Many people use smart plugs nowadays due to the various advantages they offer, including automation, integration with mobile software, increased home security, better energy efficiency, and compatibility with other smart products. However, a smart plug customer has gone a step further by enhancing their hardware in a way that it blocks them from viewing "brainrot" content online, or any website, for that matter.
As seen in a popular thread over on Hacker News, a person known as "NWChen" has written a script that connects to the $8 Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini and utilizes it to restrict access to websites of your choice. In essence, this plug then acts as a physical switch that you can toggle to visit certain websites. NWChen's main motivation behind this initiative was to avoid brainrot, with examples listed as X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit in their blog post.
In terms of technical functionality, the smart plug connects to Wi-Fi (obviously) and hosts a physical switch that can be used to turn it on and off. NWChen's script connects to the smart plug via an API and then polls its state. If it's on, websites of your choice get restricted and you can't open them anymore, until you physically get up and turn off the plug, or remove the website from you blocklist. NWChen has recommended plugging in the hardware far away from you so there is sufficient resistance in turning off the plug.
In the thread, many have praised this invention, believing that the nature of this mechanism provides enough hurdles where you'd rather just not visit the problematic websites anymore. However, some have noted that "those without self control cannot be trusted if they hold the switch". Some have also highlighted a problem where a user can simply stop the script's execution without much friction.
Overall, it's a fairly interesting setup, even if it's fairly rudimentary in nature. Configuring this physical block with a Kasa smart plug is fairly easy. You can simply download the script from the laptop-brick GitHub project here, install it, get the IP address of your smart plug, and then use it when you're executing the script. You can modify the blocklist using a dedicated file present inside the GitHub project.
4 Comments - Add comment