News: 1600778113

when I read these stories of the Internet of Shit devices.

I keep asking why any sane person would invest in these Obsolescencewarez

Mostly because they don't know until they get bit. Why some of my workmates in the tech industry are so keen is another matter.

Because your workmates in the tech industry personally benefit from the swindle?

At least they didn't take that too literally. When the subscription ends...

That joke was off the scale...

I hope it didn't weigh you down too much...

For any product "lifetime" always means the lifetime of the product, which is decided by the manufacturer/seller.

This bag-for-life has fallen apart. Can I have another?

No. It's the bag's life, not yours.

My father-in-law once had a lifetime subscription to a financial newsletter whose author was very explicit that it was for his lifetime, not yours. Eventually the author got cured of whatever cancer he had, so his lifetime was suddenly looking like it would be much longer than he'd anticipated, but he did keep writing it for a while after that.

I usually avoid these products like the plague preferring to diy it with a raspberry pi should the need occur. The only thing I do own is a fitbit and that's because I don't like the look of the cheap trackers out there. There should be consumer protections for this type of thing with an option that if the company goes under then the software is open sourced or it's moved to a serverless configuration.

Imagine if a tech company actually put routines in the software/firmware for when said company is no longer around and the servers are non-responsive. Planning for your own demise, if you will.

People do this all the time -- it's called "life insurance", "estate planning", "medical directives" and whatnot.

Do you mean like this:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/21/who_me/

or this:

https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/21/netgear_mandatory_registration_switches/

Fitbit is soonto become part of Google. Their track record for extended support is not very good.

"Adidas announced the discontinuation of key functionality from the Libra smart scale."

Just tell the consumers to leave their Libra scale connected to the internet.

The folks behind Mirai will be along soon enough to add functionality to the device they've never even heard of.

the revenue obtained from one-time purchases of its equipment proved insufficient to support long-term maintenance.

And does this really come as a surprise to anyone? About the only way it could work would be if it were a pyramid scheme, with ever-increasing numbers of purchasers funding the support for previous users.

by law all devices that depend on some server, that the purchaser does not control, should have PROMINENTLY marked that this is so AND the earliest date at which the server might be withdrawn.

Nice idea but it won't work, unless that law also binds the suppliers to legally continue to provide the service, even when acquired by another biz, with severe criminal penalties on the executive, board and directors of said supplier (and any future owners).

Without strong penalties, suppliers will always come up with all manner of perfectly plausible reasons why the service must be terminated early.

The same thing happened to the Jawbone fitness trackers, they still work if you have the original app on your phone from before the backend servers were closed down, but if you ever logout of the app, change phones or buy one new then you can't even create a new account anymore to use the app.

FYI there are still several of these being sold on ebay, flea markets etc for the unwary shoppers as 'fitness trackers' but in essence you a just buying a wrist band with some obsolete tech inside.

That's why I try and avoid tech that relies on the cloud, trouble is a lot of stuff doesn't make it clear there is a cloud component. Most such services are 'free' to use which I can't see as a business model as you have a growing data set to maintain for your 'customers' but at some point you stop selling them devices or upgrades and run out of money.

I currently have the Tado heating system, I'd be much happier if I could write my own system to control it or participate in an open source version. If they ever stop supporting it, it will no doubt need ripping out. Could fix some of the issues with it too. Perhaps that is the plan, force you to replace it every x years.

The average consumer is completely unaware something like this might happen, and could render their expensive internet connected fridge, TV, doorbell, etc. without the extra "smart" functionality they thought they were paying for, or in the worst case without any functionality at all.

I can't imagine there won't be some laws written before long to address this. Presumably in Europe, since they care about consumers at least a little. Unlike the US where any whiny owners will be told "buyer beware" and we should put our full trust in the free market to magically solve this problem for us.

Adobe subscription services has been down for more than 3 hours.

Subscription service is down. Try refreshing the browser or go to status.adobe.com and submit the request again.

Apple is having intermittent outages on some services.

Perhaps it is catching?

It's not reliable. You have to be able to control it locally. Also if you want reliable kit buy from companies that have been in business at least 5 years or that follow standards such as ZWave or others. Lot's of companies come up with a home control product and think it will be amazing. Only to find out that people are not interested in buying it. It then get's dumped. Leaving owners out of luck.

If it relies on the cloud, you will be rained on and service will be washed away.

If you do not own it you do not control it, do not rely on it, ever.

My home heating has a temperature controller thin, (thermostat to me) plus room controller things that date back to the last century. No issues at all and no clouds in sight.

Agreed while I am connected to the cloud and enjoy the features. I can also unplug the net and still control things. Also I use a company that has been doing this for decades and has protocol information available. Even so it's always a risk, you just have to plan for and manage it.

I'll take the 14 week old custard in the back yard before i touch these,

"The problem with most IoT products isn't necessarily that they rely on back-end servers to run. It's that, for the most part, it's impossible to perceive the trajectory of a given company."

It's possible to make a reasonable estimate:

Does the operation of the server rely on continuing subscriptions?

If so then if the subscription operation is profitable it's likely to continue.

If not does it rely on the user as product?

If so then is that profitable? There are relatively few businesses that have succeeded. Even the past master at that model, Google, has a habit of discontinuing services. If it isn't profitable expect it to be shut down.

If it doesn't rely on a subscription or on user as product does it have some other income model?

If so, examine it carefully for credibility.

If not does it rely on burning through investors' money to run it?

If so expect it to be shut down once that's all burned.

If not it's dependent on sales of devices to keep it going. Once those fall off expect it to be shut down.