This is why it’s a great idea to refuse to install everything that’s possible, including smart switches, cameras, lights etc. that rely on the good will of some company to keep running.
Honeywell wifi thermostats worked great until they didn’t. Now their servers are often slow or down. TCP-Link smart bulbs reset regularly if their Internet access is blocked because TCP-Link desperately needs to keep track of when everyone’s lights are on and off. Plex wants us to log into their servers to watch content we’re hosting ourselves. Too bad if their servers are down. Security camera companies have been disabling local storage options without warning for years.
Logitech actually planned to introduce a subscription mouse. Hopefully at some point people will get sick of this shit, refuse to put up with it and their sales will tank.
Plex wants us to log into their servers to watch content we’re hosting ourselves.
I hate Plex as much as the next Jellyfin user but you can just whitelist your local network, although people who understand that aren’t the target audience are they? …
I didn’t get that far. When they demanded I log in I just removed it. Jellyfin is working OK without having to figure out how to bypass defaults.
Not to be pedantic, but you mean TP-Link (Kasa) smart lights right? I have these but haven’t bothered to block any sort of telemetry with my adguard home server. I see several domains queried that match .tplink.com but I wouldn’t want to reduce functionality as you mentioned
Yes. I had them blocked via my firewall because of the constant traffic they generated and blocking Internet access causes constant bulb resets. The resets are known to TP-Link and according to a couple of sources they created a private firmware release that fixed it. TP-Link failed to publically release that firmware, and last time I checked deny it ever existed. I replaced the bulbs with 3rd Reality Zigbee bulbs that work perfectly.
This is why it’s a great idea to refuse to install everything that’s possible, including smart switches, cameras, lights etc. that rely on the good will of some company to keep running.
Even then you can get fucked over. I’ve used Hue smart lights for years, and back when I bought them, you didn’t need an account to use them, just an app and network connection. Years later, they forced an online login for the app, requiring you to be online to interface with the bulbs. You can kind of work around it with Home Assistant, but you still need the account now to add the bulbs, and I don’t think scenes work without an account either now.
When I was in the market for bulbs Hue was just starting that BS. They lost that sale and I’ve been in the process of removing network access for everything possible and severely restricting it when not. My old Honeywell wifi thermostat is gone, smart appliances are disconnected from wifi, and TVs are blocked by my firewall when they aren’t actually being used. Next up, Graphene OS.
Sometimes I’d like to move to a tropical island with no news or Internet at all.
I want to move to a cabin in the mountains near the ocean. Maybe the northern fjords of scandinavia. Somewhere cold. Fuck sitting still and sweating. But otherwise I’m on board with this idea too. lol
But you can buy a 10-20€ zigbee stick and connect them directly to home assistant. No hue bridge or account required.
I have a Zigbee antenna. Will have to double check. I’m pretty sure the lights work with the antenna, but scenes are only possible if you’ve integrated them (generally via hue through something like Homekit).
Zigbee2mqtt can do scenes, no problem.
The only thing you miss is the hue app.
I don’t get it. Little “drivers” that provide functionality, and then the ability to link button presses to those drivers. And I guess some meta knowledge of ports, standard addresses?
Where is the “requirement” for edge computing? Where is the need for their continuous services?
I thought that most companies doing this at least tacked on extraneous features that then justified their subscription. You’re supposed to pretend it’s necessary! Did they skip that step?
See it’s shit like this that makes me want to set up a trebuchet just out of line of sight of their corporate HQ and return the bricked hardware with prejudice.
Unfortunately, Logitech ended support for their T1432 modal trebuchet last year.
Looking forward to Louis Rossmann’s inevitable video on this.
I read the title as "Logitech will bring new smart home buttons on October 15” and I thought “hmm new proprietary iot shit, I wonder when they’re going to brick them”
That’s why I never went serious into home automation. Because any affordable system is based on cloud shit beyond my control. Cloud goes belly-up, and thousands invested ins such a system are suddenly scrap? Not with me.
You didn’t look very hard.
Cheap zigbee stuff exists everywhere. And zigbee is an open standard, so if it works, it will work until the equipment breaks.
Yes, but a lot of ZigBee stuff ends up in environments that use a cloud-connected “smart” hub.
And that’s the fault of whoever uses those hubs. You can use practically any zigbee hub you wish. Zigbee is zigbee.
That’s always how this rug pull works. Build a dependency than when it’s. It making you rich, kill everything that has that dependency.
I wonder if these could just be flashed with something that uses MQTT.
That’s the reason why I never buy a smart device I don’t control.
That’s any smart device. Unless you’re the one.doimg the updates.yoirself, they will all become obsolete as technology evolves. This is the case here too; sounds they just don’t have enough people using them to justify figuring out how to keep them working as new devices and platforms roll on. 9.5 years is an alright run, comparatively.
That’s exactly what I do. I also have IoT devices that are still trucking along a decade later. I fully expect them to likely do a decade more.
Both Tasmota and ESPhome provide open source firmware for many IoT devices. They throw up a local API interface that other systems can talk to. Providing legacy support is as hard as using HTML put and get commands.
Not true, zwave and ZigBee are not required to use the manufacturers apps and you can setup a home assistant server on a raspberry pi in about 20 minutes and never worry about planned obsolescence like this. This is why I never buy WiFi only smart devices that need internet access and an account on an app to control.
9.5 years is ancient in smart home devices.
Though, any company that stops supporting a device should be legally required to open source all dependencies required to operate it, or provide a full refund.
9.5 years is ancient for smartphones, not for something that is supposed to work indefinitely like a switch
Also, that time is the best case scenario. When they stopped selling those switches? 3 years ago? Unless they discontinued them almost immediately after launch, there are customers with a much shorter timeframe
@WhatAmLemmy @saltesc I think the handed over Squeezebox when deciding they’d done enough squeezing?
It’s a switch, there shouldn’t be anything to go obsolete.
It’s the smart part that goes obsolete.
I have two Yale Zwave locks that are at least 11 years old and still kicking. The key factor to this is the non reliance on the cloud.
Zigbee, Zwave, Esphome and other non-cloud will always work longer than any cloud based solution that is at risk of being shutdown, use a outdated or no longer available app, become a subscription, etc.
I agree with you that they should be required by law to open their code and unlock the devices but I doubt this will happen any time soon.
We absolutely need this to be illegal. The discount coupon they offered to customer ws insulting.
9.5 years is ancient in smart home devices.
Note to self. Don’t buy smart devices. 9.5 years is like a sneeze to me. I still have a Nintendo NES from the late 1980s still in working order. I mean, I modded the video out, and replaced the pin connector. But it works.
Except for a fairly tiny niche community of users still using them for nostalgia reasons, the NES is absolutely also ancient and obsolete in every way and has been for several decades.
Is it? It still works while so-called newer/better technology goes to the landfill within years.
Yes it is, because the HW is completely unnecessary, you can emulate it perfectly on a potato. It only serves a nostalgic purpose, which is also fine, but in all other aspects it is completely obsolete.
emulate it perfectly
This is a far stronger claim than any of the developers for these emulators claim.
9.5 years is pretty good if you think of it as tech, but the problem is that smart home products are often home appliances. Some are even home fixtures. So yeah people feel cheated when something like a light switch gets dropped from service or demands a subscription
Just because it’s a “smart” service doesn’t mean it has to connect to the Internet or a server or the manufacturer. If it does neither, it can’t be turned off by them.
All my devices run local-only protocols. Nothing leaves my house. The devices that would be proprietary were reflashed to tasmota (fully open source, local only). Others are either Zigbee or Shelly. While Shelly has a cloud connection, it’s fully optional and disabled by default (including automatic updates). The hardware is also supported by tasmota, and reflashing is always just 5 minutes of effort away.
There is absolutely nothing that any manufacturer has to do to keep my stuff working. I have to do a little something (keep my tiny server on, basically). But more importantly there is nothing any manufacturer can do to stop my stuff from working.
Thats what I did for 10 years.
To get my wife or parents or kids to use these often hacky and clunkier UIs was pain. I eased up and decided not to care. All iot shit are now in their own vlan with only :443 outboud allowed and I have integrated them to hassio. If my wife wants to use those million different cloud apps, I install those for her.
Decided just not to care.
Mine are of course also on a VLan but with no Internet access unless they need it for everyday operation (like a radio, or the amplifier that can play Spotify).
We don’t use the manufacturer apps at all. Everything is integrated into (fully local) home assistant. No need to open a specific app to operate a switch, or a light. Everything in one place. Trivial and incredibly clear. Things that can be are of course automated.
It’s one thing to become obsolete because a new technology appears. It’s another thing for the rug to pulled from under you. You can still use old tech just fine, but not if the publisher decides to brick all your devices.
Depends on your definition of "smart’ I guess. ZigBee stuff like buttons and the like probably won’t become obsolete for a long time. I guess you could argue that ZigBee protocol updates could eventually brick them though. Good thing a lot of it is open source
The trick is to buy reasonably open devices, then provide the smarts yourself.
If it can talk to / be configured by HomeAssistant, and doesn’t require internet to work, it’ll probably be fine.
Who needs any of this digital feces? Not want, but need? I don’t have a single problem that can be solved with technology these days.
I mean your on the internet.
*you’re
And the internet was once simply a handful of interconnected university mainframes transferring text. What are we doing right now?
*beans
And those mainframes once had my dick in it.
Explains the smell.
how many times does logitech specifically, and these companies in general, have to do this before idiots stop buying this shit?
There need to be strong regulations to prevent this sort of Ewaste. As long as companies can get away with this they will.
And no, voting with your pocket book isn’t going to change their behavior.
if idiots stop buying this shit, they wont keep making it.
the problem is the idiots keep buying
Blaming consumers for the behavior of corporations is a fallacy of capitalism… consumers act in their best interests, not necessary in everyone’s best interests, so we all suffer if everyone does that.
if consumers acted in their best interest, none of this shit would exist.
Oh yes, advertising doesn’t work, which is why it’s fucking everywhere
Only people that dont want to blame the consumers for buying the shit… are the idiots that buy the shit, which is why they get so incensed when you argue that landfill shovel shit wont stop being sold until they stop buying it.
Stop buying shit, and companies will stop dumping billions into its R&D and advertising. They’re not doing that shit to waste money, They’re doing that to sell products… and if you stop buying it, they’ll stop making it.
Well all I got to say is you live up to your user name very well.
Yes, this is all self-evident to anyone who recognizes overconsumption and premature or planned obsolescence.
My point is that advertising and other misinformation makes it extremely difficult for the average person to make rational decisions about technical issues when making purchases, so blame lies much more with companies, governments, and culture than the teeming hordes you look smugly down on.
That doesn’t work. The amount of research people need to do to get enough information which product can currently just be shut down by the manufacturer is crazy…also it doesn’t matter: the corps can just change the contract afterwards and you loose access to the features anyway…it needs regulations to stop this.
Only person that thinks reading the packaging is a mountain of effort, is the kind of lazy person who buys stupid home automation devices to avoid walking five feet to turn off a lightbulb.
No, this requires regulations to prevent massive amounts of Ewaste. Consumers can’t change this behavior.
Like right to repair or privacy. We need real regulations. Corporations are too big and powerful and even something like choice has been turned into choosing which shitty corp you want to buy from.
You know how the US government has 3 branches that are supposed to check and balance each other? We should teach that Corporations, Government, and Individuals/Unions operate similarly.
Corporate terms of service check individuals against abusing others. So do government laws.
Government is supposed to check corporations from abusing their customers. And customer boycotts moderate corporate behavior.
And corporations… Apparently moderate the flow of information to individuals so the companies always manufacture consent. And lobby for their own advantage.
If nothing else, by describing how it is, we can have a real conversation about how fucked/okay all of this is, and examine what parts of this framework are actually functioning.
And in that, we can explore where Unions fit - as 3rd party bosses steeped in corruption, or as genuine representatives of their people. And explore how to rebound in just the one context, because we are good citizens. 😇😅😉
Are you buying these u/a_random_idiot? /Jk
Honestly though how are consumers supposed to know which ones will be a bust and which ones won’t?
Very simple.
Does the product say requires an internet connection? Does it say on the packaging that it requires an app to use? Do you get home and find out it needs those things despite the packaging not saying it?
Then don’t buy it/Return it.
Its not that hard to avoid falling into this pit. But I guess if you are too lazy to walk the five feet to turn your living room lights off, maybe you’re too lazy to actually read anything… and if you’re that lazy, then I dont give a fuck about how you get screwed.
Worse is those things CAN change. Do it require an Internet connection? No, but this update does so you better hope you have it firewalled right. Does it need an app? No, but this update does. Easy never update right? … Now you have an unpatchable hard coded device on your network. What could go wrong?
It changed after 90 days? Whomp whomp no returns. You could fight the legal battle with the mutlicolgerate to get it refunded by the manufacturer. That will be painless to do with the thing you have hardwired into your house…
Listen I get you, I look at opensource firm for a given product type first THEN buy off of that, even that requires added research if there is a server componet (smart vaccums create maps of various types).
Easist option is to do nothing, but that does suck. Day to day chores suck a little, when you are disabled its a massive suck. Listen if your full of piss and vinigar, spry and full of energy, go install automation for charity for seniors and the disabled. They can really use the help.
While I agree that something needs to be done, stronger regulations will just be in an added requirement for the development of these devices, which will make it more expensive.
You can’t have fast development, cheap things, and longevity. Companies will not invest in making those products because they’ll be out of business by the time their market is saturated.
That’s the point. If your business has to create a mountain of un-recyclable trash in order to thrive, it should absolutely fail.
There has to be some sort of reasonable balance between new developments and longevity.
Asking any engineer for a device that’s near indestructible but will continue to have software updates for 10 years is a hard ask.
For a lot of devices right to repair would work just fine. Being able to swap out battery extends the life of most cell phones. But it’s an unreasonable request for that cell phone, for example, to be able to be supported for 10 years worth of software updates.
It will slow the development cycle for a lot of devices down quite a bit. Which honestly is fine. I feel like a lot of products have reached maturity, and companies are reinventing them just for the sake of reinventing them and selling a “new” product with a new battery. I’m looking at you, Apple.
The problem with determining what is an acceptable lifecycle for a product is that there will be no one left to support the product in 10 years if the company folds in the meantime. It is a significant drag on companies to support legacy products while also innovating and creating new products. It’s just a fact a fact.
And from a consumer perspective, If you want cool, new fancy, shiny shit every year and for it to be reliable and last for 10 years, it’s just not gonna happen. We have been trained To buy new shit every year and desire that new shiny upgrade Without understanding that we’re getting cheap shitty products for a premium.
Your $100” iPhone is now going to become a $3000 iPhone that lasts for five years instead of two. Tell me how that’s a win for anybody?
Right to repair is not about demanding unlimited software support it is saying we want access to the API so we can do our own support if we choose to.
It is about designing products that can be repairable and providing the means to do so. Regulations will be required to do this because a big part relies on standardization of parts.
This is because we can’t expect manufacturers to continuously supply parts. That is unrealistic. On the other hand, if you require standardized parts then it becomes repairable without the burden on the manufacturer.
I mean it doesn’t have to have updates for 10 years but why are they bricking them?
They’re creating artificial demand And capitalizing on it to sell you a new phone and power, charger and accessories, and all kinds of other crap.
I see your point. I would like to add that you probably can’t ever have fast or cheap without negative externalities. I think this is the missing part of the equation that perverts these systems and produces the garbage results we have to deal with like ewaste.
Unregulated capitalism seems to thrive by externalizing as many costs as possible. So we end up with a systems that ignores the environmental and social costs.
You don’t even have to, squeezebox owners never got a choice. It was cool that a hacker community built it even better after logi abandoned it 😁
Ive hated logitech for a while. Looks like my opinion of them wont be changing any time soon. I get no longer supporting products, but bricking them? And then giving a 15% off coupon for some products that they could later brick as well? Youd have to be a right fucking mug to buy anything logitech after this.
Nest bricked my security system (after magically installing Assistant on it [oh by the way it has an undocumented microphone]), at least they gave you $100… in gift cards to the fucking google store. Logitech isn’t even that smart.
Can’t brick my G500 and my Z5500s. Best in class, approaching decades old at this point.
But as with every company, profits over quality. Fuck em.
I had the Z680s, they were amazing. Easily had them for like 15 years or something
They did the same with their universal remotes. Fucking dead in this housre
At least you can still program those remotes though. Mine is still going strong after many years.
Guess again, we have a 525
I get no longer supporting products, but bricking them?
I think what’s happening in the background here is these “Internet of Trash” devices hook to cloud infrastructure for which the business no longer wants to pay.
If they were interested in actually building something useful, they would open up their API layers and add a way to link them to different services. But since they don’t give a fuck about you as a customer, they plan poorly as a business, and they have no ability to produce well-engineered software, instead they code everything so that it is hopelessly coupled (probably through hard-coded things up to and including certificates) with specific garbage they made, make it impossible to move to anything else, and then brick your shit.
Fine then it’s easy everything has to have a local API. One of the reasons I got an ecobee thermostat is the local control through homekit.
Logitech used actually be good at this. Look at their squeezebox software and Logitech media server, they were open sourced, released to the public and are still under active development and in widespread use.
So not further developed, but remotely turning them off because the Logitech board members each want a new yacht? Never again Logitech, your company is poison to me, my family, and my friends now.
And this is why i stick with Z-Wave/Insteon/etc. I have a local hardware controller that doesn’t have to be connected to the internet to work. It can be cloud controlled remotely, but if their service shut down tomorrow, it’d still be fully functional locally or if I exposed the server endpoint myself.
I don’t have one, but maybe sue for source code?
