an open API based on BroadLink's specification - but I'm not confident that anyone will make compatible switches should Broadcom decide to stop. Nor whether any 3rd party hubs will work with the switches.

Now What

My choices appear to be...

• £60 bulbs which can't be controlled when switched off at the wall.
• £50 WiFi light switches of dubious provenance.
• £40 Z-Wave switches with poor reviews.
• £30 LightWave RF switches running a proprietary protocol.
• £20 BroadLink switches, again running a proprietary protocol, with limited support.

That's not very satisfactory, is it?

There's a long discussion on the SmartThings message boards about the UK lighting options. Basically, the UK's unique way of wiring light switches makes finding compatible products somewhat difficult.

What a conundrum!

A little help please!

Have you wired up a UK home with smart lighting? If so, please do let me know what you chose - and if it's working well for you.