If it needs someone’s cloud servers to function, you don’t really own it.
We need consumer protections here, though.
Like 10 year money back guarantee or something. If the device becomes unusable due to actions outside of the device owners control, those in control should be obligated to reimburse.
Not doing so opens the doors to racketeering.
I mean I haven’t seen it yet but for a simple example, imagine a Netflix competitor that says you just buy the device for $5,000. One time purchase. Free ad-free tv forever.
Let’s say they get enough subscribers purchasers to profit by year 3.
Okay. Rug pull. Chapter 11. Sorry bye, thanks for all the fish.
I don’t think we need to set a global minimum date, but the manufacturer should have to put a date on the box. If they don’t support the device up to that date (including security updates and maintaining any required cloud services) then the consumer gets a full refund with possibly additional damages.
I think of it like the digital version of a nutrition facts table.
Good idea. If we do this and also add some sort of positive label on devices that work locally and are interoperable it might start a positive feedback loop: More people become aware of the issue or simply want the device with the better label when choosing in a store, leading to more manufacturers producing more devices that aren’t cloud-dependent.
Right now I often see the opposite happening: Manufacturers who don’t even put on their packaging that their system is really just Zigbee under the hood for example.
I vote for forced open sourcing of the server side components and communication protocols. That way people can create custom firmware or build support into generic NVRs
Most customers would not be able to take advantage of this because they lack the skills to do so.
This is a good place to plug* Home Assistant .
That combined with Thread/Matter ensures I own my own stuff, and they don’t need to report to the cloud.
It’s still a little rough around the edges, but I’d rather deal with the frustrations of bleeding edge open source than to just have tech I’ve built into my house expire at some company’s whim.
Check out some screenshots of home assistant dashboards.
* This is not an for profit advertisement. It’s all open standards, and you don’t have to give anyone a dime that you don’t want to. The whole point of this is to avoid vendor lock in and data collection. And to have your stuff keep working without internet.
Yeah.
This is why I bought myself some blink cameras. Obviously, privacy is shit (and I’ve factored this) and you’re affectively forced to pay for use their cloud service, but at least the (initial) purchase price is cheap.
But I’ve ‘bought’ cameras for far more, only for them to hobble functionality a few years down the line. And they’ve had vulnerabilities or whatever.
For the sensitive stuff, I have a camera with an SD card, but obviously phone notifications is a big selling point of systems like this.
Yea… My current home automation is all local, but cameras are still an issue.
I’ve got 3 cameras running on a vlan, with no access to the internet.
Frigate / Home Assistant + tail scale (want to move away from this service) let me see my cameras remotely, receive notifications from events and even look at events / stills on my watch.
I have some cheap 5mp Reolink camseras, not the best for frigate but get the job done.
https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9257288?hl=en
Not only are they dropping support for it and unless someone figures out how to hack you just throw it away. But don’t worry, they won’t automatically cancel your subscription… that function keeps working.
If buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing. [yes, from the same guy who gave us “enshittification”]
I’d heard and used both phrases before but didn’t realize they had the same author. Coincidentally, I recently reread one of his books, Little Brother, also by chance of reading about it on a Lemmy comment.
It’s no surprise the author of that book has these views. I think I’ll read more of his work.
He is currently featured in a Humble Bundle, so if you read digital books (I use a tablet, my wife a ebook reader, but you can also use a phone or laptop) then you can get many of his books cheaply (without DRM, of course).
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books
recommend Walkaway (completely unrelated to the subreddit, they went in a very … *cough* different direction)
We need laws about refunds when they pull this kind of bullshit.
Or laws they have to make devices have a open API before shutting down servers.
This reminds me of how Google handled the stadia shutdown. Now many controllers have got a second life thanks to the option to enable bluetooth.
Still a limited time window for you to update the firmware before they got bricked.
“[Google] will give users an exclusive offer for a Self Setup System from ADT on us (up to $485 value) or $200 to use on the Google Store.”
They also were pretty cool when shutting down stadia, full refunds and you keep the hardware.
I kind of understand that they can’t offer the cloud service forever - that’s OK, but I’d like there to be a local option then
There’s just no way mailing electronic devices to Congress would (rightfully) result in visits from several armed FBI agents.
Just returned 2 Eufy cameras because the company claims ownership of my video streams and won’t allow me access to those streams. Their website conveniently hides the fact that almost all of their cameras are locked to their base station or their cloud, and makes it look like the streams are readily accessible. Ultimately that means Eufy can pull the plug at any time.
Many people got wise to the printer ink racket, they’ll eventually figure out these cloud services are to be avoided too.
I got burned by MyQ garage doors and JuiceBox EV chargers doing a rug pull on their cloud platform.
Never buying another piece of smart home gear that doesn’t give full local control.
Look into ratgdo if your willing to DIY. Konnected is just about to release a version of the same. More costly but konnected actually has customer service.
Opengarage is also great. You just wire it into the same ports as your garage door button and you can then connect to it via its wifi app or home assistant. Works like a champ for $50.
Same folks that did opensprinkler.
