[HN Gopher] Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their ...
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Locked out of 'God Mode', runners are hacking their treadmills
Author : vishvananda
Score : 566 points
Date : 2022-01-18 18:56 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| pm24601 wrote:
| This is why I don't buy specialty hardware devices anymore. I
| jumped off the smart device treadmill with the fitbit.
|
| The only thing in my house that gets access to the internet are
| my computers and phone. Nothing else. If I turn it on and it
| complains about no internet - it gets returned as defective.
|
| I have a car charger (Juice Box) that have a smart app to control
| it. Nope not for me. Last thing I want is a hacked device fucking
| with my car's charging.
| donatj wrote:
| Is the difference between a $500 treadmill and a $4,000 really
| just an Android tablet? A fool and money.
| djrogers wrote:
| No. If you run on a good treadmill you can immediately feel the
| difference. Motor smoothness, the weight of the machine, the
| give and bounce of the platform, all of it adds up to a nicer
| running experience.
|
| That said, I still hate treadmills and prefer to run outside,
| but there's a huge difference between a cheap one and a good
| one.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Suitable story, hacking walled gardens on HN.
|
| Reminds me of the Rigol DS1054Z 50 MHz oscilloscope, that you can
| trivially 'hack' into the more expensive DS1074Z 75 MHz or
| DS11074Z 100 MHz scope. Rigol hasn't disabled this hack, even
| though they can easily do it. They likely loose money if they do
| so, since customers move to other scopes.
|
| Also, some Tesla updates make the experience worse instead of
| better (V11 update is terrible, inconsistent UI and much more
| menu diving). I should have disabled auto-updates, and read the
| forums before doing the update next time.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Your aside reminds me of the PSP hacking days. Whenever there
| was an update, you'd have to hold it and check forums to see if
| it patched your root exploit.
| tzs wrote:
| The system for key validation to enable the various features on
| that scope [1] is actually, if I recall correctly, a well
| designed system using sound, strong cryptography except they
| used short enough keys that you can easily brute force it.
| That's what they keygen programs for it do.
|
| It is almost inconceivable that they would know enough to use
| good cryptography but not know that they needed long keys, so a
| lot of people believe they intended for it to be easy to hack.
|
| One theory I've heard that makes sense is that this is for
| price discrimination. Your hobbyist user, buying a scope to
| figure out what is going wrong when they try to talk to their
| humidity sensor with their Arduino, is not going to pay an
| extra couple hundred dollars to get the protocol decoding add-
| on. Paying $400 for the basic scope is already near their
| limit. So let them have all the features--it makes the Rigol
| scope more attractive to those users without really costing
| Rigol anything.
|
| So why not just include all the features without requiring keys
| to enable them?
|
| Because people using the scope for business _will_ pay more for
| them. That 's because if they use a keygen program to enable
| them and use the scope to design or test some product, and
| later something goes wrong with that product and someone gets
| hurt and they find themselves being sued, they don't want to
| have to deal with how a plaintiff's attorney would try to spin
| that in front of jury.
|
| Sure, it would probably not be hard for the defense to respond
| and explain that the scope behaves exactly the same regardless
| of whether the key was purchased from Rigol or came from a
| third party keygen program, so you might think no harm would be
| done by plaintiff bringing this up.
|
| However, civil trials have time limits on how much total time
| each side gets to present their case and to rebut the other
| side's case. If defense has to take time to educate the jury on
| the whole Rigol key system and how keygen programs are safe,
| that's time they don't have for other things.
|
| I've seen that kind of thing happen. I was a witness for a
| plaintiff in a suit. Early on, defense was able to find
| something totally minor but that looked bad if you didn't know
| the details of state tax and corporations bureaucracy [2]. It
| took them 2 minutes to use that to make us look dishonest. It
| took much longer the next day to explain all the details to
| counter that. For the rest of the trial, we were short on time
| and had to drop some things.
|
| Later, when I was on the stand defense asked some questions
| about a particular piece of software the plaintiffs developed.
| They asked detailed technical questions and I answered them.
| Then they said "play the video of tzs's deposition from <date
| several months earlier>". On that video I was asked the same
| questions I had just been asked in court, and answered that I
| had not worked on that software and didn't know the answers.
| Defense then said "no further questions" and walked away.
|
| I expected our lawyers to then ask about this, so we could
| explain why I apparently was either lying my ass off in the
| deposition or lying my ass off a few moments ago, but they
| didn't. They later told me they were short on time, and decided
| that having the jury think I was a liar was less of a problem
| than dropping the other stuff they would have to drop to deal
| with that.
|
| So why the apparent discrepancy between my deposition and my
| later in court testimony? The deposition was 100% correct. I
| had not worked and that software and didn't have any deep
| technical knowledge of how it worked.
|
| Later however, I was designated as the person on our side who
| would be answering all technical questions about our software.
| This would cover all our software that might come up in the
| case, not just what I had worked on. So I spent a considerable
| amount of time after that deposition studying the source for
| such software, and by the time of the trial I was able to
| answer deep technical questions concerning it. (Which defendant
| was fully aware of, by the way, since between my first
| deposition and the trial, there was a deposition where I
| appeared in the role of expert on all our software).
|
| [1] Besides doubling the bandwidth, there are keys for
| expanding the amount of memory, adding advanced trigger
| options, adding protocol decoding for various useful protocols
| like I2C and RS-232, and I think some other features that I'm
| forgetting.
|
| [2] Briefly, when you paid your taxes you got a receipt from
| the state revenue department. You were supposed to file a copy
| of that receipt with the state corporations office. Someone
| failed to do that. If one then queried the corporations office
| we were listed as having not paid our taxes.
| rlpb wrote:
| This is the first I've heard of it - but is this perhaps a
| straightforward avenue for conventional price discrimination?
| Businesses that want the 100 MHz may well just pay for it
| because they don't want the hassle the hack might lead to. And
| the people who'd use the hack probably wouldn't have paid for
| the more expensive one anyway. So Rigol might be extracting
| maximum value thanks to the hack, rather than despite it.
| quux wrote:
| I think Rigol gave in to the hackers? Last year I bought a
| DS1054Z from amazon and it came with all the options
| permanently enabled.
| dhimes wrote:
| If Nordic is being honest that the issue is safety- preventing
| users from diddling with their software and accidentally making
| it unsafe, then they can simply install a browser so the users
| can view what they wish online.
| treesknees wrote:
| It's entirely possible. The iFit app which runs on my treadmill
| is an embedded web browser. From "God Mode" there is an iFit
| Admin app which reports information such as the embedded
| chromium version being used for iFit.
|
| I actually walked down to the basement to test this - even when
| closing the iFit app while in God Mode, the physical controls
| on the treadmill including speed, incline, the stop button and
| the magnetic safety key, continue to work as designed. If you
| close the app then you can't see your current speed, but you
| can still stop the machine.
|
| That being said, I haven't dug into how the iFit app sends
| commands or retrieve data from the treadmill's controller. It
| seems possible that a "rogue" app could somehow interfere with
| this communication or send its own set of commands to throw you
| off the machine, but feels very unlikely. Plus, the tablet on
| my treadmill is running Android 7. I'd be much more afraid of
| remote exploits on the embedded browser on this ancient OS than
| someone with physical access loading a malicious app.
| LeSaucy wrote:
| C1750 treadmill, was able to drop into android launcher,
| install f store, dropbear. After being able to ssh into the
| treadmill I found the mediatek soc they use has an exploit
| app to get a root shell. Further decompiling of the ifit app
| apk shows it's written in c#/mono, sending bytes to a usb
| device for treadmill control. I ran out of patience trying to
| intercept writes with strace and just went back to running.
| jrowley wrote:
| The lengths a person will go to to procrastinate on
| starting a run ;) very impressive!
| robmsmt wrote:
| sounds strange, I would have expected a Java Android app
| with jni calls to c/c++ through Android ndk
| JasonFruit wrote:
| They can still make updates for safety obtain consent from the
| device owner before being installed. I should be able to opt
| out of measures for my own safety.
| johncessna wrote:
| No they aren't being honest. Almost anything can be used in an
| unsafe manner if the desire to do so is there. Fundamentally
| you have a belt whipping around on two rollers at speeds
| upwards of 10 mph. It's an unsafe, if used improperly, machine
| to begin with.
|
| The safety argument isn't so much an argument as it is a
| trigger word to elicit a response in people.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Frustratingly, the safety argument may win out. But it also
| reflects a poor design. What the people in the article seem
| to want is to be able to use an Android tablet as an Android
| tablet, they aren't dicking around with the safety-related
| parts. So the sensible (but often not done) thing to do would
| be to offer three modes. A "gym mode" suitable for most
| public equipment (just get into iFit or whatever it is), a
| "home mode" which permits installation and use of other apps
| (like Netflix), and an actual privileged mode that can get
| into the safety-related settings. 99.9% of people at home
| will be content with just that home mode level, and never
| care about anything beyond it.
| userbinator wrote:
| Unfortunately for them, the response it elicits from me (and
| likely an increasing number of others) is the classic
| Franklin quote. The more companies try to squeeze their
| users, the more the users are likely to wake up to their BS.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I imagine the same issues would be presented if they embedded
| chrome or webkit with how often both of those have RCEs.
| treesknees wrote:
| The iFit app is actually an embed a web browser. If you open
| the iFit Admin app, it reports a chromium version. I haven't
| dug into it too much, but definitely an embedded browser.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| From Nordic's POV, this is a safety issue, it affects the
| safety of their bottom line. Adding a browser would also
| compromise safety, again not the safety of the user but the
| safety of their bottom line.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Hilarious take
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I wish more people were open to this notion of safety than
| the one that companies try to fool their customers into
| believing is for their own good.
| abeppu wrote:
| But the first person interviewed was already a subscriber.
| They bought the hardware. They were paying for the content.
| He was making a pretty healthy contribution to their bottom
| line. Now that customer is alienated to the point of being
| interviewed for an article. I'm guessing they wouldn't
| recommend it to a friend or family. Taking away stuff from
| paying customers seems like a path towards not having
| recurring customers.
|
| If it was just about the money, they should have e.g. have
| pop-up ads cover the screen only for non-subscribers, such
| that people aren't inclined to buy the device, not subscribe
| to the ifit content, and watch youtube instructors or
| whatever.
| DrJaws wrote:
| A construction worker moving to cloud security and in a single
| sabbatical year already scrutinizing by himself the firmware and
| closed OS of a treadmill.
|
| makes me happy. Hope a lot of people can leave behind those low
| paid high effort jobs thanks to this 2 shitty years
| alkonaut wrote:
| That it was advertised anywhere in documentation as possible is
| what makes it a hostile move by the manufacturer.
|
| Had this been just some kind of open secret "hack" then buyers
| really should expect this.
|
| Remember: when you buy a gadget with a screen and associated
| "services" like video subscriptions you aren't just buying a lump
| of tech. Your price is set after careful weighing of how much
| customers will consume the subscription services. If the add on
| service is provided by a third party it's even worse: your
| products' ability to deliver something other than their service
| is probably a breach of contract.
|
| My guess: the treadmill makers didn't mind people watching
| Netflix on their gadget. Their partners on content though has
| given them deals on the premise that everyone who didn't buy a
| subscription _should_ have a feeling that they wasted $4k on an
| empty screen. So when they hear a number of users are watching
| Netflix, they get angry. Treadmill makers must block the god
| mode.
|
| The sad thing here is obviously that the idea of making a good
| open product without strings attached or subscriptions seems like
| an impossibility these days.
| bsiemon wrote:
| Classically the feature was taken away to make you safer :)
|
| > The block on privilege mode was automatically installed because
| we believe it enhances security and safety while using fitness
| equipment that has multiple moving parts,
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| yep, thats why they let you watch netflix on tredmills at the
| gym!
| friendlydog wrote:
| We need an Electronic bill of rights.
|
| 1. You must allow full root privileges for Electronic devices to
| the owners
|
| 2. You may not circumvent owners rights through leasing or other
| means.
|
| 3. You may not create barriers to device owners using their
| devices how they see fit.
| tremon wrote:
| Like GPLv3's anti-Tivoization clause?
| drran wrote:
| GPL v3
| npteljes wrote:
| I'd also like code to become open source, at least after a
| while - last product sell date + X years or something.
| makapuf wrote:
| This can be problematic if the hardware vendor purchases
| software from a third party, and that software is not
| discontinued.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Just put a screen on a stand infront of your treadmill?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Sorry but how is that even comparable?
|
| My comment is actually encouraging ,,hacking" in the sense of
| finding unusual solutions other than the officially approved
| way.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Look up the HN thread on Dropbox when it debuted. You'll
| understand why jason compared your comment to what people
| said in that thread
| asdff wrote:
| Except unlike rsync vs. dropbox, using an ipad laid on top of
| the treadmill to watch netflix is probably a lot more
| intuitive than whatever garbage laggy smart-tv tier gui
| nordictrack saddles on their users.
| treesknees wrote:
| I don't disagree with you... in fact my Nordic ProForm
| treadmill includes a built in tablet mount that floats above
| the control panel. I used it with my iPad up until I found out
| this "God Mode" of side loading apps existed.
|
| But some of these exercise machines actually come with an
| impressive 32inch HD screen and loud speakers built-in which
| you can hear over the running noise. If you stop paying
| hundreds of dollars per year for an iFit subscription, the only
| thing this giant display does is show you the time and distance
| on a white background.
|
| And perhaps you'd say, "don't buy a machine with a built-in
| screen", I'd say the article points out people actually decided
| to purchase these models _specifically_ because help articles
| and other resources showed how to get into the Android
| interface. Sideloading apps was practically sold as a feature.
| kup0 wrote:
| Finding a workaround is fine but tangential at best, but that
| doesn't mean we should ignore or stay silent regarding company
| philsophies/choices/actions we find repulsive.
| rchaud wrote:
| They didn't advertise the product as being a exercise machine
| with a full Android tablet attached. I don't find their
| actions repulsive, just standard-issue corporate CYA stuff.
|
| It sucks for those that discovered the loophole, but all good
| things must come to an end sometime.
| davidw wrote:
| I can hear RMS singing "Join us now and share the software".
| gennarro wrote:
| Exactly why I only buy dumb devices ex: https://non-smart.com
| type stuff
| suyula wrote:
| That used to be me until I discovered how many smart devices
| have the ability to be flashed with open source firmware like
| Tasmota or ESPHome. Best of both worlds!
| raziel2p wrote:
| on that website, the menu button does nothing and if I search
| for "tv" no relevant results come up. maybe the site isn't
| smart enough.
| npteljes wrote:
| I opted for hackable ones, like the PineTime smart watch, or a
| previous flagship phone that has a compatible LineageOS build.
| remram wrote:
| "God Mode" make it seem like such an unreasonable request. How
| about "Owner Mode"?
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| This. It is weird to read basic administrator mode referred to
| as something beyond mere man's understanding, but it does feed
| into this narrative that an average human should not try mess
| with the magic box.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Jeeze, I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music
| stand. This is compatible not only with any commodity treadmill,
| but also bike trainers, ellipticals, and making vroomvroom noises
| on the motorcycle when it's too icy to actually ride. I could
| also swap out the ipad for a laptop, non-ipad tablet, or a
| collection of cute succulents should I desire it.
|
| snark aside, I'm a bicycle guy and I really like that we have an
| ecosystem of bluetooth trainers and apps that all work pretty
| well with each other. Simulating hilly courses is actually really
| useful and has made me a better rider, so it's not like I'm
| advocating being a total luddite. While I prefer to ride outdoors
| in the sun, my area in Iowa is extremely flat and the only
| difficulty comes from the wind, and I find the new toys are a lot
| more fun than a dumb trainer with a sufferfest DVD. I don't
| really know much about the treadmill scene but I hope you guys
| have access to similar stuff.
| taude wrote:
| Funny, I use iPad on a music stand, too. With my bike trainier
| (Hammer H3). BTW, you can get the Sufferfest content on the
| newer Wahoo Systm app. I don't mind paying the $15/month for it
| for a the three to four winter months spent training inside.
| (They also have newer content, too, than the old DVDs.)
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Same. I have a couple of used treadmills that I repaired for
| dirt cheap and a crappy TV mounted to the wall. Treadmill
| cupholders make great remote holders.
| throwhauser wrote:
| > ipad on a music stand
|
| Thanks for the idea. I might get some kind of tablet so I can
| watch things without moving my (cheap) stationary bike in front
| of the living room TV.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| If you want a really nice version of this, companies like
| Heckler Design, Manfrotto, Triad Orbit, and Konig & Meyer
| make excellent stands with tons of adapters for lights,
| cameras, mics, speakers, phones, ipads...
|
| My current WFH setup includes a Manfrotto 244N magic arm
| attached with a RAM mount to a Rokform RAM ball that very
| securely attaches to my Rokform iPhone case. It's clamped to
| my desk with a Manfrotto 035 SuperClamp. The RAM adapter is
| P/N RAP-B-366U and the double swivel on the RAM side is a
| RAP-B-201U . The Rokform part is "Universal Ball Adapter
| Phone Mount" SKU: 337101
|
| RAM also makes a great iPad "X-Grip" holder, along with tons
| of different mounts for different situations, especially
| vehicles and things like exercise bikes (e.g. look for stuff
| like a "RAM(r) Double U-Bolt Ball Base for 1" - 1.25" Rails"
| or indeed their actual handlebar mounts). These are sturdy,
| pro-level mounts, not the cheap disposable junk from no-name
| brands on Amazon.
|
| For my Zwift stationary bike setup that I use my old road
| bike on, I just use a $15 Niteize Handleband to attach my
| phone plus a Vornado 783DC made-in-USA DC brushless fan to
| keep the sweat levels low.
|
| Another couple brands worth checking out would be Joby's
| stuff (I have an old GorillaPod DSLR that holds my webcam
| these days) and "The Joy Factory" who make pro-level iPad
| clamps / stands.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| >My current WFH setup includes a Manfrotto 244N magic arm
| attached with a RAM mount to a Rokform RAM ball that very
| securely attaches to my Rokform iPhone case. It's clamped
| to my desk with a Manfrotto 035 SuperClamp. The RAM adapter
| is P/N RAP-B-366U and the double swivel on the RAM side is
| a RAP-B-201U . The Rokform part is "Universal Ball Adapter
| Phone Mount" SKU: 337101
|
| No offense, but that sounds insanely complicated for
| putting an iPad on a stand in front of a threadmill. If it
| was me I wouldn't even want to know what a RAM adaptor is,
| I would just want to buy a tripod with a clamp for an iPad.
| asdff wrote:
| Give it a go with just your phone too before shelling out for
| a tablet. When I go to the gym I sometimes just lay my phone
| on top of the machine by the controls (about music stand
| level) and at that distance from my eyes the diagonal is
| plenty large enough
| vishvananda wrote:
| In this particular case, some of the runs from iFit instructors
| are actually quite good, and it cool that it adjusts the speed
| and incline to match the instruction. Probably not worth the
| extra $$$$ but it is pretty cool. But now I also want to be
| able to watch regular videos. I usually walk outdoors for an
| hour a day to get my 10,000 steps in, and the Chicago winter
| makes that tough, so I'm thinking an hour of walking on the
| treadmill while i catch up on my favorite shows might be a good
| substitute.
| charles_f wrote:
| > I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music
| stand.
|
| I actually don't get the point of getting a 4000 treadmill
| rather than one that's half the price and an ipad
| HappyJoy wrote:
| For me, it was the deck on the Peloton. At the time of
| purchase, it was the cheapest slat deck treadmill I could
| find.
| telxosser wrote:
| I walk 60 min a day outside, rain or snow in the northeast.
|
| A treadmill to me is just so boring and doesn't feel right
| compared to actually moving.
|
| Walking outside when it is 10 degrees out with an audio book
| is still a better experience to me than a treadmill.
| Tildey wrote:
| You save... uhhh... one power outlet?
|
| But really, my understanding is that these fancier treadmills
| map incline/speed/whatever data to the video file to make it
| "more realistic". I think there may even be a sort of
| MMO/live ghost feature?
|
| Personally I think I'd rather just have music I like and work
| out at a pace that's comfortable for me, but to each their
| own I suppose.
| minhazm wrote:
| You don't even save a power outlet! A lot of workout
| equipment these days have built in USB ports.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I'm a zwift user and I really like it. You can designate a
| course and it will adjust the resistance to match the
| elevation changes. There is live or ghost racing (with
| simulated drafting, which is cool) and other neat things,
| but the routes and structured training is what I'm there
| for.
|
| My tacx trainer was only $300 or so when I bought it, which
| was comparable to non-bluetooth trainers. That said, I
| already owned a fancy roadbike to use with it, which is not
| a negligible cost.
| charles_f wrote:
| Sounds like a legitimate use case yes, but if your goal
| is watching pluralsight while running, doesn't sound like
| the best choice
| jedberg wrote:
| > You save... uhhh... one power outlet?
|
| A power tap block is $3. :)
| Tildey wrote:
| Yes, but a cheap treadmill + $3 vs a $4000 treadmill?
| Kind of a hard sell. Like I'm going to have to go pick up
| the power splitter myself? I don't have time for that
| jedberg wrote:
| There this awesome new website called amazon.com and they
| will actually bring the stuff you order right to your
| house. It's kinda crazy.
|
| Edit: /s obviously. I was responding to a joke with a
| joke.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > I will stick with my modular solution: an ipad on a music
| stand.
|
| My smart rower consists of a C2 Model D sitting in front of an
| old-school panasonic plasma TV in a spare/theater room. Both
| components are over 10 years old by now and neither show the
| slightest signs of giving up the ghost. That TV doesn't even
| know how to talk to the internet, and I lost the USB cable for
| the PM4, so everything is effectively off-grid.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| It's funny you mentioned the sun. I enjoyed the sun a little
| too much when I was younger. So one feature I enjoy in exercise
| bikes these days is the radiation protection.
|
| The accessory part is also pretty neat though. I use a low end
| exercise bike that came with a snap-on plastic tablet holder.
| It works pretty well but it got me thinking about hacking the
| thing. I was finally able to mount a scanner radio, a ham
| radio, exercise bands, and my phone along with the tablet. Then
| my kids decided to take it off my hands for a while...I think
| Dad looked a little too motivated.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| The picture at the top of the article is not the $4000
| treadmill. I think this is what the article is talking about:
| https://www.nordictrack.de/laufbander/nordictrack-x32i-incli...
|
| If you're into running on a treadmill, this looks like a very
| sweet setup. It has a huge touch screen that's just in the
| right spot, you can easily reach it while running, and it has
| gimmicks like automatic adjustment of inclination.
|
| It's not cheap, but it looks like really nice hardware. I
| totally understand why some people would want something like
| that, especially if you can install generic Android apps on it!
| jengajengajenga wrote:
| ijidak wrote:
| On October 28, I bought the NordicTrac T-Series for $650.
|
| After installation, it had a lock screen asking me to subscribe
| to start using the treadmill!
|
| Can you imagine?
|
| I paid for the treadmill, and you're telling me I can't even walk
| on it without paying you again?
|
| So what did my $650 pay for?!?
|
| If I can't use a device's most basic function without paying an
| additional subscription, then can Amazon label the button "Buy
| Now"?
|
| What exactly did I "Buy" if it's a paperweight without an
| additional subscription?
|
| Nowhere did the product page say that having a subscription is a
| pre-req to use this device:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0193V3DJ6
|
| Thankfully, the company Amazon hired to setup the treadmill found
| the trick to bypass that screen.
|
| But now, after hearing about this update, I'm afraid they will
| lock my treadmill again.
|
| I just use my treadmill to walk on it.
|
| I don't need any apps.
|
| Left to their own devices, these companies will find a way to
| charge us to breathe.
|
| So happy I'm not looking to any human governments to fix this
| nonsense.
| rurp wrote:
| Have you considered returning it and buying a different one?
| There are plenty of treadmills out there without this user
| hostile nonsense that would make better use of your purchase
| money.
|
| As a total aside, I bought a treadmill last year and turned it
| into a walking desk as part of my WFH setup. I wasn't sure how
| much I would use it, but holy cow I love it!
| CrendKing wrote:
| This review says you can bypass it:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RN1OVJIW3986S/ref...
|
| > TO GET AROUND THIS SCAM, hold down the iFit logo on the
| treadmill for 30 seconds and your treadmill will work.
|
| Admittedly, it sucks if you need to do this every time. But
| it's Amazon, so return?
| [deleted]
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I really hate how we are moving more and more towards "managed
| experiences" in products. Used to, you would buy a product and
| use it how you see fit. But these days it seems that's not what
| the company wants you to do. You buy the product and enjoy a
| "managed" experience from the company.
|
| We see it everywhere with printers, coffee makers, phones,
| laptops, treadmills and even cars now. Everyone knows why this is
| being done, simply making money on a $99 coffeemaker is not good
| enough anymore, we have to make that $99 plus we have to make
| money in perpetuity because the customer now has to subscribe to
| our "managed experience".
|
| Now I understand this on some level with cheaper stuff like
| printers, that printer doesn't cost $20, it costs that because
| the company assumes you will buy the pods from them. But with a
| treadmill that goes for thousands it's a completely different
| ball game.
|
| Were going to get to the point where one day you will hop in your
| car and start driving into the countryside. At a certain point
| your car will just shut off because "Ford has decided that this
| route in unsafe for your vehicle, for the best experience, please
| drive back to the city, on your way back, consider enabling cup
| holders for an improved coffee drinking experience".
|
| The glimmer of hope on the horizon are companies like Framework
| and Pinephone. These companies realize that consumers are not
| happy with this shit and market themselves as the antithesis of
| these practices. I really hope these types of companies take off
| in the future.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| "Please enjoy a complimentary game of centrifugal bumblepuppy!"
| _fat_santa wrote:
| "In order to have the best experience, please confirm your
| AdChoices"
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| "Please drink verification GatorAde to continue!"
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Oh good grief, don't give them ideas.
|
| Incidentally, I distinctly remember reading something
| about skippable ad on tv ( skippable if you do something
| adveriser wants -- like McD ad and its only skippable if
| you yell 'i m lovin' it').
|
| Your idea is next level though:>
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It was a reference to this: https://imgur.com/KGzbkBn
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think the worst part is that I can absolutely imagine a
| world where this is a reality. Thank you for sharing
| this.
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| I bought a replacement $400 Canon printer recently. Same model,
| price is at least double what it was several years ago. The
| reason to buy the more expensive model is because there are
| readily available cheap third-party cartridges. A lot of the
| new cheaper models don't have that.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| What I've read people write online is to ditch inkjets
| altogether and go with laser printer or use megatank
| printers. Don't know how better they are though.
| asdff wrote:
| In reality printers are such small potatoes unless you are
| printing like hundreds of pages a year. I got mine from an
| online listing for free, and I spend maybe $30 on ink once
| a year. It mostly exists to print shipping labels. I'd just
| get a printer for as cheap as possible and not worry too
| much about what kind it is if you are going to only use it
| sparingly.
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| Printer head cleaning can burn through quite a bit of ink
| if the printer hasn't been used in a while. And sometimes
| my parents go long stretches without using the printer.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| The real question is, do you (or your family members)
| really need a home printer at all? I just go to a print
| shop when I need to print something out a few times a
| year.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I've been thinking about this for a while, and my proposal is
| pretty simple:
|
| ---
|
| Legally - prohibit selling physical goods that contain digital
| locks unless the owner is given a key. Period.
|
| ---
|
| That's all you have to do. If I own the device, I get the keys
| for the physical locks, and the keys for the digital locks.
|
| I'm completely ok with manufacturers locking down computers for
| security, in much the same way that I appreciate that cars have
| door/ignition locks.
|
| But if I own it - I get all the keys. I may never use them, but
| they are mine, as part of ownership.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Yeah, it's fine for a corporate device or a child's device to
| have some safety rails in place. But it's bullshit that an
| iOS device I purchased won't run any application or
| customization or OS version that I want.
| AndrewOMartin wrote:
| Yeah, wouldn't it be great if there was a foundation to
| advocate for being able to have the keys to your digital
| locks?
|
| We could call it something like the Freedom from Locks on
| Software Foundation, or maybe something a bit snapper.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| My take is not nearly as strong as the fsf's. I'm fine not
| being provided with source code, and not being able to
| distribute the original code itself.
|
| Basically - I don't expect to have companies hand me code
| they wrote to run the device (I happen to like it, so I
| tend to support companies that do), but I don't believe
| that's a reasonable (or particularly useful) practice when
| so many functions depend on external web services.
|
| I _do_ expect to have them legally prevented from blocking
| me from writing my own code to run or repair the device.
| enriquto wrote:
| > My take is not nearly as strong as the fsf's.
|
| Your take is much stronger than that of the FSF. The FSF
| advocates for people to choose free software, and for
| governments to not force people to use non-free software.
| You say that non-free software (i.e., software for which
| you don't have the key) should be illegal. The FSF has
| never advocated for such an extreme viewpoint.
| pjerem wrote:
| No he didn't said that. He said that he wanted the keys
| blocking him to run its own software, not that he wanted
| the code of the running software.
|
| Much like you don't need Windows source code to install
| Linux, but you need to be provided the UEFI password if
| there is one.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| > You say that non-free software (i.e., software for
| which you don't have the key) should be illegal.
|
| I don't think I'm saying that.
|
| I'm saying that hardware sold to me should be usable by
| me without company approval. I should be able to unlock
| any bootloader/bios/flash that the vendor does as a part
| of normal repair or operation. Basically - if it has RAM,
| I should be able to write to it. If it has ROM the
| company flashes from outside the device - I should be
| able to flash it from outside the device.
|
| In many cases you could simplify this to - I should have
| root access on any computing hardware that supports
| software with the concept of root access (and it's a
| surprisingly large amount these days)
|
| I don't mind the company not sharing tooling or
| documentation. I certainly am not asking for non-binary
| source code. I think you should be able to sell software
| as a service just fine (I don't own that hardware, you
| do) - but I'm opposed to a company being able to
| intentionally sell a product that contains a
| cryptographic software lock that prevents the owner from
| later taking advantage of that hardware.
|
| basically - I'm much softer on the requirements, but I'd
| prefer they be enforced.
| judge2020 wrote:
| How do you give the owner a key without enabling an evil maid
| attack? a physical usb device unique to the phone that will
| unlock it to run whatever when it's plugged in? something
| deep in settings that requires you do a dance and enter the
| konami code?
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| For my treadmill: Who cares? If my maid is evil and
| reporgrams my treadmill to randomly throw me off, there's a
| dozen more effective and hard to detect ways she could set
| traps in my house, like setting up common household
| cleaning products to mix and fill the house with chlorine
| gas.
|
| Evil Maid attacks are real, but you don't need perfect
| security for your household appliances.
| nybble41 wrote:
| A device-specific "owner password" would be fine. Physical
| access is not proof of ownership, so there is no need to
| open the device up to trivial "evil maid"-style attacks. Of
| course some owners will lose their passwords, so some
| provision would need to be made to ensure that owner-access
| is not permanently lost.
| pjerem wrote:
| There is a new technology that I learnt of recently. It's
| called paper. It can be used to create instruction booklets
| or, by adding glue, it can become a sticker. We could print
| those keys on it.
| [deleted]
| FredPret wrote:
| That makes sense.
|
| With these treadmills, gyms can simply keep their
| NordicTracks locked to prevent people messing with them.
|
| And if you buy one for yourself, you can watch Netflix.
|
| All at the owners' risk. Treat adults like adults. I like it.
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Want to unlock your car with the keyfob? Want to use the heated
| seats? Subscriptions. Anyways, please drink a verification can.
| Consider also reading "Unauthorized Bread".
| enobrev wrote:
| "Sorry, these cupholders do not work with this brand of soda.
| Your GPS screen is now showing the nearest store where you
| can purchase a brand of soda that will work in your
| cupholders. You'll be enjoying delicious X Brand Soda in just
| 17 minutes!"
| shostack wrote:
| Something similar recently happened with Toyota actually.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29667208
| Kaze404 wrote:
| I really don't see how else a system that encourages infinite
| growth can evolve.
| AniseAbyss wrote:
| Maybe companies don't want to get sued and end up in the
| American justice system clown world. Personal responsibility
| seems to go right out of the window when people smell money...
| Kaze404 wrote:
| Because it's such an easy task for an individual to sue a
| company and an entire team of lawyers?
| keyle wrote:
| I'm utterly disappointed I didn't see any footage of DOOM running
| on it. If those hackers didn't spend so much time trying to be
| healthy, they could focus their time on an actual worthy task! /s
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Not the first time a company has pushed an update that removes
| important features.
|
| To my knowledge the first high-profile instance of this was when
| Sony updated the PS3 to remove Linux support, which resulted in a
| successful class-action in the US. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS
| sschueller wrote:
| Successful for whom? The layers or the consumer? Sadly in many
| class action cases the "victims" get effectively nothing.
|
| The way class action is done in the US it only makes sense for
| the law firms.
|
| I have stacks of class action letters and in almost every case
| I get exactly zero...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > Successful for whom?
|
| Consumers who don't want products to have features disappear.
| The main thing class action suites accomplish is punishing
| the offender so that potential offenders in the future think
| twice.
| slantyyz wrote:
| > I have stacks of class action letters and in almost every
| case I get exactly zero...
|
| I was pleasantly surprised when I got around $250 CAD from a
| Lenovo class action suit. I bought one of their consumer
| laptops that had a piece of crapware on it. It was big news
| when it happened. Otherwise, I normally get maybe $20 for the
| class actions that I sign up for.
| nybble41 wrote:
| > Otherwise, I normally get maybe $20 for the class actions
| that I sign up for.
|
| Your area requires lawyers to solicit class members to sign
| up for class actions? Lucky! Around here you'll just be
| grouped into the class action without asking for consent.
| If you're lucky they'll mail you a notice about the suit on
| a postcard and let you "opt out" by locating a non-editable
| PDF of a form buried somewhere on their site, printing it &
| filling it in by hand, and sending it to their headquarters
| by certified mail at your own expense. (If you're less
| lucky you get to write up your own free-form opt-out letter
| and hope it meets their standards.) If you don't do this
| then you lose the ability to sue as an individual, or to
| _refrain_ from being (ab)used to bully the defendant (and
| enrich the lawyers) in the event that you don 't agree with
| the basis for the suit.
| spiderice wrote:
| I feel like that was actually a fairly legitimate removal by
| Sony. Sony was selling the consoles at a loss in order to make
| money on the games. People were taking advantage by buying
| cheap Linux computers, never allowing Sony to recoup money from
| the initial sale. I don't have much sympathy for the people
| abusing the system in this particular case. Probably an
| unpopular opinion around here.
| cowpig wrote:
| I see your definition of "legitimate" is "in their own best
| interest regardless of legal or moral legitimacy"
| openknot wrote:
| >People were taking advantage
|
| >I don't have much sympathy for the people abusing the system
|
| I disagree with the premise that it's unethical to use a
| product I purchase and own from a for-profit company for a
| use that turned out not to be profitable for it. Note that it
| wasn't much of a hack; Sony sold consoles with the option to
| install another operating system from its menu [0].
|
| Since the move was so unprofitable to it, Sony should not
| have offered the option to users in the first place. But
| since it happened, executives at Sony then just decided that
| it made business sense for Sony to disable the option in a
| firmware update.
|
| I just don't understand the framing where it's as if Sony did
| a favor for its customers who then "took advantage," when
| Sony just miscalculated a business policy to serve its own
| self-interest.
|
| [0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/sony-settles-over-
| insta...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yep, they made a mistake supporting it. And they never will
| again.
| wruza wrote:
| They could not do that from the start, but they did,
| because they planned larger sales. Whether it turns out
| to be more profitable is their risk, not users. The
| important change is that people can't have an expectation
| (a risk) anymore which would turn out to be false a month
| after. Inability is a much, much lesser issue than a
| broken expectation.
| frozenport wrote:
| Thats because Sony originally marketed OtherOS but then changed
| the functionality after the users had purchased the machines.
| npteljes wrote:
| My pet feature removal case is when they pushed an update for a
| GTA that removed a good bunch of the original songs from the
| radio. The articles I found are for GTA IV but I'm certain that
| the issue was with an earlier version at first.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| I like my devices cheap, dumb and offline. Nothing else.
| musikele wrote:
| When I read these articles, where people buy 4000$ treadmills
| only to watch netflix using an unsupported feature, I wonder why
| they don't buy a 1000$ treadmill without any display, a 50$
| tablet stand, and an iPad or Android tablet (that they probably
| already have). You'd get exactly what you want, for a cheaper
| price..
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Because the 4000$ treadmill looks really neat:
| https://www.nordictrack.de/laufbander/nordictrack-x32i-incli...
|
| Apparently there's a demand for well designed hardware that
| runs generic software.
| beloch wrote:
| "NordicTrack says it supports right-to-repair rules. However,
| because of its equipment's moving parts, the spokesperson says,
| it believes that restricting access to its operating system is
| important for safety. "
|
| The real reason they don't want people using other apps or
| watching third party videos is because anyone doing that is not
| spending money on iFit. Or, at least, not as much as they could
| be. NordicTrack likely discounted these treadmills to squeeze out
| competitors with the intention of making their money back by
| locking customers into iFit.
|
| If a few users hack their treadmills, that's not going to hurt
| NordicTrack's bottom line. If most users are doing it because
| it's as easy as tapping the screen 10 times, then there's a
| problem. So, NordicTrack has made it harder to gain admin access.
| Not impossible. Just harder. More people will go back to spending
| money on iFit, the determined few will roll up their sleeves, and
| the business model will be restored.
|
| The problem is that this business model is a bait and switch.
| When people pay for a treadmill they don't expect to be locked
| into further monthly payments to unlock its features. It's
| inherently dishonest, and the victim, aside from users, is the
| competitor who produces an honest product that's paid for
| entirely up front and is, hence, more expensive and less
| competitive.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| I really wonder about the payoff in the continual cat and mouse
| game here. At some point, you are going to be paying a sizeable
| sum to your devs to try a lock out a relatively small amount of
| technically capable people who will circumvent the system
| rather than pay a subscription fee. I agree making a little
| harder once probably convinced a few people to pay up...but
| after that it has to be diminishing returns and eventually
| negative returns. I wonder what the tradeoff would be if they
| marketed their system was one that as open and you could do so
| many things with it. Like, imagine if the commercials showed
| how you could use your treadmill but also connect to any app
| you wanted, like Netflix. To me, that would be a big draw.
| criddell wrote:
| Do they not want to enable access to god mode because you can
| tinker with the treadmill parameters and do unsafe things or
| because they think Netflix will somehow break the treadmill?
|
| If it's the former, then they should keep god mode for
| treadmill service operations inaccessible but also allow
| loading apps like Netflix and Hulu. I'd wager that streaming
| apps are what most of the people using god mode want.
| nano9 wrote:
| vl wrote:
| NordicTrack treadmills are quite expensive actually. Full
| incline model are $3000 and $4000, and there is no competition
| for them.
| gnabgib wrote:
| This is a couple of months old now, posted a few times.. not much
| discussion: [0] 8pts/1 comment [1] 15pts/1
| comment [2] 5pts/0 comments
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29288525 [1]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29292826 [2]:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29296501
| dmix wrote:
| Currently ranked #2 on HN, it happens.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| I don't understand this obsession with electronic exercise
| devices. The peloton, that stupid thing that mounts to the wall,
| treadmills etc.
|
| Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in
| single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch
| a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.
| mikestew wrote:
| _I don 't understand this obsession with electronic exercise
| devices._
|
| Then you need to make an effort, because it's really not hard
| to understand if one has even just a bit of life experience as
| an adult. But it sounds like an excuse to brag about the harsh
| weather one runs in, and those damned kids and their video
| games or something. Here, I'll one-up you: I regularly ran in
| snow and sub-zero (Fahrenheit, bitches) temperatures when I
| lived in Indiana. I now live in the much milder Pacific
| Northwest, and I own a treadmill. 'cuz you know what? Sometimes
| outside _isn 't_ better than any of those, and I just need to
| get some miles in.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| I don't need to do anything bud. I think they're a stupid
| waste of money. I have no problem without them. They're a
| marketing scam, have fun wasting money for a worse exercise
| experience.
|
| Is there a reason it upsets you that I don't like them? I
| have no problem making time because exercise is a priority
| for me. For you, it's an after thought that you need to cram
| into your terrible lifestyle and that's the entire problem.
| mikestew wrote:
| Dude, calm down and go for a run. Remember, you're just as
| awesome as you think you are!
| francisofascii wrote:
| I agree outside is better, but sometimes there is ice, hot
| weather, or simply not wanting to deal with angry motorists.
| technothrasher wrote:
| You prefer to exercise outside, others of us prefer to exercise
| on a machine. So what? I'm not sure what the point of your
| comment is.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| My point is I don't like them. Why do you get to have an
| opinion and I don't?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Here's why I prefer electronic exercise devices:
|
| - When my kids were younger, I was always nearby during a
| workout.
|
| - I can comfortably work out regardless of the season, weather,
| or time of day.
|
| - I can easily take a bathroom break mid-workout.
|
| - I can do much longer workouts without getting bored, because
| I can watch movies or play video games during the workout.
| (E.g., using an exercise bike + my own computer.) This works
| around motivational / persistence issues I used to have.
|
| - I can end a workout on short notice. Contrast to a long-
| distance run or bikeride, where I may be far from home when
| something comes up.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| You can go outside and workout just fine, you're just
| choosing not to. Everything about doing exercise on machines
| is worse for you. It's better than nothing.
| maurits wrote:
| Ive just enjoyed another month of covid lockdown, and my bike
| trainer is about the only thing that kept me sane.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| The most obvious thing is having a good environment. If you are
| doing serious HIITs, you either need to be at a track or on a
| training device, unless you feel like playing in traffic.
| Fitness equipment is not the goal, fitness is, and equipment is
| a good way to get there.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > Outside is so much better than all of those.
|
| If it's an option for the exercise you want and your health and
| safety, sure. It's not always an option and there are some
| exercises (like rowing) that are't practical to do every day
| unless you live on or near a body of water, and even then. If
| the lake freezes over, good luck rowing!
|
| > I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the
| ground before I touch a treadmill.
|
| Good for you, do you want a cookie or something?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| Kids, safety, convenience, positive encouragement, all these
| things help. Not everyone is as privileged as you where you can
| easily just go outside and leave your home without a care in
| the world.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| You can't go outside where you live but you can afford
| expensive electronic exercise machines? Sounds like you need
| to change your priorities.
| Gwarzo wrote:
| What world do you live in where you cannot just "go outside"
| and be there for a window of time.
|
| In what world are you unable to do the above, but perfectly
| able to have this solved via electronic workout devices.
| belthesar wrote:
| A non-ableist one, apparently. A transplant patient who is
| on anti-rejection meds, where they need to protect
| themselves from a pandemic-level infection that their body
| refuses to build antibodies for despite numerous
| vaccination attempts. A person suffering from agoraphobia,
| where the fear of being outside and even observed is a
| psychological road block to doing literally anything. Two
| of many possible reasons for things like this to be a huge
| help.
|
| Do they need an electronic workout device? Nah, but if
| you're legitimately helping someone to achieve motivation
| or be safer in taking care of themselves, then the product
| has value.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| The world where my 4 year old can't quite keep up. He's
| done = I'm done.
| watwut wrote:
| Balance bike or bike for kid and you can run next.
| ultrasounder wrote:
| Awesome good on you and more power to you. BUT Treadmill,
| Spinning bike and Rowing is for a different demographic. And
| You are not part of that demographic.Gabeesh?
| logicalmonster wrote:
| Is there any theory as to what NordicTrack hopes to gain out of
| preventing customers from using the screen as they see fit?
| NordicTrack already has the customers' money, so why would they
| really care?
|
| Are they trying to do some kind of advertising on the screen? Are
| just going through run of the mill security updates and there's
| bad communication between the customers and NordicTrack not
| understanding each other because of a layer of dumb bureaucracy
| between marketing/developers?
| bobsmooth wrote:
| So customers are forced to subscribe to their service to watch
| media.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Probably because they want to be the middle man for these
| services they provide or are going to. After all just like
| Apple they feel entitled to these cuts. The people who buy
| these gadgets are people with too much money or techbros that
| go out of their way to justify the control apple has over the
| platform or 30% apple takes.
|
| Business wise it makes sense. And of course if everything is
| not locked down then you can always scare people with
| hackers.
| fckgw wrote:
| NordicTrack is owned by iFit which sells a workout subscription
| service. The screen is "intended" only for iFit content so
| they've locked users out of other uses.
| mikestew wrote:
| Not that NordicTrack cares about purchases from l'il ol' me in
| the larger scheme of things, this is precisely why we didn't buy
| a NordicTrack treadmill despite being tickled with our
| NordicTrack rowing machine: that screen is there for
| NordicTrack's benefit, not yours. Sure, I'm a software engineer
| as well as owning a soldering iron and knowing how to use it. But
| if I've got to unsolder/resolder wires or cut traces on my brand-
| new machine to get the functionality I thought I paid for, I
| bought the wrong machine. If I have to use a software hack that
| is one update away from not working anymore, I have purchased the
| wrong machine. I'll let others rant about not being able to use
| the hardware that one paid for, I'm just not going to pay for the
| HW in the first place. (And, honestly, how many of us on HN need
| _another_ screen around the house?)
|
| It's disappointing, too, because we're quite satisfied with our
| NT rowing machine, which was purchased right before the "big
| screen" models, and we would otherwise recommend it. But now you
| can't buy the one with the cheap LCD display like we have and
| just bring your own screen, you have to get proprietary screen
| models now. So I don't recommend their rowing machines anymore,
| either.
|
| After much research, we bought a treadmill from Horizon
| fitness[0]. We've been nothing but happy with it, which is their
| top-of-the-line 7.8. It has BT for music to play over the built-
| in speakers, and it works fine with Zwift and even the iFit
| subscription that NordicTrack pushes (it just won't auto-control
| the treadmill speed/incline, which is a-okay by me). BT streams
| your data to Zwift, et. al., including speed/incline/HR. It has a
| built-in stand for your tablet, though anyone on HN ought to be
| able to rig some cheap 27" 4k monitor in there somehow (we use a
| wall-mount for the rowing machine that swivels for general
| purpose use). The spouse and I have used it with Zwift, iFit, and
| Apple Fitness+, though Zwift is the only one that cares about
| data from the BT stream. As running goes I used to be fast, but
| now I'm just old and still faster than most, and it does
| everything I need for dark, rainy PNW days. I use it for tempo
| and intervals on occasion as well, and the one-button presets for
| interval/recovery are nice so when I'm gasping for breath I just
| need to be able to push the recovery button.
|
| Anyway, no association whatsoever with Horizon, just a very
| satisfied customer.
|
| [0] https://www.horizonfitness.com
| chris_wot wrote:
| Honestly, it is getting to the point where your best bet is to
| buy a cheaper device with minimal features, then mount a screen
| onto it and hook it up to a Linux box to play what you want.
|
| Cheaper and actually gives you what you want. Might force the
| vendor to allow for more customization, given a lot of people
| stop buying their premium range.
| CrendKing wrote:
| The "right-to-repair" sentiment is totally understandable, as the
| article says. However, on the other hand, imagine some user
| modified the underlying Android, which caused the treadmill to
| run unstoppably, which end up injuring him. He then sues the
| company for millions of dollars. If I were the owner of the
| company, I would rather losing some customers than sleeping on a
| ticking bomb. Their move is also understandable.
|
| I think an ideal solution could be the manufacturer officially
| supports accessing the "privilege mode" with some sort of
| "release of liability". Customer must agree to this the first
| time they access, forfeiting warranty and ability to sue. Much
| like when people decide to unlock phone bootloader and root.
|
| And to make all manufacturers willing to provide privilege mode
| to their products, I think either 1) the court makes clear
| statement of supporting this legally, or 2) having a supreme
| court precedence established for this, is required, otherwise
| some manufacturers would still fear the potential legal risk.
| somebodythere wrote:
| That person would not win the lawsuit.
| SamBam wrote:
| This sounds like concern trolling.
|
| What happens if, when you're upgrading your new right-to-repair
| laptop, you leave some wires sticking out of the battery and
| fry yourself, and then sue the laptop maker?
|
| Indeed, what happens when you fry yourself repairing the ur-
| right-to-repair device, the light fixture with a removable
| lightbulb?
|
| You can invent any scenario for any machine or device that the
| user can repair, but it should be fairly straightforward to add
| language that says "if you modify the device's behavior in such
| a way that it harms you, that's not our fault."
| DevKoala wrote:
| This hacks is impressive, but very pointless. A regular treadmill
| plus an iPad is a much better combo and it goes for $1k less
| total.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| I'd be interested in knowing where to order a 32 inch ipad for
| $1000.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| You can buy them for much less than that. They're known as
| 'televisions' and you can get even bigger ones than 32 inch
| for under $500!
| DevKoala wrote:
| Fine, attach a TV to it for $200. The whole thing just seems
| silly.
| reificator wrote:
| They didn't say it was identical, they said it was a much
| better combo.
| [deleted]
| davidgrenier wrote:
| I have setup firefox to drop all cookies when closing and
| whitelisted a few websites I still need to bear cookies.
|
| Upon using the above link, I ended up on a paywall. I hit F12 and
| check the creation date of all the cookies and confirm they had
| all been created the 19th (today, and incidentally had just woken
| up and turned on the computer). I refresh the website, still
| paywall.
|
| I delete all cookies manually for that page, hit refresh and can
| read the whole article. I don't understand how this is possible.
| mdavis6890 wrote:
| A good reason why I don't like to buy smart devices.
|
| That said, I think that if we want right-to-repair/tinker I think
| we also have to make reasonable concessions as well. E.g. No
| liability for the manufacturer due to running older or non OEM
| versions of software/firmware. No expectation of ongoing support
| or updates on those older branches. Of course liability should
| still exist for issues that were not caused by this alternate
| software even if you're running it.
| Zak wrote:
| If you don't have root on a software-controlled device, it isn't
| really yours. Unfortunately, I think we've lost _a lot_ of ground
| in that fight when it comes to consumer devices.
|
| To the HN community at large: how do we start clawing it back?
| glitcher wrote:
| Wow, sounds like a huge missed opportunity! If so many people
| were willing to pay a premium price for a device primarily
| because of how easy it was to customize, then perhaps it should
| be marketed that way in the first place.
|
| Hardware vendor lock-in subscriptions may seem to the corporate
| world like a big win on paper, but how many customers are they
| losing who are willing to pay for a very premium product that
| they get full control over? (looking at you peloton)
| coopreme wrote:
| Does anyone know the domains they use to connect/update? I've got
| one of these (different brand) but still unlocked by the 10 taps
| method. I've still never connected mine to WiFi but I like to dim
| the screen. I could setup DNS blocks and then connect to WiFi to
| verify it works for a more long term solution for folks (well,
| that intersection of those that run a pinhole and on a
| treadmill).
|
| I didn't connect it to WiFi (even after unlocking) primarily
| because I worry about it being another data collection tool
| (WiFi, bt) and it has a camera/mic on it.
| iandanforth wrote:
| This is obviously wrong and should be blocked via laws, but just
| in case you're here and _haven 't_ heard of pi-hole (https://pi-
| hole.net/) taking internet-of-shit devices and blocking all the
| ways they try to access the net is kinda fun.
| treesknees wrote:
| The method to get into "God Mode" is the same, except now it
| prompts you for a code. Someone has figured out how to calculate
| it and actually created a website to generate codes for you.
|
| http://getresponsecode.com
|
| Apparently the algorithm is very simple according to Reddit
| https://old.reddit.com/r/nordictrack/comments/ozkp8v/privile...
|
| >long responseCode = new Random((long)
| Integer.parseInt(iFitCode)).nextInt(999999);
|
| It's not a perfect workaround, as it resets on the next boot, but
| I've seen that people are installing apps such as Taskbar which
| float overtop the iFit app and start on boot, allowing you to
| still launch your apps like Netflix etc even without God Mode
| enabled.
|
| It's only a matter of time before Nordic decides to block this
| method as well. We should also be looking into how to block
| updates to these devices.
| dmosley wrote:
| Surely one can just block the update service via something like
| a pihole? I do this for my Vizio TV. They're notorious, as as
| most smart TVs now, for calling home and everywhere else.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I know this is terrible for consumers, but I'm endlessly amused
| by all the hacks and workarounds in this game of cat and mouse.
| ncann wrote:
| Normally you can block any device's update if you figure out
| the server for the update content/update check, and block it
| out from your router and/or DNS.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| The "solution" for that will be embedded 5G connections.
| nvr219 wrote:
| I put all my gym equipment in a faraday cage
| konschubert wrote:
| That would work equally well with LTE. It's not happening
| because it would increase cost.
| fragmede wrote:
| Maybe not on optional treadmills, but that's already here
| for CPAP machines that insurance pays for - they log data
| to an SD card in case you don't have reception, but it
| also has an LTE modem to upload it so the insurance
| company can check up on you and make sure you're using
| that machine, or else charge you more money for it.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| "Luckily" in the US, the carrier oligopoly here won't
| sell you a cheap IoT plan for cell connectivity, and the
| "lifetime" plans sold to manufacturers are probably at
| least $50-100 in volume.
| pjerem wrote:
| Oh no, in fact, it's just around the corner.
|
| https://aws.amazon.com/fr/private5g/
| jitl wrote:
| Private 5G is like an alternative to wifi for a large
| industrial complex or something. No one is going to cover
| your house in it. You should be more worried about
| Sidewalk. https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-
| Sidewalk/b?ie=UTF8&node=213281...
| chana_masala wrote:
| Can you explain further?
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| The remedy for that will be wrapping the internal antenna
| in foil or cell tower emulation.
| npteljes wrote:
| The remedy to that is that the thing will stop working
| after a while - like how Intel x86 CPUs turn off after 30
| mins without their precious spy co-processor[0], or how
| Diablo 2 Resurrected discontinues working after 30 days
| of being offline[1]. Of course another remedy is that
| you're free to buy a similar thing from another
| manufacturer, that's not completely dropped the ball on
| the issue. That is, until all of the manufacturers drop
| the ball, like how the situation is with x86 CPUs and
| Intel ME / AMD ST. The true remedy would be well thought
| out, well enforced legislation. But yeah, I'm not holding
| my breath either.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine
| #Undocu...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29977673
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I don't know what scares me more, the fact that all
| manufacturers might go down this path, or that our
| society might reward them for doing so.
| loceng wrote:
| If we organize as a society, which in part means
| educating along with fixing the voting systems in most
| places to be fair and balanced (like by drowning out
| industrial complex lobby money by giving every eligible
| voter a $100/year voucher to contribute to the politician
| of their choice they feel best matches their interests),
| then we make laws to prevent such abusive-exploitive
| behaviour by companies.
| Retr0id wrote:
| The remedy for that will be requiring a network handshake
| to occur on boot.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| At that point it should be easy to return, at least.
| chris_wot wrote:
| At which point, you tell them you have no coverage and
| get a refund.
| fragmede wrote:
| The remedy for that is to emulate the server
|
| The remedy for that is to encrypt the communication
|
| The remedy for that is to MITM the server connection
|
| The remedy for that is HSTS...
|
| It's a cat a mouse game, the better solution for society
| (imo) is to have specific rights enshrined by law to
| allow for a qualified 3rd parties to access a system's
| internals.
| Arnavion wrote:
| The one advantage of playing the cat-and-mouse game is
| that the longer it goes on, the more complexity ends up
| being in the firmware (TLS, HPKP, etc as you already
| listed), which increases the likelihood of a bug that can
| be exploited to take over it.
| VRay wrote:
| In that vein, it might be worth noting that this thing is
| just a treadmill. There's this whole fancy computer
| attached probably via just a handful of very simple wires
| to the actual treadmill part that anyone cares about. If
| they get too obnoxious about the computer, you can just
| open the treadmill, yank the computer out, and replace it
| with something from China that costs $20
|
| Of course, that'll then get attacked via the legal system
| for violating DRM.. ugh
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| The remedy for that is a crack
| fknorangesite wrote:
| And when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply
| freeze to death.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| The "solution" is to allow the device use only "official"
| resolver servers, accessed via encrypted channel, secured
| by a PKI with a private root.
| charles_f wrote:
| First covid then gym equipment, 5G is the worst
| rckoepke wrote:
| Amazon sidewalk, actually. Should prove cheaper and work
| near any sense housing.
| vishvananda wrote:
| Thank you for this. I was hoping someone had figured it out but
| I hadn't found this yet.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| DHCP advertise an http proxy to it with a PAC file and block
| non-proxy communications. It should do the right thing
| eventually, at which point you can catalogue the usual traffic
| exchanges and then block anything not in them and/or just the
| software update URLs (which requires inspection over time, as
| there may be many).
| igetspam wrote:
| Thank you! I love the hardware but I'm pissed about the
| software. This is helpful.
| mst wrote:
| > It's only a matter of time before Nordic decides to block
| this method as well.
|
| Maaaybe.
|
| The public statement from them sounds like it was legal whining
| about liability issues, and if that's actually true (which,
| well) then if it has to be sufficiently intentional on your
| part that may be sufficient for them to leave well alone.
|
| Certainly worth preparing for that not being the case though.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah or that's just the excuse they use to justify blocking
| access so more people subscribe to their services.
| mst wrote:
| That's what "if that's actually true" was about, yes.
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| IANAL, but are there any actual cases where someone or a
| class successfully sued a company for using their product
| off-label in such a way? This kind of stuff seems to me like
| how schools no longer permit students to go out for lunch,
| citing liability that they almost assuredly never had in the
| first place.
| pc86 wrote:
| I can at least see the argument that tapping the screen a
| couple times in a certain pattern might not be sufficient,
| but having to generate a code is. I think it's a ridiculous
| argument, but I wouldn't be even remotely shocked that some
| octogenarian judge who doesn't own a cell phone is
| convinced by it.
| mst wrote:
| Right, and legal departments kind of exist to avoid that
| sort of ridiculous argument fucking over their employers.
|
| I don't endorse the argument -logically- at all, but if
| it's "legal being (justifiably) paranoid" then while as I
| said preparing for that not being it is still worthwhile,
| the extent to which they'll chase down workarounds may
| have limits nonetheless.
| vuldin wrote:
| This is great, thanks for posting this site. I am one of those
| who bought this awesome treadmill for several reasons,
| including to watch netflix and plex. It's been frustrating not
| being able to easily do this... I have just been listening to
| podcasts from my phone.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> and finding workarounds that allow them to bypass the update
| and watch whatever they want while they work out.
|
| Like buying a TV and mounting it on the wall in front of the
| treadmill? Do these people not have access to 2x4s? Why does your
| TV screen need to be integrated into your exercise equipment?
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| > "The block on privilege mode was automatically installed
| because we believe it enhances security and safety while using
| fitness equipment that has multiple moving parts," says a
| spokesperson for NordicTrack
|
| lol what a straight up fucking lie.
| habeebtc wrote:
| The alternative here is to buy a waterproof tablet, and a decent
| mount to attach it to your treadmill.
|
| https://amazon.com/Arkon-TAB086-12-Tablet-Galaxy-Retail/dp/B...
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| I wish it was even possible on my Peloton tread.
| sharperguy wrote:
| Every time I read an article like this I just imagine Richard
| Stallman's face as he smugly says "treacherous computing".
| charles_f wrote:
| > NordicTrack says it supports right-to-repair rules.
|
| I don't get why companies think this kind of blanket statements
| are useful, when they're immediately made null by their actions.
|
| > However, because of its equipment's moving parts, the
| spokesperson says, it believes that restricting access to its
| operating system is important for safety.
|
| This is such obvious BS, when the real kicker is that after you
| already shelled $4k, they really really want you to rack out that
| sweet sweet monthly subscription money and don't want any
| competitors on a screen that, it turns out, they can control.
|
| Greedy manufacturers wanting to get into that monthly recurring
| revenue model.
| phasersout wrote:
| It seems these customers would be happier with any ole treadmill
| and a simple TV mounted to it.
| luckystarr wrote:
| This isn't "hacking". This is "using". As long as the current
| vocabulary is used, it will be advantageous for "hardware hostage
| takers".
| gorjusborg wrote:
| This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from so-
| called 'smart' devices.
|
| If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company
| can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't
| rely on the product's features. Period.
|
| I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I
| bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and
| loved them. Terraria was updated one day, and the controls were
| all changed, completely. Total rip-off. I liked the game I
| bought, but it was replaced without my consent.
|
| My feeling is that this behavior should be illegal for purchased
| products.
| adreamingsoul wrote:
| I similar avoid purchasing devices that I can't have full
| ownership of.
|
| I've often thought about starting a hardware company that
| provides all the source code, schematics, bill of materials
| with the sale of a product. This is a dream and a desire I have
| for the things that I do buy.
|
| For example, I have several digital cinema film cameras that I
| do not plan to upgrade or sell. Unfortunately they are showing
| their age and have some fixable faults. I have spent the last
| two years to reverse engineering these cameras to identify the
| fault. If only I had a schematic.
|
| I don't expect the industry or politics to change any time
| soon. If only a hardware company could change the status quo by
| enabling their customers to be enabled to have full ownership
| and access.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > I've often thought about starting a hardware company that
| provides all the source code, schematics, bill of materials
| with the sale of a product. This is a dream and a desire I
| have for the things that I do buy.
|
| Hardware in the old Soviet states came with all the
| blueprints and engineering schematics to fabricate
| replacement parts in the field.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > This type of 'update' is one reason I tend to stay away from
| so-called 'smart' devices.
|
| That is why I call those devices 'dumb' devices (reminds me of
| a SciFi book where the AI helpers are called "artifically
| stupids"). Smart devices are local, no auto-updates, working
| with no issue in the event of an outage.
|
| I have many smart devices, all that would stop working in the
| event of an internet outage, would be the voice interface.
| xvector wrote:
| > That is why I call [smart] devices 'dumb' devices
|
| "Dumb devices" is already an actual term, already used to
| refer to non-smart devices, so you are confusing anyone that
| has not learnt your custom vocabulary.
| Semaphor wrote:
| You are right, I should call them stupid.
|
| But calling them smart is also confusing when most of them
| aren't, with the "smart" part being on a remote server.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why don't the customers use a tablet resting on the treadmill
| or wall-mounted TV to watch whatever they want?
| francisofascii wrote:
| That is not always practical. Also, why purchase a tablet or
| install a wall mounted screen, when there is a perfectly good
| screen right in front of you.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Because unless screen doesn't display what you want it to.
| It's useless.
| iomcr wrote:
| But they paid for the $4,000 treadmill, not expecting it
| to magically become the $400 treadmill.
| mikestew wrote:
| Tablets can bounce around on a treadmill if you really get
| going, and 10" is not 32". And you think customers are going
| to wall-mount a TV in the garage where a lot of treadmills
| live, rather than just buy a built-in screen? I mean, yeah,
| that's exactly what I did, but not everyone (not but a few?)
| are even that handy.
|
| And on top of everything else, customers thought that they
| _could_ watch whatever they wanted on their attached 32 " LCD
| screen. Why fuck with wall-mounting a TV or a bouncy tablet
| when they sell a treadmill with the screen built-in?
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Why fuck with wall-mounting a TV or a bouncy tablet when
| they sell a treadmill with the screen built-in?
|
| Because unless the screen displays what you want it to,
| it's useless?
| johnmaguire wrote:
| > And on top of everything else, customers thought that
| they could watch whatever they wanted on their attached
| 32" LCD screen.
| mikestew wrote:
| Oh, I see, you want to shame people for not seeing this
| coming. Never mind, I thought yours was an honest
| question.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| even if not for the content/software lock.. modularity is
| almost always better. screen technology is constantly
| improving. maybe i want to upgrade later without throwing
| the whole treadmill out?
| mdoms wrote:
| I don't think that's plausible considering the users knew
| they were "hacking" the machine to view this content.
|
| > But Howard, and many other NordicTrack owners, weren't
| drawn to the hardware by iFit's videos. They were drawn
| in by how easy the fitness machines were to hack.
|
| > To get into his X32i, all Howard needed to do was tap
| the touchscreen 10 times, wait seven seconds, then tap 10
| more times. Doing so unlocked the machine--letting Howard
| into the underlying Android operating system.
|
| Personally, I would never purchase a device with a screen
| that intentionally locked me out like this.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Interesting interpretation. Shame was not mentioned. What
| was mentioned: a workaround to a problem.
| elmolino89 wrote:
| Wrong question: wtf TV sized screen attached to whatever
| fitness gizmo when smaller screen and a whichever size you
| want wall/pedestal mounted TV will be likey cheaper and
| usable outside your jogging hours.
| suifbwish wrote:
| It's called military surplus Velcro. You get a second
| rubber case for the tablet that you apply Velcro to the
| back of then apply the other side to the treadmill in an
| area where it makes full contact. I have seen videos of
| people in Velcro suits jump and stick to walls so I'm sure
| it would work with a tablet.
| WheatM wrote:
| suifbwish wrote:
| Dear god don't get me started on mobile terraria. They
| completely ruined the gameplay. Common sense would tell any
| product team to at least provide the option to switch back to
| the old interface (they didn't add or take away anything that
| would disallow this) but NO. I started playing it because it
| was fun, simple and easy to learn/play, now the controls have
| been completely ruined for mobile.
| politician wrote:
| I just bought Terraria a couple days ago to see what it was
| all about. After 20 minutes of futzing about with it on my
| iPad, I deleted it because it was so terrible to control. Now
| to learn that the developers only recently released an update
| to a 9 year old game that broke once working controls. Wild!
| dotancohen wrote:
| You're not buying new games if you're enjoying nine-year-
| old games.
|
| Did you know that before The Phantom Menace, then-20-year-
| old Star Wars would compete with new movies at rental
| shops? I personally believe that this is why Star Wars was
| "updated": it was too resilient to being replaced. The
| rental place didn't need to buy so many new copies of new
| movies when they could keep making money on old Star Wars.
| So the studios needed a way to make Star Wars less
| appealing.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Of all the theories I have heard on why Star Wars was
| ruined (I agree) this is the first I've heard of this one
| :) . Politics aside, money does often seem to be the
| biggest motivator for creation and destruction of things.
| It is inherently not progressive to have one thing that
| is built perfectly and never needs to be altered or
| repaired. Progression often seems to be more of a quest
| for change for its own sake rather than improvement.
| Something isn't profitable if it has no planned
| obsolescence.
| datavirtue wrote:
| My feeling is that this is a temporary thing that leverages
| previous generations propensity for compliance and happily
| being controlled and screwed over constantly.
|
| I have been appalled at the way people bend over and open their
| wallet since I was a preteen. Nordic and all the other rent
| seeking shits count on people blindly using their product they
| way they are told to. I'm surprised Nordic isn't suing their
| customers yet.
| imoverclocked wrote:
| This pattern is pervasive. I also dislike needing an app and an
| internet connection for the most basic functionality with some
| purchased device. At some point, we need to own the things we
| buy and that line keeps getting pushed back further and
| further.
|
| Anec-data: I purchased a cooking device for my parents in
| December and it has a single button to turn it off. The only
| way to use it is with an app which requires a login to the
| company's service. The device even has local bluetooth
| capabilities. You may be wondering, "What is this device
| supposed to do?" and the obvious answer is: "It's supposed to
| boil water." The real answer seems to be, "it collects usage
| data about customers boiling water."
| javajosh wrote:
| Not interesting data. The real reason is that it's easier to
| connect things through a central service. I sometimes email
| myself for the same reason.
| ectopod wrote:
| This is true for things that are connected to the network
| anyway. It is not true for unconnected devices controlled
| by Bluetooth. The gratuitous app login is straightforwardly
| malign.
| javajosh wrote:
| Speaking from personal experience, I am far more
| comfortable with a web interface than a BT interface. If
| I were hired to write code for an IoT kitchen thing I'd
| probably implement a web thing, rather than a BT thing.
| That would not be malicious on my part, just laziness (if
| you're being unkind), or pragmatism (if you're being
| kind).
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I'm assuming you are talking about a sous vide device.
|
| This is one of the few (unrooted) smart devices I actually
| appreciate. You can easily configure it for a specific task
| (steak? chicken? brussels?), get push notifications when it's
| done and even turn off it's warm setting remotely if needed.
|
| And given that most of the thing is immersed in boiling hot
| water, it makes sense to not put controls on the device
| itself.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| And in two or three years, when that cloud service
| inevitably shuts down, you'll be stuck with a pot that
| doesn't heat water.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The app doesn't need the cloud for bluetooth usage or
| basic wifi usage (though "out of your house" usage likely
| uses their relay service). You would no longer get
| "recipe of the week" stuff, but that is a small loss.
|
| The real danger is that eventually the app goes away due
| to not being maintained. Hopefully they release the API
| spec before then, but my specific device has already been
| reverse engineered at least.
| yencabulator wrote:
| The app will eventually stop working because of
| incompatible updates to the phone OS.
| phatfish wrote:
| Yup, "smart" devices will require an accompanying phone
| of a similar age with the app already installed in case
| it was removed from the App/Play store -- if you want to
| keep using it much after 5 years.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Yeah, that is the danger I tried to allude to in my
| second paragraph.
|
| I hope we do see phone/OS/store ecosystems that focus on
| longterm stability of features and UI. Keep devices
| repairable by end users, supply parts for the whole of
| the phone's lifespan.
|
| Fair phone is trying to do this for phone hardware, and
| Framework is doing similar for laptops. We still need OS
| and store ecosystems.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| It should be legally mandated to release either the
| firmware source, or at least the API and applicable keys,
| before discontinuing support for a device.
|
| I'm reminded of the Wemo netcams my parents owned, which
| updated to remove a previous ability connect directly to
| the video stream in favor of pay-only cloud software, and
| the proceeded to cease support for that, leaving my
| parents with two completely useless bricks.
|
| https://www.belkin.com/us/support-
| article?articleNum=316642
| cbhl wrote:
| I recently got an Anova -- with touch controls, and it
| works great both with and without the app. The top is a big
| bigger to handle the screen and touch controls.
|
| Making an immersion circulator app-only is likely a BOM-
| reducing measure, which is fine (given that active time is
| probably at most a few minutes like twice a day). And you
| can get smaller form factors too with app-only control
| (e.g. Ember Mug).
| sokoloff wrote:
| My Anova touchscreen frequently fails to work in service,
| I think because of the humidity, which seems like
| something reasonably foreseeable by the designers...
|
| I like it, but now leave it pre-set to 135degF lest I set
| it elsewhere and then lose the ability to adjust it, so I
| think they dropped the ball on the design.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| It's not fine. I still use electrical appliances that are
| 10-50 years old. I'm pretty sure these "smart" devices
| apps won't work in a decade (if that).
| zem wrote:
| i'm glad my anova has both manual and bluetooth controls,
| because after the first couple of uses i simply default to
| manual for everything. personally i tihnk modern cellphones
| are remarkably clunky devices for anything other than
| reading books and gps. they aren't even very ergonomic as
| phones, they're annoying for web browsing compared to
| laptops, and they are definitely not satisfying to use as
| controls for physical devices.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks this
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Mine cost a quarter of the app-based devices I've seen and
| the one difference is that I have to take a glance at a
| little table. I don't mind that.
|
| And whether a device has controls doesn't matter with
| regards to hot water contact. It has to be properly sealed
| either way and capacitive buttons work fine for this (not
| worse than the low-quality buttons they'd use otherwise).
| The main feature you get with Bluetooth is another point of
| failure thanks to connection problems, at least that's my
| average experience with BT.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I guess I can see a push notification for a very slow
| cooking process, but most of the time if you use a smart
| device in a kitchen frequently, you're going to get things
| like uncooked chicken juices on it. Not ideal for a
| personal phone.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Why did you buy that?
| imoverclocked wrote:
| I have a similar device and was recommended the newer and
| upgraded version from someone I know. Given time pressure
| and other priorities at the time, I took the recommendation
| without much further investigation.
| foxfluff wrote:
| > I also dislike needing an app and an internet connection
| for the most basic functionality with some purchased device.
|
| Yeah, my watch supports setting (and syncing) the time and
| timezones using bluetooth. But before you can do that, you
| must agree to the maker's ridiculous privacy policy which
| includes consenting to sending them all kinds of data that
| has fuck all to do with setting the time on a watch.
| Immediately uninstalled. So that feature is dead weight to me
| unless/until someone reverse engineers the watch.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| This is true for most consumer tech (whether software or
| hardware) nowadays. The primary objective is to get
| "engagement" out of it. Any useful work the product might be
| doing is the bare minimum needed to convince the user to
| "engage" with the product.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > My feeling is that this behavior should be illegal for
| purchased products.
|
| Welcome to the Right to Repair movement!
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, I completely agree. Vehicle manufacturers can't just come
| and change out the steering wheel and dashboard in your
| vehicle, for example. Why can software vendors change out the
| total functionality of a piece of software you paid for?
| Especially irreversibly, in the case of DRM-laden platforms
| like game consoles, iOS, etc. where you cannot undo an update
| once it's installed, or cannot refuse an update if you want to
| actually use the software. Recently an iOS app I use almost
| daily pushed an update that removes a feature I relied on. The
| dev has never fixed the issue and has made other minor changes
| since, subtly indicating their change is intentional and
| permanent, so I'm just screwed forever and lost a core piece of
| functionality I depended on. Great. This is fine.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Yeah, I completely agree. Vehicle manufacturers can't just
| come and change out the steering wheel and dashboard in your
| vehicle, for example.
|
| Actually, they can. There was a huge airbag recall a few
| years ago, affecting maybe half a dozen automobile
| manufacturers because they all bought their airbags from the
| same supplier. In at least one case, the dash had to be
| modified in order to fit a replacement airbag because drop-in
| replacements could not be procured quickly without disrupting
| new car production. It would not surprise me if some of the
| cases also required modifying or replacing the steering
| wheel.
| NeuNeurosis wrote:
| How is this relevant? The owner has to physically bring the
| vehicle into the dealer. The dealer can't change or replace
| anything while it is in my garage or driving down the
| street. There are physical barriers that require the owners
| consent beyond checking a box.
| ljm wrote:
| The problem with 'smart' devices I think is something akin to a
| conflict of interest.
|
| On the one hand you're purchasing hardware, which you expect to
| own and control.
|
| On the other, there is software that runs on a subscription
| model which 'coincidentally' restricts the functionality of the
| hardware, because they want to stop people from bypassing the
| sub.
|
| The hardware effectively becomes useless if the subscription
| service becomes unavailable or is taken down (e.g. if the
| company is acquired and the new company doesn't want to support
| that stuff any more). It might still function mechanically, but
| it now has a broken appendage through no fault of your own.
|
| I just don't think I could justify a purchase like that nos
| unless I could square that circle. I'm not going to pay 2k for
| a Peloton bike that holds itself hostage unless I pay another
| 40 a month.
| ipaddr wrote:
| It feels like these should be rentals that require a monthly
| fee but no upfront cost.
| NeuNeurosis wrote:
| This is exactly what I thought when I saw the commercial.
| Its incredible that so many people are willing to pay that
| upfront cost.
| rapind wrote:
| PCs too. I've lost hours to OSX updates that bricked my dev
| setup (making me reinstall / compile libraries, disabling my
| second monitor, etc.). First thing I do is turn off auto update
| and wait for releases to bake for a while and until I have
| enough time to deal with any breakages.
|
| Not great for security though...
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I agree. Perhaps the U.S.'s legal framework reasonably allows
| this kind of behavior, but IMHO it's a sign that the framework
| needs legislative correction.
|
| The first time I encountered this was when Sony advertised
| Linux-compatibility for the PS3, which I bought expressly for
| that purpose. I was shocked when a judge upheld Sony's post-
| sale removal of that capability.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Government should mandate the ability to downgrade the
| software to versions that were previously available on said
| hardware.
|
| I've had so many issues with Apple devices losing
| compatibility with obscure features on apps after updating
| iOS, I wish I could go back occasionally to accomplish some
| task, and then upgrade again when finished.
|
| The flexibility is valuable.
|
| For example, on the newest iPad Pro, iMovie is unusable after
| iOS 15, completely jittery and unable to handle smooth user
| experiences for some reason.
| alex_smart wrote:
| >Government should mandate the ability to downgrade the
| software to versions that were previously available on said
| hardware.
|
| What about devices that are connected to the internet and
| need security patches?
|
| As a software engineer can you imagine supporting every
| version of your software you ever released? Sounds like a
| nighmare.
| simion314 wrote:
| >As a software engineer can you imagine supporting every
| version of your software you ever released? Sounds like a
| nighmare.
|
| This would teach us developers to do better. Like don't
| push random updates that break shit. If your product is
| not filled with security issues you should be able to
| backport a fix for that giant secuiry bug you found, you
| can ignore the crashes. Anyway this big companies can
| afford to pay you to backport some fixes . It is not like
| some volunteer is forced to backport fixes in his free
| time.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I wouldn't expect support for old versions, just the
| ability to download and install knowing that a downgrade
| by definition removes some fixes (and possibly restores
| something of interest).
| lmarcos wrote:
| > As a software engineer can you imagine supporting every
| version of your software you ever released? Sounds like a
| nighmare.
|
| Perhaps we (developers) need to get better at this. We
| care so much about pushing features and being agile and
| all, but when it comes to supporting old releases: "umm,
| no. It's a nightmare".
| dotancohen wrote:
| That's what new releases are for. The "support" is a
| replacement version.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Definitely.
|
| TV updates are another thing. They change things with
| abandon and you can't revoke the updates.
|
| Sometimes they break stuff and then you have to pray and
| wait until they hopefully fix them at their leisure.
|
| IMO, it should be illegal to issue unrevokable updates so
| you can't get a product to have identical features as it
| did at the time of purchase. You should always be able to
| wipe it back to stock. Same with phones.
|
| And the people who might crow about "security" - my device,
| my rules. I can block it on the network if I want.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| That's exactly why I personally try to stay away from as
| many of these things/devices as I can reasonably do.
|
| TV: just don't buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook
| it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi. You can
| hook up your cable box if you have that or stream from
| Netflix and such. Sure, even Netflix makes it hard as you
| can't get 5.1 surround but I'll take that and 2.0 -> 5.1
| upmix over buying a Smart TV any day!
|
| Games: Kerbal Space program sounds fun. Lots of mentions
| on HN. Apparently after some company bought them up
| changes of this sort have been made. So I decided against
| getting it even though I would probably very much enjoy
| playing it. Don't buy games like that. Buy games like
| Factorio or some GoG stuff (the ones that actually do
| work on your current Windows OS if that's what you use
| ... ;)) and do _not_ buy into the GoG Galaxy thing. Get
| the installers. Otherwise that 's like falling for Steam
| or Xbox Live or whatever the "Windows Live" BS is called
| nowadays.
|
| Tablets and Phones: Use them for what they're good for:
| Making phone calls and browsing the web on the go. Apps
| are a curse, I avoid installing them as much as possible.
| Some exceptions prove the rule, like a free GPS tracker
| app for hiking created by a single guy. UI looks like
| it's out of the 90s but works for my use case. Found it
| because the other app I used started requiring a login
| even for the free part of the app. I refuse to bow to
| such things.
| Tor3 wrote:
| > TV: just don't buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook
| it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi.
|
| I simply bought a non-smart TV. I just made sure it had a
| number of HDMI ports. I plug my various media sources
| into the HDMI ports.
|
| A "smart" TV must be the most un-smart TV possible -
| you're stuck with whatever's there. The "smart" part
| (say, a Pi or a Chromecast or both) must be detached from
| the display device (the TV), not a part of it.
|
| "smart" TVs remind me of back when I bought a webcam with
| integrated Skype, for my old parents. It did make it easy
| for them to skype with their grandchildren, using the TV.
| But of course Skype, or MS at the time, plugged the pull
| on the version of Skype used by the webcam and then it
| became a brick. Never again.
| Tor3 wrote:
| Argh, a typo there.. read " _pulled the plug_ " (too late
| to edit post)
| baq wrote:
| the problem is, non-smart-TVs are twice as expensive. you
| can buy a smart tv and never connect it to the internet,
| though.
| skummetmaelk wrote:
| 5G modems in every TV are just around the corner.
| kroltan wrote:
| Smart TVs are equally expensive, you just pay with your
| sanity and data instead of bucks.
| Tor3 wrote:
| That may be changing, but when I bought my 49" non-smart
| TV a few years back it was quite a bit cheaper than the
| same-size smart TVs. It wasn't that long ago, but a quick
| check at the same shop shows _only_ "smart" (read:
| stupid) TVs. Unfortunately. As the price for the non-
| smart TV I bought was lower than the equivalent "smart"
| version I believe we'll be paying for a feature we don't
| need.
| baq wrote:
| you're looking for 'digital signage displays' (expensive)
| or a 'video monitor' (seriously expensive for anything
| tv-sized, if it exists at all).
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > TV: just don't buy an actual TV. Buy a monitor and hook
| it up to a Linux box with something like Kodi. You can
| hook up your cable box if you have that or stream from
| Netflix and such. Sure, even Netflix makes it hard as you
| can't get 5.1 surround but I'll take that and 2.0 -> 5.1
| upmix over buying a Smart TV any day!
|
| I've looked into this, but this option is really not
| great, either:
|
| - Large Monitors are unavailable or (if you use business
| monitors) a lot more expensive and usually don't have
| latest panel tech.
|
| - You'll loose surround sound and also 4K on most
| platforms
|
| - The integration is usually worse (you'll have to start
| more devices, if you're lucky CEC decides to work)
|
| - Good luck with HDR
|
| I personally settled for a SmartTV behind a PiHole-
| equivalent, but an Apple TV or an Android TV combined
| with an offline smart TV are good contenders, too.
| Unfortunately, there's really no silver bullet right now.
| [deleted]
| weq wrote:
| Shamii wrote:
| I'm a software engineer because I love technology.
|
| Your opinion is fine don't get me wrong but my 4k 55"
| OLED tv is really really impressive.
|
| It's a marvelous picture.
|
| My DSLR images look brilliant on it, games do as well,
| HDR is surprising ly nice as well.
|
| We watch most tv shows still on a 10 year old 720p beamer
| due to image size. 110" is still more immersive than 55".
| But I do expect being able to buy 110" 4k in a few years
| either through a more affordable 4k projector or by
| microled panels.
|
| I can't follow your 4k = full of propaganda Point. Not
| sure what you mean by it.
| weq wrote:
| tharkun__ wrote:
| I looked into it too ;) - Large
| Monitors are unavailable or (if you use business
| monitors) a lot more expensive and usually don't have
| latest panel tech.
|
| Agree, monitors in regular TV sizes are way more
| expensive than the largest 'cheap' monitors. But I'd
| rather make a decision between paying $300 CAD for a 32"
| monitor that is 'large enough' but not huge or a ~43"
| monitor that is way larger, has 4k etc. and costs ~$1200
| CAD etc. or a $500 50" 4k "generic Smart TV" in "dumb
| mode" than to use it as an actual Smart TV.
| - You'll loose surround sound and also 4K on most
| platforms
|
| There you go, no expensive 4k monitor needed if you can't
| get it anyway. Surround sound I'll give you but see your
| sibling if you are so inclined to go the potentially
| unlawful but ethically probably totally OK route.
| - The integration is usually worse (you'll have to start
| more devices, if you're lucky CEC decides to work)
|
| To be fair it's been a while that I've had cable and had
| to deal with that and that was in low-def times (so I had
| a cable card in the mythtv server). I don't fancy setups
| w/ IR switching cable channels and such but to be honest,
| I think it's worth it to at least try if you have to keep
| actual cable for some reason. Nowadays other viable
| options than having cable do exist if you ask me.
| - Good luck with HDR
|
| I probably just don't know what I am missing and as long
| as it stays that way it's like staying on 720p and a
| monitor most people would think is way too small but
| actually totally adequate than to complain that my huge
| 4k one looks bad with that source material ;)
| offline smart TV are good contenders, too
|
| Totally agree, if you're looking for a cheap huge
| "monitor" that can definitely be a good option as long as
| you stay away from the actual "features" and are fine
| with the other limitations.
|
| Personally I'm on a 32" regular HD IPS panel monitor.
| Given the size of the living room and how far away the
| sofa is, this is totally adequate (I upgraded from my
| >>>10 year old 4:3 "I don't even remember the size of it"
| monitor when it finally broke!). Surround sound depends
| on the source. If it's Netflix the upmix is "good enough"
| for most of what the kids wanna watch and then there's
| other material too where proper AC3 is available. Most of
| the times I can't really have the bass turned up anyway
| so as not to wake the kids :P
| tharkun__ wrote:
| After a good nights sleep I think I want to revise this
| (can't edit).
|
| I think it's prudent not to even buy a Smart TV and use
| it in "dumb mode". If we do this, we are not voting with
| our wallet. I'm not sure how likely we would be to have a
| large enough effect numbers wise but one can try. If we
| don't try, we've already lost.
| patrickk wrote:
| I got an LG CX tv and never hooked it up to the internet.
| It acts as a (very pretty) yet dumb tv like the old days.
|
| An Nvidia shield handles all the streaming, kodi handles
| local files etc, all the media that I could possibly
| need.
|
| 4k is handled by default out of the box.
|
| Surround sound is handled by an AV receiver. (Atmos
| surround is available if I wish to further upgrade the
| 7.1 speakers).
|
| It can be done. Granted, it's not cheap and installing
| all these devices can be painful, but still.
| bierjunge wrote:
| I have bad news for you. Even if the TV is not connected
| to your WiFi, it could still get into the network over
| other devices connected via HDMI with HEC [0].
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#HEC
| patrickk wrote:
| Although it could be a general concern, it unlikely to
| affect me.
|
| Since all the HDMI connections are via a (slightly older,
| non-connected) AV receiver, its almost impossible for
| this to affect my setup. But it's indeed a sleazy move by
| those setting the HDMI standards.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| Have there been any devices confirmed to use this yet?
|
| I'm getting so tired of these constant battles with the
| devices I paid for.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > Games: Kerbal Space program sounds fun. Lots of
| mentions on HN. Apparently after some company bought them
| up changes of this sort have been made.
|
| The changes to Kerbal are in Kerbal Space Program 2, not
| the original KSP. I highly recommend KSP, go ahead and
| get it. KSP 2 will have better graphics and add some new
| capabilities to the game, but honestly you could play KSP
| for years (I have) and not get tired of the graphics or
| what the game offers. To me KSP 2 seems like a competing
| game, not a replacement.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| That would be sweet if I mixed this up! Will have to look
| into it. Thanks!
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Netflix makes it hard as you can 't get 5.1 surround_
|
| Then get it from *ahem* elsewhere, you've paid for access
| to that content in that quality, if they can't provide
| that... Maybe if enough do that they'll fix the problem,
| so they can start tracking your use of the content again
| when you return to consuming it their way.
| teh_infallible wrote:
| For TV, get a short throw projector. It's a dumb screen,
| and it's fun to play retro games projected on the wall
| baq wrote:
| for best results you really want a screen and if the top
| end is close to the ceiling, you want to paint that
| black, too.
| sqqqqrly wrote:
| What is the gps app? Give it a shout-out.
| rurp wrote:
| > my device, my rules
|
| Exactly. Companies that actually care about security
| don't bundle those updates with major breaking UX
| changes.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Which companies are those?
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Heh... Microsoft, Apple, and Google will have a lot to
| say about that. And by "say" I mean "spend gobs of money
| lobbying against it."
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It already is illegal to do so. Just claim damages
| against the TV manufacturer, likely the whole price of
| the TV or a comparable replacement.
| not2b wrote:
| Looks like this was partly successful against Sony but it
| took six years in court and people didn't get the whole
| price back when they removed Linux support from the PS3:
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/06/if-you-used-
| to-r...
|
| Litigation is expensive, pretty much the only way it can
| be done in the US is as a class action where the number
| of people ripped off is large.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Those damages were assigned with the assumption that most
| people didn't buy a PS3 to run Linux on it. If you opted
| out of the class action I have no doubt you would have
| gotten a full refund.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| I'm saying there should be a law where the govt punishes
| the company.
|
| If the law needs me as an individual consumer to procure
| my own team of lawyers to go up against a multinational
| every time I buy a new TV, then that law might as well
| not exist.
| db48x wrote:
| The damages would probably only qualify for small-claims
| court. These cases don't take much time to present or
| judge, and the evidence you need is quite straight
| forward. Consulting with a lawyer on the matter, if you
| wanted that extra assurance, wouldn't cost much.
| brokenmachine wrote:
| I was exaggerating a bit for effect.
|
| I consider my time for a day off work, travel to court,
| preparation, irritation, etc more than the value of the
| TV, and they probably wouldn't pay me damages for those
| things.
|
| The point is that I shouldn't have to do that as an
| individual for every purchase.
|
| We need a blanket rule that they can't remotely modify
| purchased items in a way that cannot be rolled-back by
| the consumer to the functionality at the time of
| purchase.
| db48x wrote:
| I agree with you there, but you won't get it if you don't
| force them to refund you. Things will just continue as
| they are.
| amelius wrote:
| Just buy the company-tethered stuff and return it. It's
| your right as a consumer, and one of the few ways to take
| action and make it hurt.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| This is why punitive damages exist. Because you can
| sometimes get a lawyer to work on your case with no cash.
| So they can collect a large percentage of those punitive
| damages.
| iomcr wrote:
| > And the people who might crow about "security" - my
| device, my rules. I can block it on the network if I
| want.
|
| We've entered a sad dystopia when the manufacturer is the
| leading security threat to the integrity of my personal
| devices.
| cmcconomy wrote:
| My Vizio TV updated itself a month ago, and I only
| noticed because changed the default behaviour of which
| input to open on when it turns on, which was really
| irritating. After finding the menu entry to fix it, that
| in particular was no longer an issue.
|
| However, around the same time, my PC input began to blank
| out for a second at a time at random intervals which was
| very irritating. On a lark I performed a factory reset
| and didn't set up my wifi credentials, and it hasnt
| misbehaved since.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| IIRC the Linux support was there solely so that Sony could
| circumvent tariffs in the EU.
|
| Gaming consoles had higher tariffs than "general purpose
| computers", so Sony added the ability to boot into Linux and
| argued - successfully - that it was a general purpose
| computing device and thus in the lower tariff category.
| sli wrote:
| Absolutely agree.
|
| I bought a couple Hue bulbs a while back and a (somewhat)
| recent update to the Hue app removed the ability to control
| them via by watch. Completely pointless feature removal. Part
| of the selling point is that level of control, and yet they
| just removed an entire feature I frequently used. That's
| simply straight up removing something that I've paid for,
| which I don't view as any different from theft.
| BTCOG wrote:
| This is precisely the reason why prior to linux
| support/removal, exploits weren't targeted. Once linux
| support was removed, linux hackers started releasing exploit
| after exploit on the target hardware and software, and it
| only took a couple months after they removed the linux
| support.
| marcan_42 wrote:
| Upon which we found out that not supporting Linux on the
| PS3 slim from the get go "because they wanted to focus on
| games and it was too much effort" was a lie - turns out
| there was almost nothing extra that needed to be done for
| it to work on that model too, once the hacks were in place.
| lupire wrote:
| Overturned on appeal and then settled for $65/user.
| flerchin wrote:
| I got a check for $3.02.
| [deleted]
| pooper wrote:
| I still haven't gotten my check from the iPhone 6 battery
| scandal. I still have the phone. It is forever stuck on
| the wall now. They have no incentive to hurry up I guess.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| IANAL, but I've heard that if you let the court know
| about situations like this, they'll often provide the
| necessary motivation to the responsible parties.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
|
| (Cue next rant about class-action settlements. To make me
| whole, Sony would have needed to give me a full refund
| (with interest) or restore Linux compatibility.)
| omnimus wrote:
| It's not that i dont agree but the Terraria example is a bit
| unfair. First this is issue of the platform. On other platforms
| you can choose version of the game. And second Terraria is
| example of probably one of the most supported games. The update
| you are talking about brings massive amount of content and
| updates completely for free 9 years!!! after release. Most
| companies would milk the product with third sequel and dozens
| DLCs by that time.
| suifbwish wrote:
| No it's totally fair. They ruined the game by completely
| changing the controls irreversibly and making it unplayable
| on mobile.
| [deleted]
| gorjusborg wrote:
| I'm not trying to pick on Terraria, but I think it's a great
| example for the reasons you are bringing up.
|
| Even with the 'value add' of the update, I no longer play the
| game. Why? Because I invested in learning and mastering the
| game as it was when I bought it. The forced update removed
| all value _for me_ , and I'm the one who made the decision to
| buy it.
|
| If the product is changed significantly after purchase
| without my consent, then I feel I should be able to revisit
| my decision to purchase it. Otherwise, it's a sort of bait-
| and-switch scheme.
| hfsh wrote:
| > without my consent
|
| Not having read the TOS of the platform (or even ever
| having used it), I'll hazard a guess this isn't quite
| legally true.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Not sure if you are intending to, but that only further
| illustrates how broken (in the favor of corporations) the
| current legal environment is.
|
| You are right in that there probably is a _gotcha, you
| agreed_ clause in the text that is displayed _after_ I
| have purchased the item. I also think the idea that is
| legally binding a farce.
|
| Imagine how popular buying things would be if people
| actually had to read those agreements.
| salawat wrote:
| >Imagine how popular buying things would be if people
| actually had to read those agreements.
|
| If you ever wondered why your elders are such sticks in
| the mud on this sort of thing, that is exactly why. Put a
| contract in front of most people and off they run for the
| hills.
|
| This is why the click through EULA was the best thing to
| ever happen to the legal profession.
| f1refly wrote:
| It has to be displayed before you buy the item, and it
| is. If you don't read the contracts you sign you only
| have yourself to blame. You also wouldn't go to a car
| dealership, skip the contract, sign it and expect good
| things to happen.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Does it even matter if we read these contracts? No one's
| going to negotiate terms with the billion dollar company
| and only lawyers will have a full understanding of the
| implications of what's written in these things anyway.
| This last fact alone should be enough to invalidate any
| consent.
|
| I mean, we're actually talking about "buying" games here.
| That's how insidious these things are. The few people who
| read this fine print will know that we're not really
| "buying" anything, we're being offered extremely limited
| _licenses_ to the content. Can you blame consumers who
| fall prey to corporate deception? Marketing leads them to
| believe they 're "buying" stuff. It's not really their
| fault when they become victims of corporate bullshit like
| remote content deletion. Nobody should have to consult
| lawyers before consuming.
|
| Let's summarize all company contracts in an easy to
| understand manner:
|
| 1. We can do whatever we want.
|
| 2. You can do nothing we don't want.
|
| 3. We own everything.
|
| 4. We guarantee nothing.
|
| 5. You have no rights.
|
| That does it. That's literally what all these little
| contracts boil down to. Every single time I read one it's
| just the above 5 points over and over in mind numbing
| legal language.
| emteycz wrote:
| It matters. You can click decline. If more people read
| the contracts and clicked decline, perhaps they'd have to
| change the contract.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| If more people did things differently in this fashion the
| world would be a very different place. Too bad this
| doesn't happen and the users who actually decline make up
| less than 0.01%, probably below any error margin.
|
| People just don't care until they personally get a kick
| in their face. We all know that and companies bet on it.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| No. Absolutely nothing will change. Declining is not a
| valid negotiation tactic when you're dealing with literal
| billion dollar companies. Are you seriously suggesting
| some company like Amazon is gonna change their terms if
| we decline them? They couldn't care less about us. Maybe
| if you're a rich corporation using their services.
| Sometimes not even then if the horror stories I've read
| here on HN are to be believed.
|
| Where I live many of these contracts are actually in
| violation of consumer protection law. I've had actual
| lawyers tell me I can safely ignore many clauses because
| they are clearly abusive and judges would strike them
| down in court. Particularly unacceptable are those that
| make me give up my rights. Appatently that's a thing in
| the US, you can just sign away rights such as reverse
| engineering or even the ability to take companies to
| court by "agreeing" not to exercise them.
| lodovic wrote:
| I don't assume that companies track how many people
| reject their TOS, since they are not users of their
| product.
| emteycz wrote:
| Of course they do track, with their profits (and
| conversion rates).
| pydave wrote:
| The update isn't forced, you have automatic updates enabled
| on your ps4.
|
| Disable (Uncheck) automatic updates from [Settings] >
| [System] > [Automatic Downloads]
|
| You'll have to uninstall the game and reinstall it from
| your hard copy to get the original version of the game you
| remember.
|
| However, if you'd bought the digital version, you'd be out
| of luck.
| omnimus wrote:
| I think it's how it's always been with software. It's
| ephemeral.
|
| When the devs have to keep up with the system updates etc.
| there is expectation that they keep working on software. I
| am sure they would love to just push something that would
| work forever.
|
| So much software that i bought stopped working. Even when
| you have "lifetime" license - eventually world moves on and
| you are without hardware to run the software.
|
| I am not saying it's right but i am also not sure how it
| can be solved.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| > brings massive amount of content and updates completely for
| free 9 years!!!
|
| Which can be a bad thing. The Minecraft I played first and
| the Minecraft I played recently are two different games, and
| I don't like how overpacked with stuff the new version is.
|
| Most game expansions - paid or not - follow the philosophy of
| "more of the same", rather than stopping somewhere between
| that and "less is more". Depending on the game, that can make
| it tedious.
| chadanon wrote:
| Yup. I started playing Minecraft on Xbox 360 which my kids
| and I loved. We still love the game, but it's so different
| now, it's not the same game at all other than voxels and
| biome themes and some of the original music. We have a ship
| of Theseus situation. It's no longer the same game. I'd
| love to be able to pick a version to play like you can on
| PC.
| account42 wrote:
| > On other platforms you can choose version of the game.
|
| Which ones are those?
| andrewla wrote:
| I don't necessarily see where "customer consent" really enters
| the picture. Even if installing updates were optional, at some
| point you almost certainly want to install the updates, as it
| will contain bug fixes and enhancements in other areas of the
| product.
|
| This is much more a question of relying on "off-label" feature
| / bugs in a product, which will always be an issue. The problem
| here is that the advertised experience was "you can only use
| our content" and that should have been enough to scare off
| potential buyers from considering it as an option.
| sfg wrote:
| Don't connect them to the internet.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| > Total rip-off. I liked the game I bought, but it was replaced
| without my consent.
|
| Overreacting aside, control schemes can be customized again in
| 1.4.
| yyyk wrote:
| There are reasons behind updates and auto-updates. Bugs,
| features, users which did not consistently update and were left
| with insecure or buggy software. Then again, updates are also a
| mess.
|
| I think this is a problem which should have a mostly technical
| solution: If most software was updated as today and users could
| rollback at will, most problems would be solved. That's a
| better way than making updates illegal.
| rurp wrote:
| Companies could unbundle security patches from UX updates if
| they wanted to. For the software I use regularly, I pretty
| much always want security updates and never want UI/UX
| changes.
|
| Of course the incentives are totally out of whack, since
| bundling the updates is cheaper and many UX "improvements"
| exist to make the company more money, at the expense of the
| user.
|
| Once users are conditioned or forced to auto-update why
| _wouldn 't_ a profit maximizing company make changes to
| increase its bottom line, regardless of how it helps or hurts
| users?
| Sebb767 wrote:
| In a lot of software I worked with, unbundling core and UI
| would've been an immense amount of effort. You basically
| have the option to either maintain two GUIs side-by-side -
| including integrating new concepts (think, for example,
| supporting OTP and creating the workflow) and updating both
| for datastructure changes - or you never update your UX at
| all. At worst, you end up in a situation where your two
| GUIs support a distinct set of features.
|
| You can correctly accuse companies of a lot of things, but
| decoupling the UX really is a very hard problem.
| greysphere wrote:
| If you bought a physical disk version, why not just reinstall
| it?
| chii wrote:
| iirc, the way PS works is to enforce an update if your PS
| detects that you got an out-of-date game (unless you don't
| connect to the internet).
| pabs3 wrote:
| One option is to never buy hardware where you haven't installed
| the OS/software yourself and therefore have control over
| updates. This is kind of limiting though since lots of hardware
| doesn't support installing your own OS and Linux/BSD/etc don't
| support various hardware.
| questiondev wrote:
| i agree, if you buy something, you buy it for how it is, now
| sometimes we may want to update for our benefit but other times
| maybe not, maybe updating would cause more harm than help.
| therefore we should have to consent to updates, i 100% agree
| with this and it's not even that much code to add a "is it cool
| if we update?" alert.
| amelius wrote:
| > If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the
| company can update it without customer consent at any time,
| then I can't rely on the product's features. Period.
|
| That's about any electric car manufactured after 2020.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| I've never owned an electric car, but that doesn't surprise
| me. I'm curious whether you are just stating the fact, or
| suggesting that the practice is commonplace, therefore
| justified.
| [deleted]
| vlunkr wrote:
| It's a tangent, but it's incredible to me that people used to
| ship video games and other software on physical media and it
| worked fine. Now you can drop a big turd on the steam store
| initially and it's just business as usual. Cynicism aside, I
| really do admire the dev and QA teams that pulled this off.
| It's such a different world now.
| Gigachad wrote:
| Take a look at the games from that era and the games you get
| right now. Sure, more has changed than just being able to
| update things, but the ability to fix issues later and
| continually update games has lead to much much better games
| with way more content. And you can always chose to wait a
| year for everything to settle.
| ipaddr wrote:
| I'm still playing older games. What new games do you
| recommend?
| Gigachad wrote:
| Going to depend on what you like. But my favorite modern
| games have been Rimworld, Skyrim (still part of the
| internet era), and Planet Zoo. I love how all of these
| games provide hundreds of hours of possible gameplay
| without getting stale.
|
| And if you have VR, Pavlov has been the most fun I have
| ever had gaming. It looks like a CSGO clone on the
| surface but it becomes the most absurd/surreal experience
| ever with custom maps. It's almost like playing laser tag
| in one of those optical illusion room of mirrors type
| attractions.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Indie games might be a good place to start. Whatever
| genre of older games you are into, there are probably new
| indie games exploring the same ideas.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I actually think that may not always be for the best. Games
| are released in beta, and qa takes place in the months and
| years after release, if ever.
|
| Updates can be issued, but it increasingly means that
| things are released in a state where updates NEED to be
| issued
| Gigachad wrote:
| I don't find this to be much of an issue because rarely
| is this ever a shock or surprise to the semi educated
| consumer. The game comes out and you see 100 people
| complain on reddit that it's buggy, so you just don't buy
| it until its resolved. Steam also has a pretty no fuss
| refund system for the cases you didn't see anything
| beforehand.
|
| What seems to happen is people want the game as soon as
| possible but also complain when it isn't perfect on
| release but overall they enjoy playing it sooner more
| than they are bothered by its lack of polish.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It cuts both ways, games would take half decades to get done
| or only cover a thousandth of the ground current games cover.
| Imagine what Minecraft would be, shipped on physical media.
|
| We also wouldn't get games like Goat Simulator who basically
| set a low expectation bar in exchange for low cost, best
| effort game play. I'm kind of ok with more "garbage" if we
| also get more weird/low budget games that wouldn't exist
| otherwise.
| detaro wrote:
| There was a time in the gaming market were quickly
| developed, cheap, often not-so-good games on physical media
| were a thing: 8-bit home computer era. So it's possible to
| imagine that coming back in more modern times, in a
| timeline were internet wasn't the obvious alternative.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I agree, I'm not saying things were necessarily better
| then.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > games would take half decades to get done
|
| ...which is still true today. It's common that large titles
| take 4+ years in development if they're not built on an
| existing game's engine _and actually release in a finished
| state_. Activision was able to release a new CoD every year
| because they cycled through 3 studios of which each had 3
| years time for a game that 's mostly a mod of the previous
| one with slight improvements to the underlying tech. And
| even then it's now almost expected that it'll take another
| 3+ months to get in a state that the game was meant to be
| released in.
|
| > only cover a thousandth of the ground current games cover
|
| That may be true if you go back to the Atari era, but even
| ~30 years old RPGs can still hold up well in terms of
| content. It's great that now we don't always need
| publishers to create & ship games and can release updates
| online, but that's no excuse to sell incomplete products.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| I've read somewhere that it wasn't always the case that
| something worked flawlessly on physical media.
|
| Things are way different now.
| rckoepke wrote:
| Indeed. The old MacAddict magazine shipped a CD with every
| issue. The CD contained loads of
| shareware/games/utilities/productivity software etc.
|
| The CD also had a folder named "updates and patches" where
| you could find installers for the latest bug fixes of the
| most popular MacOS software.
|
| CDs bundled with monthly magazines was a valid conduit for
| getting patches to users at the time.
| habeebtc wrote:
| Some 360 games shipped with console updates as well.
| Required to be applied before you could play the game.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| But if you do that how could the poor company possibly make any
| money? How could it collect and monetize your private
| information? How could it advertise to you? How could it own
| you and sell access to you to other companies who want to reach
| you?
| [deleted]
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Can you remap the controls? IIRC my PS4 allowed swapping
| buttons and sticks at least. Not sure if those were per game
| though.
| scrubs wrote:
| For those of us are were of age when the internet and (later)
| big-data became a thing, we can only applaud the work of so
| many smart people. We see engineering plus entrepreneurship at
| its best. The varied inversion, however, of who has the
| majority control of an object or service post-purchase has
| lately gone to the provider not customer. Folks, that's a
| problem. We've seen this,
|
| - here
|
| - John Deer self-fix stories
|
| - Apple store stories (and Android/Google variations)
|
| - Several flavors of techs at places like best buy quivering in
| their boots at an Apple fix. Techs keep blabbering on about
| Apple repair policy and what they cannot do. I finally had to
| tell the guy: Start telling me what you can do, or I'll talk to
| somebody else. All I asked for was if they have a screw driver
| to take the bottom plate off, which I later got off Amazon.
|
| - General issues of privacy
|
| We gotta get back to customer satisfaction. Eventually --- not
| as quick as we might prefer --- customers will realize they
| have the stronger position and use it. Indeed, if I plunk down
| money for an object, my assessment counts. I do not accept some
| paper pusher a large-corp-America gainsaying that.
| pryelluw wrote:
| Can't imagine buying a spoon that will only work with
| Campbell's soul.
|
| Of course, some tech bro will say that their spoon2.0 is
| specially engineered for the best soup flavor ...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| That's a different debate IMO. Not so long ago we had
| external storage that only worked with Sony products. We now
| have headphones that only work with Apple phones.
|
| Exclusivity always existed at weird levels, here the issue
| would be more about having the option to freeze/protect a
| product's software state to get out of the update treadmill.
| xvector wrote:
| > We now have headphones that only work with Apple phones.
|
| AirPods can be used with any phone just fine.
|
| Engineering work has been done to make them to integrate
| deeply into Apple's OSes, but you can definitely use them
| on any phone.
| mastazi wrote:
| > I tend to stay away from so-called 'smart' devices
|
| I tried several alternatives in terms of smart TV (Apple TV,
| Google/Android TV, Fire TV), and I could not find any platform
| that let me use all of the apps that I needed without resorting
| to casting from my phone. And in some cases there was a long
| process to follow in order to get the device to do what I
| needed[1], which involved activating developer mode,
| sideloading apps etc.
|
| In the end, I bought a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo and
| built a HTPC, reusing old components that I removed from my
| gaming PC after upgrading it over the years. I installed Ubuntu
| on it and never looked back.
|
| [1] For example not having the home screen being made of mostly
| ads, or having a simple web browser installed on the device
| eulers_secret wrote:
| I tried to do the same thing, but the 4K+HDR streaming story
| is fully broken/DRM'd to hell on PC. You simply cannot stream
| 4K+HDR in most (all?) services on a modern PC (my HTPC is
| also a gaming PC... so Nvidia graphics in my case).
|
| I went with Apple TV + Plex (along with D+/NFLX/Peacock/HBO
| Max/Hulu/AppleTV/Prime/Cable... but I still can't find
| everything I want)
| mastazi wrote:
| I think the main problem is HDR right? Because I don't
| think that 4K per se would be an issue? To be fair my TV is
| not 4K so I haven't tried 4K streaming... Even on my gaming
| PC I don't have 4K because I preferred to spend on a higher
| refresh rate 1440p rather than a 4K panel so I really don't
| have a direct experience.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| Have you tried nvidia shield?
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Did you see the update that shows ads for steaming services
| you don't have on the top 1/3 of the screen due to an
| update?
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| Yes I did. It doesn't bother me much. And I'm sure you
| could sideload something to get rid of that Home Screen
| altogether.
| fragmede wrote:
| > without resorting to casting from my phone
|
| I am curious, why is that undesirable for you? I'm assuming
| there's something more than lack of individual app support
| for casting.
| [deleted]
| mastazi wrote:
| > why is that undesirable for you?
|
| Why is it undesirable having to go find my phone? Because
| I'm relaxing on the couch I guess?
| fragmede wrote:
| Fascinating. For better or worse, my phone's basically
| glued to me, so casting and using my phone keyboard is
| preferable vs an on-screen keyboard.
| mastazi wrote:
| I see. Pre-Covid I used to have my phone with me more
| often, with the whole WFH situation I don't really see a
| reason to use it since I have other devices in my home
| that give me a better experience (larger screen, physical
| keyboard, good speakers etc).
| lodovic wrote:
| I treat my phone like I do Google. Every day I try to be
| a bit less dependent on it. I usually don't know where my
| phone is, physically, and only use it for banking and car
| navigation. I use WhatsApp through the web interface. I
| dream of a world without smartphones.
| mastazi wrote:
| yeah I am like you, I even tried a PinePhone because I
| hate the current mobile OSes so much. (Unfortunately
| PinePhone is not 100% ready to be a daily driver though).
| Then COVID came, I haven't commuted for 2 years now and I
| stopped caring about phones. I carry my phone only in the
| weekend and only if I'm out, not if I'm e.g. bbq-ing at
| home.
| matwood wrote:
| > I am curious, why is that undesirable for you?
|
| Casting from a phone is a terrible experience. I want to
| sit down on the couch, mash some remote buttons and watch
| something. I don't want to find a phone to cast from. Whose
| phone would we use? Mine, my wifes, my relatives who are
| over? What if they want to change the program? Now they are
| figuring out all the casting business? No, pick up the
| remote and use it like normal.
| gknoy wrote:
| It's fairly inconvenient to have to use your phone as the
| remote, especially when you want to do something on your
| phone (or watch something else) while the kids watch
| netflix.
|
| We have disney+, and my TV apparently thinks we're not
| subscribed. My phone does, though, and I can cast from
| that. Yes, we can watch Encanto again, but it's very
| jarring when the normal interactions with the TV don't
| work.
| Tor3 wrote:
| >It's fairly inconvenient to have to use your phone as
| the remote, especially when you want to do something on
| your phone (or watch something else) while the kids watch
| netflix.
|
| But when you cast from an application with integrated
| chromecast support (as e.g. Netflix) then the phone is
| free to use as you wish while the kids are watching. I do
| this all the time. I start the cast, then use my normal
| TV remote to pause, for volume control etc. You don't
| need the actual app for most things and you can use the
| phone/tablet for other things (I have to find
| translations for my wife, for example, while watching).
| gknoy wrote:
| I've been able to stream Netflix, Disney+, and Prime to
| my TV via chromecast, and it's a weird mix. The main
| detriment is that for all the apps, when streaming from
| my phone, people watching the TV can't use the TV+Remote
| to do things like pick a different episode, or pick a
| different show -- so this makes it already a crap
| alternative unless I want to be involved in all the
| future viewing decisions.
|
| One nice thing about the phone apps is that you can
| search for a different thing to watch _while_ currently
| watching something. Fast-forward/rewind also tends to be
| a little more intuitive with adraggable progress bar,
| except small-scale rewinds (1-2 minutes) of a movie is
| _harder_ because a few pixels is difficult to select
| cleanly.
|
| I will say though that Prime is _freaking fantastic_ when
| streamed from my phone, better even than using the native
| TV interface. The Prime phone app lets you navigate _by
| scene_ in a show (e.g. Bosch) which my tv app won't let
| me do. I wish Netflix and D+ would/could copy that,
| specifically. I wish it didn't have spoilers in scene
| descriptions, but being able to say, "Hey go back to the
| start of the council of Elrond" is really nice, rather
| than having to use +/- 30 second increments.
| mastazi wrote:
| Let's put it another way: having to cast from the phone
| to the TV is like using a normal screw that requires a
| screwdriver. A TV where you don't need the phone is like
| one of those tool-less thumbscrews[1]. They are
| convenient because in order to use one tool (the screw)
| you don't have to reach for another tool (the
| screwdriver).
|
| [1] http://www.baaqii.com/promanage/productimage/Ewhole/A
| /A678-1...
| ttty wrote:
| I have an LG TV for 2 years and it never showed any ads.
| Everything works great so far. Where do you see ads
| mastazi wrote:
| LG uses WebOS which is not among the ones I tried. In some
| of the other systems the ads generally cover the upper half
| of the home screen, then you have the app icons below that.
|
| This screenshot shows the home screen in Google TV and
| gives you an idea of what I'm talking about
| https://phandroid.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/10/Chromecast-...
|
| And this screenshot is the home screen in Fire TV:
| https://cdn.mobilesyrup.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/09/Firet...
| givinguflac wrote:
| Genuinely curious, did you feel anything was missing from
| Apple TV besides a web browser? I feel it's perfect for our
| uses but I always like to know if I'm missing something.
| Personally I don't like web browsing on TV but AirPlay fills
| that gap when it's needed.
| mastazi wrote:
| I have to say that Apple TV sucked less than the
| alternatives but it's also the most inflexible in the sense
| that it's harder to "jailbreak", so for example if Apple
| decides that the home page will now be filled with ads
| rather than icons, I won't be able to do anything about it
| whereas in Google TV and Fire TV you can sideload an
| unofficial launcher if you want. Compare this with my
| current solution where I can just change OS or desktop
| environment if I feel like it.
|
| Another aspect is the fact that smart TV apps are sometimes
| not as good as their desktop counterparts. For example the
| YouTube app on most smart TV platforms does not support
| viewing show notes or comments. So every time the person in
| the video says "link in the notes below"... you are missing
| out on that link. Another example: I like watching martial
| arts, both the UFC web app and the FloGrappling web app
| have additional features that are not found in their smart-
| tv-app counterparts.
|
| Another big one for me, is the fact that in a desktop
| environment I have better multitasking and I can use
| browser tabs. For example if I find a Youtube channel I'm
| interested in, and I see a couple videos that I would like
| to watch, I just open them in a new tab. On a smart TV you
| would have to add them to watch later, then go to your
| library and find them, it's just not as immediate.
|
| Another point is gaming, I am recycling old computer parts
| that I removed from my gaming PC when doing upgrades, these
| are relatively old parts but still pretty good, so you can
| run triple-A desktop games with pretty decent quality,
| whereas the type of games available for download on smart
| TVs are mostly just ports of mobile games. I also installed
| RetroPie which is quite fun!
|
| Then there is hardware upgradeability. Recently I was
| thinking to add a faster CPU, and then the CPU that is now
| in the HTPC will go into my NAS since the one I have in the
| NAS is quite slow. You can't do any of that with a smart TV
| dongle, all the parts are soldered to the main board :-)
|
| One more thing I like is that it's easier to watch content
| using alternative clients, for example I watch YouTube
| videos using the FreeTube app, on Smart TV platforms you
| might be able to find some alternative clients but the
| choice is more limited.
|
| EDIT - rephrased some parts as they were not clear
| josteink wrote:
| So basically what you're saying is that you want your
| "smart" TV experience to be just like a desktop PC
| experience.
|
| That's fair, if that's what you want and if that works
| for you.
|
| For most users however that would make the TV impossible
| to use with a regular, simple remote and thus be a major
| downgrade in user experience.
|
| Basically what it seems like (to me at least) is that
| people who buy "smart" devices don't want them to be
| smart in terms of having advanced capabilities. Rather
| they want the devices to be smart enough to do the right
| things in a simplified UI, allowing the user to get the
| same things done, but with less effort.
|
| Basically smart devices are smart to allow the user to be
| lazy, dumb or both ;)
| mastazi wrote:
| > So basically what you're saying is that you want your
| "smart" TV experience to be just like a desktop PC
| experience.
|
| Yeah another way to say it is that I want my smart
| devices to be general computing devices. For example I've
| build my own NAS instead of getting something like a
| Synology or a WD NAS, I'm in the process of building a
| router/firewall using OPNsense etc.
|
| I spend more in the short term but less in the long term
| due to the ability to reuse old parts etc.
|
| > Basically smart devices are smart to allow the user to
| be lazy, dumb or both ;)
|
| ahah yeah I see your point.
| svnpenn wrote:
| This is why I disable updates for every piece of software that
| I use. People criticize this often, but it puts me in control.
| I can then review updates when I feel like it, and update as I
| see fit.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I don't think the updates on this treadmill could be
| disabled. You have to connect it to the internet to use the
| screen and if it's connected it's getting updated.
| npteljes wrote:
| Linux and LineageOS are godsends in this regard too. I even
| like to maintain, update my things from time to time, but not
| always, and definitely not when Mr. Windows thinks it's the
| best thing to do right before my gaming time. Last time the
| stupid thing made me miss the time by half an hour, when all
| of my friends were waiting for me. I'm still salty about
| that.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| > if part of the product I've paid for is software, and the
| company can update it without customer consent at any time,
| then I can't rely on the product's features. Period.
|
| What about your other devices?
| mdoms wrote:
| Wait until runners hear about "outside".
| mcherm wrote:
| My solution to this problem would be legislation that allows
| customers, if they wish to, to return devices for a full refund
| if the company that manufactures the device makes a change that
| removes functionality that the customer valued. This doesn't
| prevent the company from making the change, it simply makes sure
| that they incur a cost for doing so, and it makes whole any
| customer affected by the change.
| smabie wrote:
| This basically means that everything that has software updates
| can be returned forever.
|
| Like most of things in life, the answer is very rarely a new
| myopic and ill-conceived law added to the thick stack of
| existing incomprehensible legislation.
| wruza wrote:
| _This basically means that everything that has software
| updates can be returned forever._
|
| It doesn't. It means that functionality cannot be changed in
| a degrading way, but upgrading and non-conflicting security
| updates are still allowed.
|
| For a customer, money upfront and money over time is the same
| (adjusting for the interest rate). They don't need just a
| dead brick, whatever it costs in production. When your saas
| stops having a feature, you stop paying. This is no
| different, except that I'd vote for a law which amortized the
| upfront cost to the real usage time. E.g. I bought a
| treadmill with 2-year warranty for $4000 and it stopped doing
| a claimed feature after a year (iow, became broken from my
| perspective). I either receive a service which returns the
| feature, or get $2000 back + 20% fine for inconvenience.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Wow this is by far the best solution to this pervasive problem
| I've seen, no irony. This way, you don't need legislators go
| into technical and domain specific detail. Producers are
| incentivized to provide optional updates or "downgrades" if
| necessary, and if they shut their cloud services off and brick
| the device, people have a right to return it. Additionally, it
| can't be abused by customers if the company acts well.
|
| However, we still need to tackle the subscription issue, I.e.
| That manufacturers can hide behind "you didn't renew the
| subscription for this printer/treadmill so now we brick it".
| Any ideas?
| rchaud wrote:
| You won't need legislators, but you will have to make your
| case to whoever is manning the returns department at Walmart.
| pjerem wrote:
| You misinterpreted. Of course you still need a judiciary
| process. But you'll won it because the law would clearly be
| on your side.
|
| Still hard to prove your case, but no company will take the
| risk because they could have thousands of customers ready
| to prove they have been abused.
| tzs wrote:
| What counts as functionality?
|
| For example suppose the UI of a treadmill has a "Last 5 workout
| programs used" section on the front page of the UI to allow the
| user to select with one tap a recent program. An update replace
| that with a "recents..." button which takes you to a new screen
| that shows the last 10 programs used.
|
| Is no longer providing one tap access to the most recent 5
| programs removal of functionality? Or is the feature just that
| it has a way to recall recent programs so as long as there
| still is a way to do that, even if more convoluted, it does not
| count as a feature removal?
|
| How about functionality that was not in the device when it was
| purchased but was added by an update? If the law does apply to
| that, then in effect the manufacturer will be locked into only
| ever adding functionality. After a few updates the UI is
| probably going to be a total mess.
|
| If the law only applies to features present at purchase, then
| manufactures will just ship bare bones devices that only
| implement what is necessary to make the claims on the box and
| in their advertisements not false. Then the first update will
| add a ton of stuff to make it more than bare bones.
| wruza wrote:
| _After a few updates the UI is probably going to be a total
| mess_
|
| After a few messes the UI teams will figure out that you have
| to advertise and implement features in a way that doesn't
| interfere with user's habit. E.g. _has a start screen where
| you may pin "last 5 workout programs", "recents...", any menu
| item, and a button to access other functions at top right_.
| m463 wrote:
| I bought a proform pro 2000 treadmill at costco.
|
| On the box, it mentioned "one-year iFit membership included (then
| says wifi and registration required for ifit)"
|
| I didn't want to use iFit, I just wanted to use the treadmill.
|
| However -
|
| You can't use the treadmill without connecting it to wifi, except
| for "manual mode". ZERO workouts. This involves dark patterns for
| setting up your treadmill and avoiding a wifi connection. then
| you can select manual mode - which can ONLY set the speed or
| incline manually.
|
| Oh yeah, this treadmill has an embedded camera and microphone.
|
| The description is a dark pattern, the UI is a dark pattern. pro-
| form has a horrible reputation from my direct experience.
|
| so I use it in manual mode. I don't use the 10.1" touchscreen
| except to start it moving.
|
| I suggest folks who want a treadmill just go to somewhere like
| Dick's and look at the treadmills and buy one after checking out
| the UI in person.
| cwal37 wrote:
| This is related to why I bought a concept2 erg recently. Hurt my
| achilles and needed to switch to a low impact exercise, which I
| prefer to be able to do at home rather than going somewhere else
| (so swimming is out).
|
| Looked at Peloton, but it's about twice as much as an erg up
| front, has running costs each month, and what seemed to be many
| more points of failure (which includes the electronics). The
| Concept2[0] is a tank that should last me a very long time. Space
| is an issue (I had to shove my dining table to the side), but the
| workout is amazing and I have a lot of faith in the machine to
| last. Plus it has a pretty straightforward bluetooth connection
| if I want to get data out and multiple USB and ethernet ports on
| the very simple monitor it came with.
|
| [0] https://www.roguefitness.com/black-concept-2-rowerg-rower-
| pm...
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I normally ride a bike on a smart trainer during the winter
| (when not riding outside), but am planning to buy a Concept2
| Erg before next winter. It should be great for core and back
| strength, something cycling -- especially indoor cycling --
| benefits greatly from but just doesn't do.
|
| It's amazing to me just how (relatively) cheap the Concept2 is.
| Solid, well made, and reliable.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| Concept 2 is indeed the cheaper and better option for an erg.
| Aside from being very sturdy machines at reasonable prices
| compared to your nordictracs and pelotons, old models are
| supported essentially forever with spare parts and detailed
| installation/fix instructions. I dont know of any rowers who
| don't swear by them.
| qqqwerty wrote:
| I picked up a model A for just this reason. $120 on
| craigslist for a 35 year old machine. It is super solid, but
| will need to replace a few minor parts soon. And from what I
| can tell they are all available for purchase from concept2,
| which is awesome.
| ordersofmag wrote:
| Mmmmm, a Model A. I miss those days. No electronics
| whatsoever. Just that mechanical odometer ticking over ever
| so slowly.
| jurassic wrote:
| Concept2 machines are bomb proof. These things are designed for
| intensive use in gym settings which far outweighs the use I put
| in a single individual. I've put in countless meters on mine
| over the years and it's still practically good as new.
| prettyStandard wrote:
| I own a concept 2. I have 4.6 million meters on it. I watch
| programming videos in Spanish while I workout(To learn
| Spanish). This is my "Smart Workout Machine".
|
| https://imgur.com/a/HDE0939
| goblinux wrote:
| Can you share some YouTube channel recommendations para
| practicar espanol
| prettyStandard wrote:
| Mainly I am using LinkedIn Learning right now, it's what my
| company is paying for right now. Learning platforms like
| that let you search by language and closed captioning
| sometimes, then LinkedIn let's me share that to my
| "activity feed" and "certifications".
| jdpedrie wrote:
| I have a concept2 rower as well. I didn't buy it for the
| SDK[0], but I love that they keep the tech minimal and provide
| tools for third party developers. It's a company I'm glad to
| support.
|
| [0] https://www.concept2.com/service/software/software-
| developme...
| cwkoss wrote:
| It should be illegal to remove features from a hardware product
| with a software 'update' without offering all pre-existing
| customers to return the hardware if they affirm the removed (or
| newly pay-gated) feature was a factor in making their purchase.
|
| Customers currently have zero recourse, because they are paying
| for the hardware, but the software allows the hardware
| functionality to be changed or removed at whim without any
| financial risk to the company. Credit card chargebacks may work
| sometimes, but only if the purchase was recent: 'smart' hardware
| vendors often ruin their products more than 90 days after
| purchase.
| smabie wrote:
| I feel like so many things are already illegal, do we really
| need more illegal stuff?
| cube00 wrote:
| Does that still apply if the "feature" is not one advertised by
| the manufacturer? They're framing it as safety issue and jail
| broken devices and leaked content keys get updated all the time
| to close those loopholes.
| anyfoo wrote:
| Following Wirecutter's suggestion, I got a ProForm 505 treadmill.
| Like Wirecutter said, it's cheap, a bit janky, but does the job
| adequately for a "non-pro" like me.
|
| When unpacking it and setting it up, there were multiple notices
| everywhere: On the packaging, as a separate note in the
| packaging, in the manual, on the treadmill itself. Those notes
| all said that the treadmill is "locked" and you need "online
| activation" to unlock it.
|
| I was getting very nervous, since I thought I bought something
| that does not need online activation.
|
| However I think it was also Wirecutter that mentioned that you
| can just press the iFit button for longer than 15 seconds--or was
| it 30 seconds?--and it's "unlocked". I did that once and it
| worked ever since, never needed to do anything online, or connect
| it via Bluetooth, WiFi or anything else.
| [deleted]
| maurits wrote:
| The short and completely correct reason as to why my e-reader has
| never, and will never ever, be connected to wifi.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| how do you get content on it?
| maurits wrote:
| Kobo's used to have a memory card slot. No need to even
| connect it with usb.
| Karsteski wrote:
| For my kindle paperwhite I simply plug it into my computer
| like it's 2010
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| I have an ebook reader mount I attach to the rafters. If I want
| to watch TV I set my laptop on some storage containers far back
| from the treadmill and put in my airpods. In both cases I'm
| looking straight ahead.
|
| Looking down at the NordicTrack screen doesn't seem ergonomic or
| comfortable. I don't get this article.
|
| Edit: From 2 points to 0. And probably going to go negative LOL.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I don't think the article was about ergonomics or comfort, or
| about how to watch TV or read a book while on the treadmill. It
| was about buying a product that does certain things, and then
| having the company that made it change its functionality
| without your consent. The question is, should you or should you
| not have control of the products you buy?
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| Those interviewed in the article seemed to imply reading a
| book or watching TV was a grand pleasure. I'm disagreeing
| with that sentiment. I've found even a slight curve of my
| neck creates a lot of discomfort especially when running or
| walking.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| > I've found even a slight curve of my neck creates a lot
| of discomfort especially when running or walking.
|
| Just because you personally had this experience doesn't
| mean that everyone does.
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| Certainly. And those people are free to chime in as well.
| But people put up with a lot of bad shit to experience
| something. I know I have.
| danShumway wrote:
| > Those interviewed in the article seemed to imply reading
| a book or watching TV was a grand pleasure. I'm disagreeing
| with that sentiment.
|
| Right, but that's not really the point of the article. It's
| not positing a debate over whether or not people exist who
| would be uncomfortable curving their neck while running or
| walking. The article doesn't really care about that debate.
| It's asking whether or not people should have control of
| the products they buy.
|
| Imagine there's an article about a blender that stops
| working without manufacturer-approved ingredients, and
| someone says, "well I hate all of the recipes that people
| are making that aren't approved and I think they taste
| gross, so I don't understand what this article is about."
| In that scenario, we understand that the blender article is
| about consumer rights, not recipe tips, and whether or not
| someone personally likes what people are doing with their
| products isn't really important to that conversation.
|
| The treadmill article is about consumer rights, not
| ergonomics.
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| Asides are allowed on HN as far as I know.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You're both right. It's outrageous that companies are allowed
| to get away with nerfing products you've already paid for by
| pulling new restrictions and limitations out of thin air... and
| it's also bad form to look down at an LCD panel on a treadmill
| while using it. 100% guarantee of a painful side stitch, at
| least for me.
| 300bps wrote:
| https://archive.is/J2BM8
| dschuetz wrote:
| Remember Sony removing OtherOS/Linux from the PS3? Yeah? No?
| That's the reason I don't buy Sony hardware anymore.
|
| See, the issue is decades old. But somehow people keep
| forgetting.
| rchaud wrote:
| I still bought the PS3 because PSN online play was free, while
| Xbox Live required a subscription. I think PSN is subscription-
| only now though.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| I'm still angry about the way they handled the CD root kits,
| even after being called out on it.
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| "God Mode"? What they describe is just how to access developer
| options on an Android device, isn't it?
|
| It doesn't provide root access or anything, just the ability to
| sideload apps and a few other things.
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