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Friday, April 5, 2024

Zero Click Ordering is Coming

There was Dilbert strip where Dogbert patents zero-click ordering as a parody of Amazon's one click ordering.  It feels like zero-click ordering is just around the corner.

I have a network backup drive.  It is big: 4TB.  Alas, it is Ethernet, not WiFi. At my old house the solution wás to cable it directly to one of the several Ethernet ports on the router.

In the new house, Sparklight uses wireless routers made by Eero.  They seem to be rather magical, at least by my 1990s-2000s knowledge.  One box on the ground floor accepts an RJ45 cable which is attached directly to an Ethernet cable that runs throughout the case and is attached to what Sparklight calls a modem, which converts their coax input to Ethernet.  The ground floor Eero provides pretty decent 5 GHz WiFi: 280 Mbps on my Android as I sit here on the couch in my bathrobe.

Upstairs is another Eero upstairs attached to another RJ45 connector on that same chink of blue Ethernet cable.  Date rates are similar.  

Sparklight refers to this as a "mesh" system; there are two separate WiFi routers but only one named WiFi router.  Their support guy claims the upstairs Eero is actually a WiFi repeater.  It carry acts like one, although they would be make its cable connector irrelevant.

Anyway, the concern: there is one unused RJ45 on both Eeros.  Can I directly attach my Ethernet network backup drive there?  Probably, but I am not sure and this semi-miraculous system seems to be rather finicky.  

My solution was to look and wow.  For $40 Amazon has a box that bridges WiFi to Ethernet.  I saw it, I clicked yesterday evening.  The promise was delivery between 7 and 11.  I woke up at 6:45 and it was here!  I am still finishing my morning coffee so I do not know yet if it works but I am expecting Amazon to master the "You thought about, deliver before he switches product display page soon.". Bezos and Amazon are operations that seem or sleazy but they are remarkably efficient.

1 comment:

  1. A month or so ago my Keurig coffee maker decided to die - they do that every two years, it seems, if you don't descale them, and every 24 months if you do.

    So, ordered a new coffee maker from Amazon - at 7AM. It was on my doorstep at 11 AM that morning...in ruralish Montana (Bigfork, south of Kalispell).

    Cheaper than at Walmart, too.

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