[HN Gopher] Motorcycle airbag vest will stop working if you miss...
___________________________________________________________________
Motorcycle airbag vest will stop working if you miss a payment
Author : elliekelly
Score : 131 points
Date : 2021-05-05 19:37 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| FpUser wrote:
| I think they're up for a big trouble as soon as somebody dies /
| gets injured and the lawsuit comes.
|
| And in this case I wish they get punished to oblivion. Something
| in this way of selling does not add up in my brain from the
| ethics point of view.
| dharmab wrote:
| Note that you have the option of purchasing the vest outright,
| and there's also a purchase option if you subscribe for 3 years,
| similar to a lease.
|
| In conclusion, buy a Helite Turtle. Fully offline, no
| electronics, and user-refillable with simple CO2 cartridges.
|
| Fortnine did a great video surverying motorcycle airbag tech:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2jZryt607U
| nexuist wrote:
| No electronics? How does it detect crashes?
| dharmab wrote:
| It uses a calibrated tether from the rider to the bike. If
| the tether detaches, a valve is opened that inflates the
| vest. The tether is strong enough that it won't activate by
| accident but weak enough to activate in a get-off crash.
| kristofferR wrote:
| The Helite e-Turtle is probably a better choice for those who
| aren't trying to save money.
|
| You still get the same great west with user-refillable
| cartridges, just a quicker response and no tether. The only
| downside (apart from the increased cost) is the charging
| process. The fork sensor is also really neat.
|
| Regardless of if you go for a tether-Turtle or a e-Turtle
| though, it's a vastly better west than the one this article
| talks about. Nevermind the horrific subscription model, it also
| provides way less protection than a Turtle (which inflates and
| limits head/neck movement, vital in a crash).
| akomtu wrote:
| Well, IoT is just an amplifier and enabler of the rich people's
| desires. If they were good, their goodness would radiate thru
| this new IoT channel, but our society is still immature, it
| promotes sociopaths to the top and so their greed and evilness
| floods over the IoT gates.
| liendolucas wrote:
| They deserve to go bankrupt. For sure you can get for 800 bucks a
| more than decent motorcycle protective jacket than this joke.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| What worries me more is all the complex interactions required to
| make this work. The ability to remotely disable a safety system
| due to non-payment means that all the components in the payment
| chain are now potentially safety-critical. I wonder how
| Apple/Google pay engineers feel about that.
|
| Edit: And this may remain true even _if_ the rider chooses the
| one-time payment option. Depending on implementation, bugs, etc.
| pcl wrote:
| I think I'd be more ok with this if you couldn't actually put the
| vest on when it's been bricked. I understand the allure of the
| subscription model, but if I put on a piece of safety equipment,
| I think I should be able to expect it to work.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| There's not a jury in the world that would not pave this company
| flat when the first death occurs because the rider missed a
| payment. (Or more likely because the rider kept up with the
| payments but the Internet-of-Shit software screwed up.)
| dahart wrote:
| This is a little bit of click-bait, and the incredulity and
| pitchforks are over-reacting. The title & article were designed
| to stoke fears. It's a payment plan, just like anything else we
| finance, houses, cars, motorcycles. Failure to pay normally means
| you lose the thing outright, at least in this case you keep the
| vest and have the option to resume the payment plan.
|
| They explain clearly that you won't accidentally die, because it
| will be obvious when you put it on and try to turn on the power.
|
| Notice that the advantages of their financing plan actually
| address a bunch of things that people complain about wrt software
| subscriptions:
|
| - Spread out the spending
|
| - Make the initial price cheaper
|
| - _Stop payments when not in use_ (!)
|
| - Upgrades over time
|
| - Buyout option after three years
|
| In terms of rent-seeking subscription models, this one is _way_
| better than most of the stuff on the internet, I hope more
| subscriptions take note of this kind of pricing. And it 's making
| a motorcycle airbag more accessible to riders, that's a good
| thing too.
| bhupy wrote:
| I don't necessarily disagree with your perspective here, it
| makes sense. That being said, with payment plans, there's
| typically some notion of an interest rate. If you miss a
| payment, you "just" owe the compounding interest (eventually).
|
| Typically, rates are regulated, and even when it's not
| regulated, usury is _highly_ frowned upon.
|
| Taking your analogy to its conclusion, the "interest rate" for
| nonpayment here could potentially be outright death when the
| thing in question stops working. It's hard to put a dollar
| value on a human life, but that's a hell of an interest rate!
| dahart wrote:
| It doesn't stop working while you're riding, that's just
| hyperbole stirred up by this headline. This is not a safety
| issue, nor is this unreasonable "usury".
|
| Just like any financing plan in existence, the interest rate
| here is that the total cost of ownership is higher on the
| payment plan than on the alternative pay-up-front plan they
| offer. The benefit of the payment plan is you can start for
| less money. The unusual feature of this payment plan compared
| to your house, car, or credit cards is you get to pause
| and/or cancel it with no penalties.
| bhupy wrote:
| Yeah that's fair.
| jowsie wrote:
| If you're in the market for a Motorcycle Airbag, this is worth a
| watch. https://youtu.be/N2jZryt607U
|
| If you don't wanna watch, the Helite Turtle range seem to be the
| best way to go.
| tyrex2017 wrote:
| thank you!
| motohagiography wrote:
| Now do insulin...ah, too late.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I wonder how long the subscribe process is. If it's measured in
| milliseconds you could use an accelerometer to detect an impact
| and subscribe mid-crash. JIT airbagging.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| High frequency trading tech finds a new field.
| t-writescode wrote:
| How can I trust that something like this has gone through the
| appropriate, rigorous level of critical systems testing to keep
| me alive if it's using a phone-home, bluetooth app to make logic
| decisions?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I want to know the engineers' names that signed off on this
| design.
| dharmab wrote:
| Oh man, wait until you find out about motorcycle helmets!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUyp3HX8cY
| t-writescode wrote:
| This is completely different.
|
| A helmet is a piece of physical equipment that uses the
| physical properties of its ingredients and the structure of
| that equipment to operate.
|
| There is no logic in a helmet that impacts its safety
| feature.
|
| This is a jacket that can, in software, decide to not do what
| it's designed to do.
| Dan_JiuJitsu wrote:
| Um no. This absolutely precludes purchasing this shit.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Serious question: how likely is this to stand up to regulatory
| scrutiny? Given that they seem to be incorporated in the US and
| the EU, if a rider dies because the vest didn't inflate and, say,
| their family sues the company, is the company likely to fold into
| oblivion so no one tries this dumb stunt again?
|
| If I remember correctly, this was what led to auto safety
| features in the first place (IE Nader's Unsafe At Any Speed).
| heavyset_go wrote:
| In the US, the regulatory car is on fire and there's no driver
| at the wheel.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| This is wild. It's the most Snow Crash nonsense I've ever seen.
| awhitby wrote:
| I agree this feels pretty questionable, but if you take that
| view, you should ask yourself how you feel about the Garmin
| inReach Mini [1] (and possibly other devices in that family).
| It's an emergency satellite SOS device for outdoor recreation,
| with a monthly subscription option--and many features beyond pure
| SOS. When the subscription is suspended though, the SOS
| functionality will not work (unlike, say, a cellphone).
|
| And yet it is--from my observation--an incredibly popular device,
| and I would bet that the start/stop monthly plan is the most
| popular (it's the one I use).
|
| Obvious one difference is that here you get something for your
| monthly subscription (maintenance of the Iridium network, an
| emergency response center, etc). But given the incredibly low
| rate of people pushing the SOS button, the relatively low cost of
| that happening (it's not like they actually mount the search and
| rescue, they just pass on a message), and the incredibly high
| benefits, how different is it really?
|
| [1] https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/592606
| SergeAx wrote:
| Fire extinguishers are next.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| the CO2 leash style ones are better for most people anyway.
| Unless you're spending a LOT of time on the track, you want this:
| https://www.hit-air.com/en/motorcycle/ which i prefer over the
| helite because it has an even more aggressive cervical collar.
|
| I'm very comfortable with my Aerostitch as an overall protective
| garment, but I really want a neck collar too. That this is more
| or less a RADiKS Kourier onesie is not coincidental.
| trainsplanes wrote:
| We're rapidly approaching an Ubik-like future where every object
| demands payment before use.
|
| Maybe the idea of paying to open a fridge or unlock a door wasn't
| just a silly sci-fi concept--maybe the wrong person just hasn't
| considered doing such a thing yet.
| tyrex2017 wrote:
| Maybe they say this to incentivize subscribers to continue paying
|
| Meanwhile, it will work always anyway. Thats how I would build it
| xg15 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this is illegal at least in Germany. Also:
|
| > _at some point, if a person stops paying for a service, that
| service has to be suspended_
|
| What the fuck is the "service" here?
|
| If the whole point of IoT was at the end that you can now declare
| "not actively making things worse" a service and have a working
| business model, I think we can now officially declare this trend
| a net negative on living quality.
| r00fus wrote:
| It's not like IoT was destined for anything else as long as
| businesses are allowed (nay, rewarded) to pull that kind of
| shit.
| bhupy wrote:
| > nay, rewarded
|
| Really? I see a low hanging fruit opportunity to get rich:
| manufacture and sell the same motorcycle vest and sell it at
| an upfront cost equal to some approximate amortization of
| monthly payments over some average LTV.
|
| As a motorcycle rider, I currently have like 10+ different
| options for motorcycle jackets.
| vr46 wrote:
| Also as a motorcycle rider, the whole notion of life-saving
| protection and safety being a "service" suggests that the
| thing is too complicated to work 100% of the time, with no
| fail-safe option, and therefore cannot be trusted at any
| cost. Protective devices need 100% uptime.
| bhupy wrote:
| Agreed, it doesn't seem like this would even need to be a
| "service", at least in the sense that the core
| functionality of "inflating" can entirely be serviced
| offline/locally on the jacket.
|
| There's so much wrong with the implementation here, and
| it looks like a bright flashing opportunity for someone
| to provide a simpler/saner/cheaper alternative and make a
| quick buck.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| If instead of disabling the airbag, they simply
| repossessed the whole jacket, nobody would give a rat's
| ass. That's called a rental and it's a legitimate
| business model (though not one that I'd ever take for
| lifesaving equipment).
|
| Instead, they intentionally added failure modes to their
| equipment - Making it worse even for customers that
| bought it up front, because now that code is hanging out
| and may be accidentally activated.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Or purposefully.
| vr46 wrote:
| It looks like they got the marketing badly wrong, because
| we should be talking about how clever the bag is etc, but
| instead we don't give a monkey's. Gah. MotoGP has
| mandatory airbag suits, with accelerometers and gyros.
| Racing is obviously different, there's no cars and trucks
| to run you over, but top speeds are completely insane, so
| the tech might well translate over to the road.
| bhupy wrote:
| It appears their bet was that by having the upfront cost
| be discounted and making the money back in "service"
| payments, they increase access to those that might
| otherwise not be comfortable footing the high upfront
| cost. The product isn't a motorcycle jacket, it's a
| financial instrument with life-and-death usury rates. In
| some sense, it's probably impossible to market a product
| like this well.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > it's probably impossible to market a product like this
| well.
|
| At the right price, with 100% uptime, motorcycle airbags
| would be a monster hit product. I say that with
| confidence because as a motorcycle rider who is aware of
| the stats which tell me we risk death and serious injury
| 8X more than car drivers.
|
| I want a motorcycle airbag - at the right price and
| conditions.
|
| Who doesn't?
|
| And why don't they exist?
|
| What would be the cost to manufacture them at the rate of
| 500 million a year? That's the global market potential.
|
| p.s. Do motorcycle airbags actually work to significantly
| prevent injury and death? If the answer is that they
| aren't particularly efficacious anyway, even when ideally
| implemented, I can understand why they scarcely exist in
| the market.
| bhupy wrote:
| > What would be the cost to manufacture them at the rate
| of 500 million a year? That's the global market
| potential.
|
| Completely agreed. The fact that there's one bad product
| on the market doesn't mean that one can conclude that our
| system _rewards_ bad products, per the GGP comment.
|
| > p.s. Do motorcycle airbags actually work to
| significantly prevent injury and death? If the answer is
| that they aren't particularly efficacious anyway, even
| when ideally implemented, I can understand why they
| scarcely exist in the market.
|
| Probably not! I think time will tell.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I can't wait for them to offer "low latency impact
| protection".
| jacquesm wrote:
| Exactly.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Really? I see a low hanging fruit opportunity to get
| rich: manufacture and sell the same motorcycle vest and
| sell it at an upfront cost equal to some approximate
| amortization of monthly payments over some average LTV._
|
| The same company sells the same vest for twice the price
| without the subscription.
|
| However, that doesn't help the people who bought a vest
| that locks them out of necessary safety features, nor does
| it help the rest of the market when a business poisons the
| well like this.
| seriousquestion wrote:
| The SaaS of the future; Safety as a Service
| lamp987 wrote:
| "I think we can now officially declare this trend a net
| negative on living quality."
|
| +1
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The service is that they get an $800 vest for $400 + $12/mo.
| Providing a subsidized device when the full retail prices may
| otherwise dissuade non-frequent motorists doesn't seem evil to
| me. Some people only ride a 2-3 months a year with ideal
| weather. So providing this service lets them use the device for
| 10+ years before they finally catch up with the cost of buying
| it outright at year 0.
| liendolucas wrote:
| I'd understand your point IF you were renting the vest for a
| limited time. But you are actually buying a product for which
| if you don't pay the subscription won't work. So if they want
| to keep this line of business the vests should be rented, not
| sold.
| ketralnis wrote:
| I have spotify plan that amex failures have cancelled twice
| in the last 10ish years. Emailing them to retry the charge
| works, I'm sure it's just random outages and it's never
| bothered me. But it's also never killed me before. That would
| be evil.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Per TFA they give you a 30day grace period if the card
| declines.
| bsder wrote:
| The problem is that, in this case, "Default Deny" can mean
| someone is dead.
|
| And, I would go further. This kind of "Default Deny" means
| that this system simply does not comply with the standards
| and practices that give you legal shielding and are normally
| required for "safety equipment". It's going to have a whole
| host of "failure modes" that normally wouldn't be present
| because it has to "deny" usage under certain cases.
|
| As such, they're going to lose a really large court case for
| very good reason.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Is there any safety equipment that leaves the manufacturer
| legally liable if the end user doesn't set up and activate
| the equipment properly? Is Honda responsible if my seatbelt
| doesn't work, because I didn't put it on?
|
| It's not like this airbag is a passive, always-ready
| device. You can't even just put it on and expect it to
| work. You need to actually turn it on too, and have the
| batteries charged. And if you turn it on and it says "NOT
| ACTIVE" or something like that, would anyone believe that
| the airbag was going to work?
| bsder wrote:
| Honda _would_ be liable if the passenger airbag doesn 't
| go off because the "passenger sensor" failed.
|
| The addition of the "passenger sensor" added extra
| failure modes that have to be managed and certified.
|
| Now, car manufacturers did this because people are stupid
| and put their children in car seats on the passenger side
| and Honda doesn't want to kill children.
|
| Nevertheless, you have to account for the failure modes
| and sign off on them. I can't imagine anyone with a PE
| signing off of this kind of fiasco. I'm sure you can find
| one _somewhere_ if you pay enough money, but man ...
| mijamo wrote:
| If the lower upfront cost is the only thing you want then
| there's no need for a subscription. Just have a financing
| option like businesses have been doing for decades. And if
| the person stops paying send it to sent recovery. It's a
| solved problem for a very long time.
|
| The only reason why you would want a subscription is to keep
| charging people even after they have paid the full price and
| interests, which is a super annoying and bad policy to have
| in the first place.
| dahart wrote:
| This _is_ just a financing option, they even call it a
| "lease plan" on the web page. The unusual and positive
| benefit here is it doesn't go to recovery, you get to keep
| it and just pick up and continue your payments later as if
| nothing happened. I wish all my financing plans offered
| that option!
|
| * I'm totally and utterly baffled by all the downvoting. It
| seems like many people did not check out the product's web
| page and are left with Vice's misleading interpretation.
|
| Here's the description I'm talking about, right from the
| product page: https://klimsitecontent.s3.amazonaws.com/cont
| entblocks/2021%...
|
| It says "Membership: Lease or Buy (No Subscription!)"
|
| Maybe they goofed by using the word "service" in the
| description, but this is just a financing plan. And it's
| not some kind of crazy safety issue where they shut it off
| while you ride, they appear to have designed it to prevent
| that.
|
| And it is, in fact, more lenient than my mortgage, my car
| payments, or my credit cards. I don't get to pause or
| cancel any of those without pretty severe repercussions.
| cortesoft wrote:
| Except what if the company has an outage and their
| license servers fail to respond? Or if there is an issue
| with their auto payment and they don't notice it get
| cancelled?
| dahart wrote:
| Then the vest won't turn on, and you'll know before you
| ride that it's not protecting you. It says that on the
| product page.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > This is just a financing option
|
| For $400? My whole non-IoT riding suit already cost
| $1200. My insurance costs $1200/year. Who is this
| financing option _for_, exactly?
| dahart wrote:
| People less rich than you? I don't know, but you can
| finance a $200 helmet too.
| https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/bell-mx-9-adventure-
| mips...
| toss1 wrote:
| You will not wish that if you took advantage of an
| unexpected nice day in the off season, got all geared up
| (but didn't remember to re-up your lease), and then
| crashed and your protective device failed, leaving you
| crippled, and contemplating that for the remainder of
| your life
|
| We could also celebrate the mafia-types who don't send
| debts to recovery, they just come by and break your knees
| if you don't pay -- hey, it's just a "you keep being able
| to walk as a service", and they never damage your credit
| score by sending it to collections!
| dahart wrote:
| > and then crashed and your protective device failed,
| leaving you crippled, and contemplating that for the
| remainder of your life
|
| Where did you get the idea that you wouldn't know it
| wasn't working before you ride? The vest notifies you
| before you ride, it signals that it does not engage the
| protection... even if you happened to miss the payment,
| and the grace period, and ignore all the notifications
| along the way.
|
| BTW, I am a very safety-conscious motorcycle rider, and I
| read both the article and KLIM's product page that the
| article links to. The fear that it will shut off and kill
| someone is the misleading impression that the Vice
| article left, but the product was specifically designed
| so that that can't happen.
| livinginfear wrote:
| As vile as this is, at least you can buy it outright. That puts
| it so far ahead of nearly the entire predatory SaaS ecosystem. I
| use Photoshop and Illustrator once a month. Still, for some
| strange reason I overpay to keep up an Adobe Creative Cloud
| subscription. Ideally I'd vote with my wallet and stop paying
| companies with such anti-consumer practices.
| sideshowb wrote:
| But if you buy outright does your product still need to contact
| the server to verify you bought it outright?
| g_p wrote:
| Has there been any suggestion as to what happens when the company
| behind this inevitably goes bankrupt (all companies will
| eventually fail) or is "acquired" and scuttled? Or they cease to
| desire to provide the API backend for the mobile app?
|
| It strikes me safety critical equipment is the one time when we
| don't want any kind of dependency on an external hosted service.
|
| As it stands right now, it seems like even a fully paid-up, owned
| outright version could cease to function if they lost control of
| their domain name?
|
| Am I correct in my understanding this product is tied to your
| phone to "call home" and validate its state? If so, doesn't that
| mean it's unusable without your phone being working, charged,
| non-stolen and non-broken? And the same for their servers. So you
| could in theory go on a journey protected, stop for a break, and
| find you can't continue your journey protected as you're out of
| signal, or something has broken?
|
| This feels like a good opportunity for a government to take a
| stance on safety products. At the very least they'll reduce the
| amount of eWaste when these stop working before the end of their
| useful life.
| mcguire wrote:
| A general question: what evidence is there that airbag vests
| help?
| horstmeyer wrote:
| Just watch this. Should be all the evidence you need.
|
| https://youtu.be/6nOwDAel38g
| samatman wrote:
| Is this something we need evidence for?
|
| A question I would understand is something like "is there a
| good study on _how much_ an airbag vest helps? ".
|
| But especially the kind with cervical stabilization, it's
| pretty much guaranteed to provide some protection. There will
| be some situations where the rider is injured instead of dead,
| or bruised instead of injured.
|
| RCTs aren't science, we're allowed to reason on the basis of
| readily-apparent empirical facts.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Is this something we need evidence for?_
|
| Wow. When is the answer to this question not "Yes"?
| sudosysgen wrote:
| A lot less injuries in MotoGP for starters.
| dharmab wrote:
| The Fortnine video being posted throughout this thread
| discusses the math- they're 50 times more effective than armor
| plates and are race-proven in motogp.
| dsr_ wrote:
| No hacker will ever remotely de-activate the vest.
|
| Except the hackers working at Klim, I suppose.
| grayhatter wrote:
| The part that gets me, someone wrote this code. Someone was asked
| to disable a safety device if someone didn't pay, and some
| software engineer agreed, and then actually wrote that line of
| code. How could someone willingly agree to that?
|
| if (user.last_pmt_date < today - 30daysago) {
| disable_life_saving_equipment(); }
| bhhaskin wrote:
| Because this is click bait designed to create outrage. There
| are two options for buying this product. One is outright.
| Another is basically lease to own. Quite a different narrative.
| Why on earth would you expect something that you failed to pay
| for to keep working?
| t-writescode wrote:
| Why would you buy a jacket or write software for a jacket
| that could be disabled and NOT think that's what you're doing
| when you do this?
| nulbyte wrote:
| As far as I can tell, there is one option for buying the
| vest: pay $399.99. There are two options for some 'algorithm'
| service, which seems to me a lazy way to make a product like
| this. Where is this algorithm service located? If it's not in
| the jacket, that doesn't sound reliable. If it is, then what
| am I paying for when you already sold me the device?
| rutierut wrote:
| it sounds more like: // start up device
| if (user.last_pmt_date < today - 30daysago) return "please pay
| us"
|
| but yhea
| function_seven wrote:
| I would refactor that line of code to ease my conscience:
| if (user.subscription.is_current()) { add_value();
| }
|
| Of course, add_value() then enables the technology. And I'm not
| "disabling" anything, merely adding value when appropriate!
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Now _that 's_ the kind of thinking that gets you a lucrative
| job offer from Boeing.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Mortgage, bonus, performance reviews and others that make us do
| things we wish we hadn't. A sad state of affairs.
| graiz wrote:
| If the product is too expensive they should sell it with an
| optional payment plan with Affirm or a similar company that acts
| like a credit card with the hardware fully paid upfront. This is
| what Peleton uses... Tying payment to safety functionality is
| just waiting for a lawsuit.
| northwest65 wrote:
| When I pick a new helmet, I pick from brands that have spent
| years earning my trust. This I will _never_ buy; I just can 't
| deal with a company that from the outset feels grubby.
| infoseek12 wrote:
| I think my favorite quote from the article is:
|
| "If they then choose to ignore the indicators and ride with the
| In&box inactive, that's on them and we can expect it not to
| inflate in the event of a crash."
|
| When their product doesn't work, one of their customers dies,
| and they need to explain to the deceased children why their
| dads not coming home; I wonder how convincing the "that's on
| them" explanation will be.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The price of life is apparently on the order of $50 or so.
| ericol wrote:
| I think we're starting to see the beginning of LAAS (Life as a
| Service)/s
|
| This is getting utterly ridiculous.
| api_or_ipa wrote:
| So... this thing phones home to activate every time you jump on
| your motorcycle? I would absolutely love to be the lawyer who's
| client sustained life threatening injuries because your server
| was temporarily down precisely when it needed to verify DRM on a
| motorcycle airbag.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| TFA isn't specific but it looks like you have to use an app to
| turn it on before you ride and the app is the mechanism by
| which the phone home happens.
| g_p wrote:
| Sounds like that's a nice route to forcibly obsolete this
| well before the end of its usable life by turning off the API
| servers and saying "it's for your own safety... We have a
| better newer device now available for only $800 (plus
| subscription)".
|
| Also a nice single point of failure if you can hijack their
| DNS and deny every activation request (!)
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Hah... what if I go on a multi-day ride in an area with no cell
| coverage? Or in a foreign country where I don't want to
| activate maybe-expensive data roaming on my phone?
|
| Maybe their "Click here to accept" EULA has a clause that you
| need Internet connectivity at least once a day as well?
|
| If the schmairbag has a fail-active functionality, then the
| hack would be to install their app on a disconnected phone. "I
| can't contact my stupid-ass rent-seeking makers right now, so I
| guess I'll keep the airbag functioning".
| 123123as1asd12 wrote:
| tbh if you're missing payments of $12 a month for your safety
| device, You should not be out having fun. you should be working.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Honestly, not surprising. Motorcycles are a time-limited
| recreational activity in many countries around the world, as 2
| wheels become extremely dangerous on public roads when ice and
| snow are present. It seems like a decent idea on it's face to
| save money when you don't need it, but I would question why it
| needs any online capabilities at all. All of the processing needs
| to be done on the device, as we're talking about fractions of a
| second to decide if inflation is required in the event of a
| crash. Not enough time to ask an API if your subscription is
| valid.
|
| KLIM made a mistake here and should have priced the device in
| such a way to support it for the life of the product. If that
| means you're buying into a 5 year life after purchase, so be it.
| Instead, they're purposefully selling a product that could be
| deadly under the guise of, "but you save money!". I expect the
| airbags in my car to work all the time. If I buy a safety
| feature, that safety feature should work 100% unless I explicitly
| disable it.
|
| What's amazing is the world of motorcycles already has this
| concept in production. Most bikes with ABS have the option to
| disable it for offroad use. After disabling it, I then can ride
| around and do all the crazy stuff I want and turn it back on when
| I'm ready. Heck, some manufacturers even re-enable it
| automatically after the bike is shut off and started again.
|
| Bad move by KLIM imo.
| dharmab wrote:
| > Not enough time to ask an API if your subscription is valid.
|
| Common misconception. The subscription check is done when you
| turn the device on, not during a crash.
|
| > KLIM made a mistake here and should have priced the device in
| such a way to support it for the life of the product. If that
| means you're buying into a 5 year life after purchase, so be
| it.
|
| They offer that option. You can buy the vest in one lump sum
| with no subscription.
| randcraw wrote:
| I start my bikes and cars inside a garage where there's
| limited RF signal due to no line of sight to towers. If this
| thing fails to initiate service correctly, the maker of this
| product will be in for a world of hurt after my heirs sue
| them into the ground for failing to deliver their service.
|
| Air bag makers like Takata know the high cost of poorly
| designed airbags all too well. Inviting [b|m]illions in
| liability through a service model that requires a successful
| login before every use is nuts.
|
| Login failure could also happen inside a parking garage w/o
| signal, or in a large city where RF shadows from tall
| buildings block signal, or in a woods that's too far from
| cellular towers to receive a signal, or it could fail on
| restart after the engine stalls on the road.
|
| I wonder if the maker will choose not to sell their product
| in the US where personal injury attorneys are probably
| already licking their lips.
|
| This service model may make sense on a racetrack, but not so
| much in the real world.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| There's nothing to subscribe to, no actual service being
| provided at the operational level. It's a financing scheme
| similar to a leasing arrangement; the only internet check
| here is whether your payments are up to date.
|
| Imagine a helmet that you paid for in installments, but that
| lost its structural integrity if you fell behind.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Or an alarm system that left your house open for the same
| reason.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| This makes the most sense. The remedy for non-payment
| should not be endangerment, it should be the well
| established route of civil suit and debt collections.
| dahart wrote:
| Yes, it's a financing plan. Their web page says so plainly.
| Unlike your mortgage, if you fail to pay, you get to keep
| the vest and restart the payment plan. When you pay for a
| helmet in installments and stop paying, it's worse than
| losing structural integrity; a collector comes to take the
| helmet away and you have no helmet.
| hluska wrote:
| There's a difference. If a collector comes and takes my
| helmet, I won't get on a bike without it because I'm a
| stickler for keeping my brain inside my skull. If there
| is a bug anywhere between the global payment system and
| this product, I may not even know.
| dahart wrote:
| > If there is a bug anywhere between the global payment
| system and this product, I may not even know.
|
| Why are you speculating about this and suggesting it will
| operate in a way that directly contradicts their
| documentation? It states clearly that the system has to
| be turned on and will reach "ride ready state". This
| means that you will know whether it's functioning before
| you ride, even if there is a bug in their payment system.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| And what if there is a bug in their payment checking
| system and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is
| functional?
|
| This idea is just not something that is possible to
| defend. It is a really bad all around. Not everything in
| life can or should be made into a subscription service or
| a financial instrument.
|
| I think I know what the universe's great filter is. It is
| that in any society eventually a biologist will lapse on
| his bio-safe subscription so that it, according to
| contract, releases the world ending pathogens into the
| air conditioning system.
| dahart wrote:
| > what if there is a bug in their payment checking system
| and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is functional?
|
| Then you get a free day of airbag protection. The vest
| won't tell you it's functional and then stop working
| while you ride. The functionality and payment check
| happens before you ride, if you read their product
| description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-
| Vest-3046-000
|
| > This idea is just not something that is possible to
| defend.
|
| I think you have the wrong idea about what it is. I am a
| motorcycle rider, I'm extremely safety conscious. I might
| buy this vest, because an airbag is good protection, and
| they're making this cost less to try out. Not sure if I
| would lease it or buy it outright, but I wouldn't
| hesitate to lease it over safety concerns, if buying
| wasn't an option for me.
| hluska wrote:
| I choose not to trust documentation when a company shits
| all over everything we know about building reliable
| safety systems. To be blunt, if they're dumb enough to
| think this is a good idea, they're too dumb to make
| safety equipment. This is an awful idea and it's
| impossible to defend with any kind of integrity.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Ok maybe they actually implemented this extremely poor
| idea correctly, but it is nevertheless an extremely
| supremely poor idea.
|
| If this takes off, which I sure hope it never will but
| given our collective idiocy I'm not optimistic, how many
| years before someone implements the system incorrectly?
|
| I'm an embedded systems guy. A computer chip can be
| useful in many circumstances. A safety vest, for this
| purpose, it is not providing any value to anyone except a
| slimy money person.
| dahart wrote:
| > it is nevertheless an extremely supremely poor idea
|
| Can you elaborate on exactly what's wrong here, now that
| you know more about the implementation? Are you sure this
| isn't a case of getting the wrong impression about what
| it is because Vice said so? It's not a safety issue, the
| vest will notify whether it's working before the ride.
|
| > A safety vest, for this purpose, it is not providing
| any value to anyone except a slimy money person.
|
| The irony of your statement here is that KLIM is offering
| an expensive product for a half price down payment, and
| allowing the consumer to cancel it after trying it out
| without having to return the hardware or pay any
| penalties on the remainder. Or they can resume payments a
| year after lapsing. You don't find this kind of
| presumably money-losing proposition with any other
| financing plans I can think of.
| g_p wrote:
| > The vest won't tell you it's functional and then stop
| working while you ride. The functionality and payment
| check happens before you ride, if you read their product
| description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-
| Vest-3046-000
|
| Given it connects to an external server on the internet
| (even indirectly), it presumably has updatable firmware.
|
| Are you confident enough this company understands secure
| boot chains well enough to prevent a rogue firmware being
| flashed? And that they have protected their Bluetooth
| stack (?) well enough to prevent a firmware being flashed
| that way?
|
| It's likely (but impossible to tell without doing a
| teardown) that you could indicate the device is
| functional via firmware, while not being armed and ready
| to deploy, if the LED or indicator is on a separate GPIO.
|
| If this was to happen in the supply chain (like used to
| happen with grey market mobile phone imports getting
| loaded with adware), that could become a real problem...
| hluska wrote:
| I love your last paragraph - it's well written, makes a
| very strong point and manages to be very funny at the
| same time. Thanks friend - that's some great writing and
| thinking!! :)
| nexuist wrote:
| Kind of an interesting dilemma. Charge full price, only rich
| people can afford it, poor people die. Charge a subscription,
| poor person affords it for a while, bank account gets
| overdrafted, poor person dies. On the other hand, charge a
| subscription, poor person affords a safety feature they
| previously couldn't use, saves their life. Isn't that the
| more ethical option? If the full price is $800 then they're
| actually selling the vest to you at a 50% discount and hoping
| to recoup the costs through the subscription. You're getting
| a safety product for 50% off and you don't even have to pay
| back the other 50% if you don't think you'll need it. Hm.
| Retric wrote:
| The ability for the vest to check if your still paying the
| subscription costs more money to build than an always
| working vest.
|
| If it actually costs 800$ then you can give people the
| option to make 40 payments of 20$ a month easily like how
| many people buy iPhones and sofas.
| Enginerrrd wrote:
| >Isn't that the more ethical option?
|
| No. As a civil engineer that routinely works with and
| designs safety-critcal systems, and understands the concept
| of "public trust" and personal liability as Engineer of
| Record, whoever designed this is an absolute psychopath.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Thank you.
| kjs3 wrote:
| Exactly. That's why "software engineering" will never
| have the equivalent of a PE. Terribly inconvenient to
| "move fast and break things" when you're obligated to
| give a shit about the collateral damage when something
| breaks.
| livinginfear wrote:
| This is not true at all. There are entire, large sections
| of the industry devoted to creating safety-critical
| software. These areas of the industry are well
| disciplined and highly regulated. This software is
| designed in such a way to make collateral damage
| impossible in all but the most exceptional scenarios.
| This popular silly web programming stuff is truly only
| the tip of the software engineering iceberg.
| kjs3 wrote:
| No, it's completely true. There are relatively tiny,
| quite niche sections of the industry devoted to creating
| safety-critical software in a systematic, engineered
| manner. I've been part of it. My company has more people
| writing Java/Cobol business apps than all of NASA has
| writing true high-reliability code. Even then, while
| folks writing mission critical code might be
| 'disciplined', there is no equivalent of the NSPE
| regulating what someone needs to know to do this, no
| universally agreed upon standards for what constitutes
| "safety-critical" or even consensus metrics for how to
| assess whether something is or not. There are literally
| hundreds of different guidelines for "how to engineer
| safe software", but no canonical guide. Even stuff like
| "can you use C to write software 'in such a way to make
| collateral damage impossible in all but the most
| exceptional scenarios'" is a matter of furious debate;
| some say yes, some say no.
| dahart wrote:
| > whoever designed this is an absolute psychopath.
|
| Yes, if the product were to refuse to protect you after
| you started riding, that would fit your description, and
| I would agree. I think it doesn't do that though.
|
| From an engineering perspective, what are the safety
| risks here, exactly. Did you review the design spec or
| read the product page?
|
| "3. If I suspend/pause my subscription and forget to
| reactivate it, will the vest still detect a crash and
| inflate?
|
| "Answer: No, because in the first place you won't be able
| to turn it on into ride-ready status before your ride. It
| will not "trick" you into thinking it's active when it is
| not, because the LED indicators will warn you that it's
| not active. If you ignore the LED indicators warning you
| that the airbag isn't active, you can't expect it to work
| when you're not actively subscribed."
|
| https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000
|
| Given that description, what are the failure modes you
| envision that are "psychopathic" and would endager the
| rider and/or erode public trust?
| xg15 wrote:
| Not a dilemma, it's just shitty.
|
| Where does the $800 figure come from? As far as we know,
| it's just a number they made up. I have strong doubts they
| would be able to sell the vest at that price if only the
| "full price" option were available.
| dharmab wrote:
| For context, the price of a non-airbag motorcycle jacket
| is typically $150 for a basic one, $250-400 for a good
| value, and up to $1000 or more for a high end jacket.
|
| Also, the cost of a major motorcycle injury is easily six
| figures before insurance.
| hluska wrote:
| So if Klim's security/build/release processes are imperfect,
| I'll die??
|
| I'm going to pass. This is fucking insane.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I don't think they 'made a mistake'. They just realized that
| they wouldn't sell many at $800, and that they'd probably make
| more by appearing the cut the price and flogging a subscription
| model. Unfortunately for them they hired a comms director who
| comes off as a sociopath and thinks hostage taking is a
| reasonable business model.
| nosianu wrote:
| Worse, even if you agree, missing payments without noticing it
| is easy. You might get your life saver disabled even though you
| have plenty of money and are willing to pay and think you set
| everything up. For example, it works for a while, then you
| overdraw one of your accounts because a transfer is late (you
| still have plenty of money overall), the bank stops the payment
| from that account.
|
| Even if they don't disable right away, add a few more delays. I
| had an address change once and they sent the notice for a
| missed payment to the old address of my business - so I only
| noticed it when the service was cut off. The bill also had been
| sent there so I never knew I had to pay.
|
| Do you want to say "tough luck" to customers who rely on the
| protection and miss a payment only because of bad luck? Is even
| forgetfulness (so 100% "their own fault") worth a potential
| death sentence?
|
| .
|
| Note that the address change issue also once happened to me
| after I had already informed the other party of my new address.
| It was the IRS, they still sent their requests to my old
| address, months later, and then got a court order to get the
| money from my bank account without my knowledge or consent. I
| never knew they had wanted something from me, _and_ I _had_
| given them the new address. So it can happen even if you do
| everything right.
| falcolas wrote:
| Imagine a car which won't activate the airbags (or emergency
| braking sensors, or ABS, or...) if you get in a crash while
| you're behind on a payment.
|
| Scummy.
|
| Remember, "entrepreneurs," you can't collect debts from the poor
| dead (who don't have estates to collect against)
| josefresco wrote:
| Imagine selling a car airbag system separate from the car.
| dharmab wrote:
| Kind of hard to put an airbag on a bike. Honda tried with the
| Gold Wing. It only worked to prevent an over-the-bars crash.
| Didn't help in common lowside and highside crashes. Plus most
| bikes don't have any room for an airbag anyway, as anyone
| who's had to work on a cramped modern bike can attest to.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Motorcycle airbags are worn and are not part of the bike.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Would be pretty sweet. We could retrofit older cars with some
| modern safety features... but the problem is that they have
| to be integrated into the design of the car. The airbag can't
| be too close or too far away, or hit you from the wrong
| angle.. or else it could end up killing you.
|
| Also airbags for cars are designed to keep you from smashing
| your body into the interior of the car. Airbags for riders
| are to keep you from smashing into the ground or other
| objects. I think it's pretty rare that colliding with the
| bike itself happens. That's why bikes don't have airbags on
| them.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Would be pretty easy to integrate airbags into old cars.
|
| Measure minimum distance from seat back to steering wheel
| and then configure airbag based on that (probably remove
| jumpers or something to control detonation). Sensor
| locations are pretty standard and modern airbags and
| computers are fast enough that you don't need to use
| crumple zones as a hack to buy time for the bag to go off
| before the occupant starts moving toward the space the bag
| will be in.
| trhway wrote:
| with OTA updates, etc. one can expect that the "premium"
| features will be activated or not depending on the payment -
| "do you want to unlock the ludicrously soft luxury suspension
| mode?", seat heating/ventilation, self-driving levels, etc.
|
| This airbag vest case is a kind of preview of Peak
| Subscription. Only imagine your artificial kidney instead of
| the vest.
| ars wrote:
| Makes more sense to disable the entire car, not the safety
| mechanisms.
|
| At at least put the car in "limp mode" limiting it to 20mph
| (30kmh).
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| I would more expect that you couldn't even unlock the car to
| get in or even start the car would be more of where we are
| heading.
| kjs3 wrote:
| You are _way_ behind the curve. Google "car payment lock"
| and you'll see. Preventing the car from starting if you miss
| a payment has been a thing for almost a decade in the sub-
| prime market.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I know that breathalyzers are a thing too, but that's not
| something I have personal experience with. Does that make
| me behind the curve there as well?
| aerostable_slug wrote:
| No, because you know they exist.
| scblock wrote:
| It's probably best to not give BMW any more bad ideas.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Why isn't this illegal ?
|
| You can forget to update your credit card number and end up
| dieing ?
| dharmab wrote:
| Motorcycle safety gear is almost unregulated in the US. The one
| regulation (The DOT helmet standard) is an absolute joke.
|
| I can legally ride my Suzuki motorcycle, which has a fully
| custom exhaust, an ultrabright LED floodlight and zero safety
| features, wearing no safety gear except eyeglasses in my state.
| (I built it as a dirt bike juuust legal enough to ride to the
| trailhead.)
| deelowe wrote:
| This is a much lager scope problem than motorcycle safety.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Someone is going to die from this. Then these guys are going to
| get sued for every dime they have.
| cuddlybacon wrote:
| I doubt it. Besides the EULA that has already been mentioned,
| the standard equipment is a padded jacket with abrasion
| resistant fabric.
|
| They could probably argue that their product is adding
| protection above current standards, and a deactivated vest
| would merely reduce the rider back to the safety level
| considered standard.
|
| I dislike a subscription based airbag vest, but I really don't
| think they'll get sued over that.
| riffic wrote:
| _ctrl-F_ , "sued", upvote. My thoughts exactly.
|
| this is awful.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe, but you know they have had lawyers involved. I'm
| guessing that there is a legal agreement somewhere that
| stipulates this will happen so that the lawyers have covered
| their backsides. Since it involves downloading an app, it'll
| probably be a section in the EULA that everyone read before
| checking that "I Agree" box. right?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Even if there is such language in the EULA, courts sometimes
| rule that such language is not legally binding. Sometimes the
| courts use words like "unconscionable". IANAL, but I sure
| think that word fits...
| kjs3 wrote:
| Survival as a Service. Nice.
|
| FWIW...This is pretty much a great way to get sued senseless in
| case you think this is a great business model. The minute someone
| dies wearing a switched off vest, an army of PI lawyers will be
| foaming at the mouth to get "why did this person die because they
| were late on a payment" in front of a jury.
|
| Edit: In the US at least, your jurisdictional mileage may vary.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Any kind of grafted on service should be rejected. If a safety
| device requires an internet connection to work at all it should
| not pass first base but be rejected outright. After all, it might
| be some other bug or issue that causes you to lose your life or
| health.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-05 23:01 UTC)