[HN Gopher] AEG combi microwave unusable after update: device th...
___________________________________________________________________
AEG combi microwave unusable after update: device thinks it is a
steam oven
Author : HansHarmannij
Score : 218 points
Date : 2022-03-18 12:51 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tellerreport.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tellerreport.com)
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Why is there no user-facing firmware update/recovery feature, so
| that at least tech-savvy users can resolve the issue themselves?
| Or a reset feature that reverts to the factory firmware located
| on a separate, read-only chip?
|
| Ah yes, it's to prevent people downgrading or running
| "unauthorized" firmware when they inevitably start adding user-
| hostile "features".
| buildbot wrote:
| They honestly probably didn't think of it, or it was the lowest
| priority in Jira.
| wubbert wrote:
| A better question is, why do microwave ovens now need internet
| connections and software updates?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| They most emphatically do not _need_ them, but they have them
| nonetheless.
| dangerface wrote:
| How else do you automate the hot pocket delivery system. What
| is this 2010? Do you expect me to order hot pockets myself
| like some sort of pleb?
| kurthr wrote:
| Also, where is the cannon/trebuchet attachment!
|
| Hot Pockets are aerodynamically designed to be delivered
| directly to the mouth for most destructive effect. Short
| (napalm like cheese), medium (gaseous effect), and long
| term (myocardial infarction) impacts are improved at higher
| ordinance deliver rates.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| To this day I wish things like WWV
| (https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-
| di...) worked better. Folks from Ninja Networks attempted to
| use something like that on their DEFCON 17 badges
| (https://www.wired.com/2009/08/hacking-the-defcon-17-badges/)
| but it required folks to be stationary too long to sync time.
|
| Seeing as most major appliances _are_ stationary it would
| have struck me as a good fit (with the exception of time
| zones / DST).
| gumby wrote:
| > but it required folks to be stationary too long to sync
| time.
|
| I don't understand this constraint as it was possible to
| buy wristwatches that could do this back in the early 1990s
| and probably earlier (that was when I saw one for the first
| time).
| toast0 wrote:
| Wristwatches often have at least sometime outdoors where
| signal propigation is going to be way better.
| jws wrote:
| A model number search reveals that it can be controlled by
| Google voice commands and there is an app which presumably
| does something.
|
| It is a high end (costs 12x what I paid for my last
| microwave) with browning elements. If that is the device you
| cook with you are probably wanting more out a microwave than
| a single big red button that says "+30 seconds" on the front.
| Programming your defrost, cook, and browning cycle is
| probably nicer on an app.
| apexalpha wrote:
| I mean I can think of a few options:
|
| - Pre heat oven remotely
|
| - Check on the food remotely
|
| - Have (and update) settings for specific food?
|
| I mean it's not the worst thing to connect online.
| criddell wrote:
| Also voice controls, although these days you should be able
| to do that on the device.
| jandrese wrote:
| Who preheats a microwave oven?
| rainsil wrote:
| It's a combination microwave/convection oven.
| zepearl wrote:
| I would never ever dare to preheat remotely (and having an
| open Internet connection that has the potential to allow
| that would be a nightmare for me).
|
| My current owen actually forces me to at least open once
| the hatch before allowing it to be switched on (I guess
| that it's to force me to check if anything was previously
| left inside).
| currency wrote:
| Being able to turn on cooking appliances remotely
| couldn't possibly go wrong[0].
|
| /sarcasm
|
| [0]https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-
| risks/...
| wil421 wrote:
| My wife and I both work from home and a lot of times have
| meetings up until 5. It would be nice to be able to start
| the oven so I could get my kids food into a preheated
| oven right at 5.
| jhbadger wrote:
| Obviously this is a good example of what can go wrong with
| it, but there is a real benefit to updating software in an
| appliance, just as there is in say, a gaming console. It used
| to be that when a console or appliance was shipped, that was
| it. If there were bugs, there were bugs. Couldn't be helped.
| Now bugs can be fixed.
| anonymousiam wrote:
| I have a new "smart home" with a couple of GE convection
| ovens that are Internet-connected. In the 2+ years that I've
| owned them, I've never used the Internet control features.
| The _ONE_ feature that might make Internet connectivity
| useful would be setting the clock. Unfortunately, the clocks
| cannot be set or updated via the Internet. WORTHLESS!
| pixl97 wrote:
| I have a whirlpool 'smart' oven and it does appear to use
| internet time, or at least the time from the app.
|
| About the only thing it's useful for is to remind me when
| its preheated.
| narrator wrote:
| Your smart oven failing to work when your country is
| sanctioned could also be a feature.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Whirlpool refrigerators are designed so that the light
| inside fails after a year, requiring replacing a >$100
| power controller board. If you let your thing connect to
| the internet, it will be able to dispense with actually
| burning out a part, and can just stop working under
| program control.
| no-s wrote:
| >Whirlpool refrigerators are designed so that the light
| inside fails after a year, requiring replacing a >$100
| power controller board.
|
| I've run into several microwave controllers with a
| similar misfeature. All used the same controller board
| despite being different makes and models. The part that
| controlled the light was a plug-in board on the
| controller and a short in the light socket could blow a
| diode on it. Bad design since burnt out incandescent
| bulbs often fail with a short. The plug-in replacement
| cost ~$8, but nobody seems to stock it, only The whole
| controller board at ~$175.
| belval wrote:
| That seems excessively evil, so the fridge breaks if you
| don't connect it to the Internet?
| zepearl wrote:
| About clocks:
|
| I hate to have to change the time of the oven twice a year.
| It annoys me :P
|
| I have a nice, cheap, small alarm clock by my bed which
| gets the current time over air (some sort of radio signal,
| probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_clock ) =>
| works great, in the past it maybe needed up to 30 minutes
| or so to do an initial update of its time after a change of
| batteries, but then it always worked perfectly.
|
| Why aren't more appliances using that? Shouldn't even an
| oven, maybe having a small antenna embedded in its front,
| be able to get that signal?
| sizzle wrote:
| This is what is wrong with IoT, the one obvious feature
| that would end the annoying song and dance of updating
| daylight savings time on appliance displays, isn't even a
| offered. Do these old school appliance companies do a shred
| of user research?
| rasz wrote:
| Gives them opportunity to force some kind of MRR on you.
| Newspaper subscription for fridge mounted screen, recipes
| subscription for ovens, sky is the limit.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| I have a few Bosch appliances internet-connected. Getting a
| push notification when the fridge/freezer door is open is
| nice if you're not near enough to hear the unit beeping. And
| when a timer elapses on the cooktop I get a push - again,
| nice if I'm not within earshot.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I don't disagree, but at least if you're going to be putting
| software on there, do it properly and leave an escape hatch.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Or more likely because that costs money to implement
|
| "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained
| by stupidity"
| someotherperson wrote:
| That's on a personal level. As far as companies go, it should
| be "never attribute to stupidity which is adequately
| explained by malice."
|
| This also goes for assuming good faith -- when companies
| reach a certain size, the mantra instead becomes "always
| assume bad faith."
| jjulius wrote:
| >Or more likely because that costs money to implement
|
| Kinda like how paying devs to push firmware updates to a damn
| _microwave_ costs a lot more money than making a microwave
| that just works and doesn 't need OTA updates?
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yes, but you cant sell the 'regular' microwave for more
| because its special. And there is no way to sell marketing
| data with a regular microwave.
| yk wrote:
| I agree, the actual question is, why don't run they point of
| cooking ads already?
| beeboop wrote:
| I'm personally waiting for DRM protected hot pockets, to know
| I'm getting genuine Hot Pockets (TM) in every bite.
| jaywalk wrote:
| It's probably more about cost savings than anything else. Why
| add a USB port and the associated functionality required to do
| manual updates when it's got a fantastic remote update
| capability?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| It doesn't need extra hardware. Most routers have some
| rudimentary TFTP boot mode that can be accessed by powering
| it up while holding a certain button. The device already has
| Wi-Fi, so the same mechanism can be used - if powered up in
| recovery mode, it'll scan for a specific SSID and then TFTP
| boot from a specific IP on there.
| gpvos wrote:
| The percentage of microwave users that could perform such a
| trick rounds down to zero.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| So is the percentage of router users... and yet those
| debug modes are there because they cost nothing and can
| be useful in "oh shit" moments like these.
| macintux wrote:
| A router being down is potentially catastrophic for a
| household/business. Certainly more important (under most
| circumstances) than a microwave oven.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Eh, I think you're being uncharitable. My 80 year old
| mother could definitely figure out how to hold down a
| button while turning the thing off and on. We've been
| living with some version of that reality for decades.
| gpvos wrote:
| Also to set up a wifi network with a particular SSID and
| a device on that that runs a TFTP server?
| Zancarius wrote:
| If it has a companion app for a phone (which this appears
| to be), you could easily have the phone do this for you.
| Not unlike setting up a wifi hotspot.
|
| Just have support walk them through a menu on their phone
| for an "advanced" feature they just tap on, then hold the
| button on the microwave. Voila!
|
| (Granted, I did tech support long enough to know this
| isn't easy; if someone can follow instructions, however,
| it should be doable.)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| My mom is pretty adept with her iPad. If she was
| instructed to download an app, load it, and then stand in
| the kitchen after doing the button-push on the microwave,
| it would be completely within her ability. She knows what
| a wifi network is, she knows the password for hers. She
| is definitely slowing down a bit with age, but she rarely
| requires me to come over and help her with such things,
| at most she just asks for more confirmation these days
| before she says yes to a prompt.
|
| That last part could also be because I harp on it every
| time the topic comes up, that under no circumstances
| should she be answering yes or ok to any random prompts
| that she isn't very familiar with already, and please
| call me if she's at all questioning the legitimacy of
| what she sees.
| ajford wrote:
| I wonder if that percentage of tech-savvy "elderly" is
| going up over time. I know I remember hearing that about
| anything computer related 20 years ago, but many of the
| people in the upper age ranges now lived with computers
| for a majority of their life.
|
| My grandma is not tech savvy, but can follow directions
| pretty well. My spouse's grandma is tech savvy to a
| certain level and manages her own computer and photo
| library. I know either of them would likely be able to
| hold down a button and follow some set of directions to
| join a wifi and upload a file.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| 25 years ago, we were all bitching about having to
| program our parents' VCR for them. In 25 more years we'll
| be asking a teenager how to get TikTok beamed directly
| into our brains like they're doing.
| gamacodre wrote:
| I am 100% sure I will never be asking for that.
|
| Now, figuring out how to get a containerization platform
| running in there might be a different matter...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Until the container gets rooted and people start asking
| why you call yourself Tyler half the time.
| bluGill wrote:
| I knew a few elderly who managed to program their VCR. I
| also knew a lot of young people who couldn't.
| no-s wrote:
| >I knew a few elderly who managed to program their VCR
|
| I tease my wife about not figuring out email until 2005.
| Of course I date back to the era whence we had to run
| down to the data center and take turns on the operator
| console to send each other text messages.
| sebazzz wrote:
| True, but is still easier than to replace the PCB or the
| entire unit. A technician might need 15 minutes to do the
| procedure.
| jjulius wrote:
| To be fair, if we're talking about cost savings, it would be
| a lot cheaper if they didn't bother with paying devs to push
| firmware updates to a fucking microwave that should _just
| work_ on it 's own.
| aeyes wrote:
| As a consumer I want a button which I can press for 10
| seconds to reset the device to how it came out of the box.
| That should include any firmware updates because remote
| bricking happens all the time.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Software on appliances have on reason to exist: lock users from
| acessing advanced features without paying an extra price for it.
| Although even Stallman once said he doesn't care about what his
| oven is running[0], I think we all should.
|
| [0]: https://lwn.net/2000/0601/
| froh42 wrote:
| When connecting to it, does it return http status 418?
| maury91 wrote:
| I was about to say a similar joke: "Good thing the microwave
| doesn't think it's a teapot"
| ale42 wrote:
| It should :-D
| throwra620 wrote:
| macintux wrote:
| Bless you, I knew this was ringing bells but couldn't quite
| place it.
| api wrote:
| Any kind of Internet connectivity on an appliance is a strong
| anti-feature for me. I can't think of a single reason I would
| want it, and it seems like it would either be a privacy invasion
| or a source of headaches.
|
| Unfortunately I think for the average customer this is a "blue
| crystals" feature, something they don't really need and probably
| don't use much but that makes the device feel new and cool. Mass
| market product development is governed by what the bulk of the
| market does, so we will probably see more "put a chip in it"
| trash.
|
| The solution is unfortunately to go up market and pay more for
| luxury or commercial grade stuff. On the plus side it tends to
| last a lot longer, so if you factor in life span it may cost
| about the same.
| alkonaut wrote:
| It should at least be considered a drawback, so that the
| benefits it offers must outweigh it. For a microwave, the
| drawbacks is (obviously) greater than whatever benefit it can
| offer.
|
| For a heat pump or something that can actually make good use of
| the internet (remote control, looking at electricity prices,
| planning with weather information) the cost/benefit analysis is
| different.
|
| I'd hate to have an internet connected microwave but I'd love
| to have an internet connected heat pump (Or ideally a heat pump
| with a local REST api so I can just tell it myself)
| qwertox wrote:
| The analog thermostat of my fridge broke, a replacement
| thermostat didn't work reliably.
|
| So around two or three years ago I replaced it with an ESP2866,
| a relay and an ds18b20.
|
| It worked great, except that the logic was outside the fridge
| on a home server, it was a a Python script which also logged
| the data into InfluxDB. The issue then was that sometimes when
| the server was down, the fridge stayed on or off.
|
| Last week I started to reorganize my WiFi, which devices access
| which APs, and since then it had constant disconnects, so I
| decided to finally fix this issue.
|
| Now it's an ESP32 with the logic in code which now only posts
| to the server for InfluxDB-logging and is upgradeable via OTA
| and parameters can be set via
| http://fridge.home/esp?data={"set-
| fridge":{"max":7,"min":5.5...}
|
| It's been fun doing this and extended the lifetime of the
| fridge for a couple of years.
|
| But I also would never buy an internet connected fridge or any
| type of appliance, unless it could be flashed with some OSS to
| make it cloud-free.
| ck2 wrote:
| I want to point out most cars made after 2004 or so have no
| physical connection between not just accelerator and engine but
| more importantly wheels and steering wheel.
|
| So their usability is as good as the software written to control
| them and the motor/sensor windings, etc.
|
| Not unlike the software controlling that microwave.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Accelerator pedal is entirely by wire, but steering by wire is
| merely supplemental to the physical linkage (same as braking).
| garaetjjte wrote:
| >but more importantly wheels and steering wheel.
|
| No. There haven't been any production cars with steer-by-wire.
| (except Infiniti Q50, but it still kept mechanical steering
| column as fallback)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Electric steering is power steering using electric motors
| instead of hydraulics. There is still a physical linkage and
| you can still steer the car with the power off.
|
| On my 2014 Prius, the brakes use an electric pump to power the
| hydraulics. In normal operation, the computer handles the
| brakes, but there is a physical backup.
|
| The throttle is completely by wire, because there is no more
| reliable way to run two electric motors and a gas engine
| together with an analog system.
| 93po wrote:
| To pointlessly add on to existing replies - the brake pedal is
| always mechanical (if somewhat less effective with the engine
| off or not working). And it'd be difficult to find a car whose
| brakes weren't able to stop full throttle.
| tristor wrote:
| This is absolutely not true. Most cars have switched to
| electronic power steering (EPS) which uses a manual steering
| rack and linkage, but driven by an electric motor controlled by
| haptics to create more power when turning. Steering wheels are
| /always/ directly connected to the steering rack, in every
| single vehicle intended to be operated by a human.
|
| Drive by wire systems replaced a mechanical throttle linkage
| with an electronic control, and the reason for this is because
| it's massively better in every aspect, using EFI vs a throttle
| body. There are some hybrid designs called TBI (Throttle Body
| Injected), which are meh. EFI controls fuel and air mixtures
| dynamically using servos and relays driven by the ECU in
| response to signals from the drive by wire system.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Electrolux are a horrible company. They seem to have borged a
| whole load of other brands, which all have now descended to
| Electrolux's abysmal standards.
|
| - They don't support their own products; the warranty is served
| by a third-party
|
| - Their products are built to a price-point, and fail just after
| the warranty is up
|
| - Spare parts are expensive
|
| - They apparently have neither an email address or phone number
|
| The water heater in my AEG dishwasher failed three times in six
| months. Each time I had to wait a month for the repair man to
| arrive, declare that my water-heater had failed, and come back
| two weeks later to fit the part.
|
| I don't understand why market forces haven't bankrupted them.
| wpietri wrote:
| > I don't understand why market forces haven't bankrupted them.
|
| I think the short answer is that companies spend many hundreds
| of billions each year manipulating the market. Instead of going
| to all the hard work of building a trusted brand, you can just
| buy one people have a vague familiarity with, spend a bunch on
| marketing, and ship cheap garbage until the brand value has
| been reduced to zero.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Yes, I get that.
|
| But why are they making machines out of parts they know are
| defective? Why are they not incentivised to fix the design?
| For example, a washing-machine electronic control panel with
| a defective circuit design, which meant that a certain diode
| was overloaded, and would reliably burn out a short while out
| of warranty.
|
| Electronic control panels for white goods are incredibly
| expensive. Come to that, if you started from scratch to build
| (e.g.) a washing machine from manufacturer's parts, you'd
| have to sell your house. If the parts really cost that much,
| it's a wonder they can sell their own version so cheaply.
| joezydeco wrote:
| I was really keen to get an Anova Precision Oven (countertop
| combi steam oven), but then found out that Anova is owned by
| Electrolux now. That kind of killed the deal for me.
| criddell wrote:
| My family had an Electrolux vacuum cleaner through the 1970's
| and 80's and that thing was a tank.
| FredPret wrote:
| Nothing sucks like Electrolux - this used to be their motto.
| For real.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yZrQqnRhmZ0
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That isn't limited to Electrolux in my experience, it may be
| fairly common. Samsung, for example, has exactly the same arms-
| length third party warranty support pattern. Wait a while, get
| a tech to come see what part needs to be replaced, wait some
| more, tech comes back to actually do the work. Meanwhile your
| appliance is out of service. Pretty soon it starts to look
| preferable to just discard the appliance and buy a new one even
| if that means spending a thousand bucks. Perhaps this is all by
| design.
|
| Oh, and in case it needed to be said -- I strongly, strongly
| recommend avoiding Samsung for appliances. They are awful. The
| part of Samsung that does monitors and smartphones seems pretty
| great, but their appliance division makes abysmal stuff.
| hnhg wrote:
| They supply white label items to Ikea too, at least in parts of
| Europe.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Yeah and they are very much subpar, same as Whirlpool cca 12
| years ago also sold through Ikea. Bought some kitchen
| appliances when buying Ikea kitchens (twice), all had some
| minor or not so minor issues.
|
| Whirlpool fridge had door isolation strip uneven resulting in
| some heat coming in, from Day 1. Induction stove had few flat
| touch buttons responding only to strong pressure, kind of
| randomly, also Day 1. Electrolux - dish washer is well below
| average in quality of cleaning, our 15 years old Bosch does
| much better job. Also Electrolux - stove hood, something
| broke inside after maybe a year, so it performs at maybe 20%
| of the basic speed. Faster modes don't work at all and it
| shutdowns itself after maybe 5 mins. This one is especially
| annoying since its built into the wall.
|
| Fuck these trashy brands, I'll never ever buy anything else
| from them. Its Siemens, Bosch and Miele, but mainly Bosch
| which doesn't command Miele's high price and
| reliability/features are OK for us. I am not rich nor patient
| enough to waste so much time, money and energy on anything
| else.
| moepstar wrote:
| > Its Siemens, Bosch and Miele, but mainly Bosch which
| doesn't command Miele's high price and reliability/features
| are OK for us.
|
| From my experience, you can't go wrong with either of those
| - and, just in case you didn't know already, Siemens and
| Bosch are basically one - even operating under "BSH",
| Bosch/Siemens Home Appliances:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te
|
| That also means that each company basically has their own
| version of each product - i.e. the same fridge with
| slightly different features (different tray
| combinations/heights/...) are available from both (varying
| model # of course) - and one may be even a little cheaper
| than the other...
| denton-scratch wrote:
| With Bosch, I was told by the installer that the only
| reason for paying for top-of-the-range models was for
| additional features. The underlying machinery is the same
| in all models.
|
| To my reasoning, more features means more things to fail,
| means less reliable. And I've always disliked feeping
| creaturitis - I always use the same settings on
| appliances. And I get to pay less if there are less
| features; so I win both ways. What's not to like?
| gpvos wrote:
| I only recently became aware that their home appliances branch
| had been acquired by Electrolux somewhere in the 1990s. Brand
| awareness can be slow. AEG used to be a high quality brand for
| things like washing machines.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I know; that's why I bought an AEG dishwasher. I replaced it
| with a Bosch, which still seems to be a decent brand. I've
| since downsized my home, and the dishwasher is now me.
| Love has ruined my body, Washing has ruined my hands.
|
| ~ Country Joe
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Bosch is not a public company, probably helps against
| short-term thinking.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| As a fellow Bosch dishwasher owner, I have to say they do
| seem to make a pretty decent appliance still. Not all of
| their appliances get the same acclaim, but for dishwashers
| the only real competition seems to be Miele (and they don't
| necessarily outperform in any short-term way, but have a
| reputation for just lasting 20 years instead of the usual
| 10).
| [deleted]
| GTP wrote:
| When you oven has an existential crisis and needs a psychologist
| to start working again
| FredPret wrote:
| TIL I'm a computer psychologist
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| I refuse to own an oven that is internet connected.
|
| If my oven has enough of a computer to have a firmware that can
| be updated remotely, it is too dangerous to own.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| I found an oven that had all the features I wanted... and
| internet. After verifying it did not require internet I bought
| it and it will never be connected. Who connects something that
| could burn your house down to the internet?!
| tpmx wrote:
| Imagine an attack on the electric grid that works by starting a
| large number of high-power appliances (ovens, EVs, ACs/heat
| pumps, etc) at max power at the exact same time.
| adwww wrote:
| This is actually a big potential for a smart grid - turning
| on or off demand from things like fridges and ovens in
| response to the grid frequency changing.
|
| If the grid is very slightly over 50hz it means demand
| exceeds supply and vice versa.
|
| By automatically switching off the pump on thousands of
| fridges for a few seconds, networks would require less
| generation capacity on standby - saving $$$ and CO2.
|
| Of course, like you say, this would leave potential for this
| to be used in reverse to destabilise an entire grid.
| jaywalk wrote:
| > If the grid is very slightly over 50hz it means demand
| exceeds supply and vice versa.
|
| Not to be too pedantic, but it's actually the opposite.
| Frequency drops as demand goes up, which requires more
| supply to compensate. This is because the generators
| physically spin more slowly as they are put under more
| load.
| adwww wrote:
| thanks, I knew I should have googled to check...
|
| Also occurs to me that it's 60hz in North America, but
| point roughly remains!
| switchbak wrote:
| Just wait until these long range, low power mesh networks are
| the norm. Then they'll be networked and auto updating (and
| spying!) without your knowledge or consent!
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| I have a dozen or more devices that can burn down my house (or
| kill me in other interesting ways) connected to the internet
| because I am confident in the precautions taken by the
| engineers who designed them and mitigating the "hacker" threat
| model is mostly already addressed by precautions already taken
| to mitigate failing ("rogue") controller boards present in
| their non-internet connected counterparts through 30+ years of
| iteration.
|
| Specifically my laser printer has a thermal bypass switch, my
| smartphone(s) have charge controllers integrated into the
| batteries, my water heater has a pressure release valve, my
| oven is literally designed to withstand max heat for an
| indefinite period of time, my garage door is a death trap in
| four different ways (but has redundant safeguards for all of
| those), my kettle has has a thermocouple that trips when it
| boils dry etc. etc.
|
| From a micro-morts perspective, adding "electricity" to an
| object makes it significantly more dangerous than adding
| "internet". Ie going from a hand grinder to an electric
| grinder. But the utility is worth the trade off.
| gpderetta wrote:
| The issue is that hardware interlocks might at some point be
| replaced with software interlocks, if they haven't already.
| See the Therac-25 incident for a concrete example.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| Once a hardware interlock safeguard requirement is put in
| place by a regulatory body it's rarely removed. See British
| fused sockets for instance.
|
| My threat model allows me to be completely cavalier with a
| dishwasher. I would be considerably more serious with
| safety concerns were I to put a chemo machine in my garage.
| My suspicion is that people who haven't shipped home
| appliances connected to mains are not aware of how much of
| the engineering effort goes into making these machines safe
| relatively to how little it does for adjacent categories
| and are mis-indexing risk over bigger issues like vendor
| lock in as with the Sonos upgrade fiasco a few years back.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Compared to 'the internet' electricity is pretty predictable.
| paulgerhardt wrote:
| My experience is with making a few consumer electronics
| products and running through the UL/CE gauntlet. In those
| cases, the 'materiel' required to make sure you don't shock
| your users to death is a bigger lift than what happens if
| one of nine I/O lines are held high or low or fuzzed in
| interesting ways when there are secondary layers of fusing
| built in.
|
| From what I recall your background was in industrial
| machines and I concede the point that if sent an
| inappropriate signal, disaster would ensue. I don't connect
| my CNC machines to my network but I meant to scope this
| discussion to home goods which are meant to have a lot of
| protections built in - specifically against the "user" -
| which compared to "internet" or "electricity" will always
| trump unpredictableness :-)
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a fair point, users tend to find interesting and
| novel ways to apply for Darwin awards with disconcerting
| ease. They also excel in coming up with reasons why all
| those fancy lock-outs don't apply to them. Tape, pens,
| kitchenware, anything will do to get that gear to run
| with the door open...
| amelius wrote:
| I refuse to live in a country where mass consumer products can
| enter the market before being okayed by consumer organizations.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah if it doesn't have a hard off internet/bluetooth switch I
| don't want it. I don't want some hacker-ish kid next door
| pwning it in 5 years when the manufacturer no longer updates, I
| don't want to have to load security updates on my toaster. I
| just want to push the thingy and then the thing happens. All my
| kitchen appliances are 15 years old, 5 years old when I bought
| the house.
| falcolas wrote:
| This time it bricked. Next time it could just as easily turn on
| high and not shut off until the power is removed.
|
| EDIT for disbelievers: The software update meant for an oven
| successfully installed on a microwave, and bricked the
| microwave because it was writing instructions to the wrong
| addresses. Why believe the software would never accidentally
| write to the 'heating element relay' bit in an oven?
| throw7 wrote:
| Also devices that require a smartphone to operate e.g. the
| joule.
| RobertMiller wrote:
| Imagine trying to sell this premise to somebody 50 years ago.
|
| > _It 's a toaster, just like the one you already have on
| your counter, except it won't work unless you give the
| manufacturer a copy of your rolodex._
|
| People then would laugh in your face, but today most people
| don't even seem to blink. The absurd has been normalized.
| [deleted]
| jaywalk wrote:
| My oven is Internet connected. It can't be turned on remotely
| unless I press a button on the oven itself, and even then it'll
| only allow it once.
|
| The WiFi functionality is also such total garbage that it'll
| only stay connected for a few days, and requires physically
| unplugging and re-plugging the power to the oven to get it to
| reconnect.
| RobertMiller wrote:
| > _It can 't be turned on remotely unless I press a button on
| the oven itself, and even then it'll only allow it once._
|
| That it's possible at all suggests that the oven is only one
| bad firmware update away from turning itself on when you
| don't intend it.
|
| Conceivably such a limitation could be built into the
| hardware; e.g. with a button that works like a circuit
| breaker. Set to break after the oven starts once and
| requiring the user to manually reset it. But the odds of it
| actually being implemented in this way, rather than pure
| software, is virtually nil.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I agree with you. But it's just the oven, so the risk is
| just wasting some gas and heating my house up a little
| until I notice. The cooktop burners can't be operated
| remotely, so there's no risk of unintended open flames.
|
| Also, because of the crappy WiFi it's almost never
| connected anyway.
| djbusby wrote:
| Jajaja! My WiFi oven can't burn my house down cause it's
| WiFi code is worse than it's heating-element code.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Your modern oven probably has an electronically
| controlled ignition instead of a pilot light. What would
| stop the oven from opening the gas valves without
| igniting, potentially creating a high-risk situation if
| there are any issues with the seal?
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| > It can't be turned on remotely unless I press a button on
| the oven itself, and even then it'll only allow it once.
|
| I'm not sure I'd be willing to believe a manufacturer on
| this. This feature is probably implemented in software,
| rather than hardware - simply because it's cheaper.
|
| The idea of any of these home appliances being internet
| connected really blows my mind.
| ncr100 wrote:
| How did software engineering get to the point where this kind
| of low quality update is shipped "too often" for serious
| circumstances like a physical oven? Like it's hardly notable
| news anymore for something like this to happen. It's
| frequent.
|
| I worry that agile is largely responsible, and has mutated
| into a pipeline for garbage, though I don't have any evidence
| to confirm that suspicion.
| switchbak wrote:
| Agile was in use for many years before this craziness
| started, I think you need another explanation.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I don't think that the problem is unique to software
| engineering - manufacturers have been skimping on
| engineering quality for _centuries_. I believe that the
| problem is worse with software because (a) it 's harder to
| judge quality for software than for physical goods and (b)
| most consumers seem to have been brainwashed into having
| much lower standards for software than for hardware.
| wpietri wrote:
| I don't think "Agile" is responsible, but it is a
| supporting character here for sure. Let me give a little
| history from my perspective.
|
| I got involved in that movement before the word "Agile"
| existed; I was really interested in the ideas coming from
| the Extreme Programming folks and had tried them out on a
| small project in 2000. All of the people I met early on
| really wanted to do software well; the question was how to
| do it well and responsively. Unit and acceptance tests were
| just part of the process [1], and Kent Beck also wrote Test
| Driven Development By Example [2] around then. So in my
| view there was strong early interest in quality.
|
| But this was all happening during the rise of the internet,
| which changed people's expectations for software delivery.
| Previously, releasing every 18 months was seen as
| reasonable. Suddenly the web was changing people's
| expectations. (Although not as fast as you'd think; a
| consultant pal told me in 2004 that Weight Watchers still
| had an annual release cycle for their website.) Executives
| and managers were under pressure to deliver faster.
|
| As I wrote about elsewhere [3], that created a need for
| Agile that was filled not by the humanistic culture and
| quality-oriented practices of my end of the Agile world,
| but by consultants and certification programs watering down
| the material until executives could slap some new labels on
| their same old bullshit and call it Agile.
|
| It turns out that bullshit long predates Agile. If you go
| back to Royce's original 1970 paper on Waterfall [4], one
| of his big points is that it doesn't work. Why, then, did
| it become the predominant way to organize software
| projects? Because it feels good to managers. For most of
| the project, it gives them a feeling of control and
| competence. That feeling is false, as it just delays all of
| the real-world feedback until near the nominal end. But
| they can perform confidence and competence to their boss,
| which is vital in managerialist [5] organizations.
|
| So I totally agree with you that Agile on average has
| mutated into a garbage pipeline. And that happened through
| a whole industry that produced manager-friendly process
| theater that threw out a quality focus and most of the
| Agile values, while using the Agile labels. But I think the
| real responsibility lies in our management culture and
| values, which both precedes Agile and whose harm extends
| well beyond it.
|
| [1] http://www.extremeprogramming.org/map/loops.html
|
| [2] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/test-driven-
| development...
|
| [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20170923232057/http://agile
| focus...
|
| [4] https://pragtob.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/why-waterfall-
| was-a...
|
| [5] See, e.g., https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/confronting-
| managerialism-9781...
| fatnoah wrote:
| I'm starting a kitchen upgrade, and the number of "connected"
| kitchen appliances is astonishing. I don't need my faucet to
| have Alexa, I don't want to read news on my refrigerator, and I
| don't want an app for my oven. I'm not aware of any companies
| keeping servers running for a product that matches the life
| expectancy of a kitchen appliance, nor do I want an AWS outage
| to keep me from making nachos.
| ggreg84 wrote:
| Buy professional appliances, for restaurants.
|
| For some reason, they are often better along many axes:
| cheaper, easier to clean, more customizable, more powerful,
| more flexible, etc.
|
| I really like the professional induction stoves, with actual
| physical dials, no touch crap.
|
| And the best part, there is a huge used market for
| professional appliances in really good shape, for even lower
| price.
| wkrsz wrote:
| Aren't they too big for a regular home kitchen?
| dunham wrote:
| I think they're designed to be more durable too. A consumer
| microwave / food processor isn't intended to run 8 hours a
| day.
|
| Any particular brands on the induction stoves? I may want
| to move on from gas someday.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Commercial induction is pretty solid in a home. Microwaves
| too if you have a spare 220v hanging around in your
| kitchen. Mostly just because of the better controls as you
| mentioned though. A non-commercial appliance with a free
| spinning knob would be about as good.
|
| Other than that though, and I have a lot of professional
| cooking experience, I wouldn't. They're generally
| uninsulated, made of just sheets of stainless steel.
| Touching them can burn you, they can have sharp edges and
| corners that can badly cut.
|
| Their safety assumes frequent and thorough cleaning
| regimes. Where a residential system will have safer failure
| modes if not maintained correctly, a commercial one may
| just become a grease fire instead.
|
| Also the dimensions and their dynamics just are often not
| good for the kinds of cooking you do at home. It takes an
| hour to heat a full-size uninsulated commercial stove's
| oven to baking temp. Commercial gear is generally built
| around that assumption: that you will turn it on once,
| every single day, and run it for 12-18 hours straight. That
| completely changes the design, efficiency, and maintenance
| constraints in ways that may not work at home.
|
| I used to want a big two-basic stainless commercial sink
| with sprayer. I stayed in an airbnb with that once, and it
| turns out it takes several gallons of water to fill that
| even a few inches, a minimal amount to wash dishes. A
| restaurant's water line can do that in seconds, it can take
| minutes on a home one, depending.
|
| There are definitely specific, individual pieces where the
| commercial versions are easily adapted to home use and
| superior. There are many more cases where they aren't. A
| blanket "buy commercial" is not good advice imo.
| mypalmike wrote:
| Thank you. I learned quite a bit from this.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Until the day it starts asking your support contract
| number...
| civilized wrote:
| Can you recommend any particular sellers?
|
| My oven stops working with some nonsensical error message
| when I try to use it above 350F, so I'm in the market for a
| new one.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Not OP, and not making any recommendations, but even
| something mainstream like webstaurantstore.com carries a
| fair amount of commercial cooking equipment. Enough to
| give you some ideas, at least.
| bluGill wrote:
| Odds are there are a few restaurant supply stores around
| you. Most independent of any chain. They tend to be open
| the the public only 'working hours'. Find one that wants
| to serve you
| jgoldshlag wrote:
| This. When my Cuisinart food processor bowl broke for the
| 2nd time, I went and got a RobotCoupe professional model.
| The cheese grater attachment I got for it says that you
| shouldn't run it for longer than 4 hours! at a time. Once
| you start going commercial, you will not look back. Pay
| more (if you buy new), work forever and if they do break,
| there are people/places you can get them serviced.
| no-s wrote:
| >nor do I want an AWS outage to keep me from making nachos.
|
| This is a keeper.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It's a weird and sad future in which we get voice-activated
| faucets before we get foot-pedal-operated faucets.
| kop316 wrote:
| At first I thought you were exaggerating with the faucet with
| Alexa:
|
| https://www.homedepot.com/b/Smart-Home-Smart-Kitchen-
| Smart-F...
| vlunkr wrote:
| That's incredibly stupid. The onion article writes itself.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| I have found that Alexa does things randomly once a week or
| so, e.g. start playing music or responds to a question I
| didn't ask.
|
| I would be concerned that Alexa would turn on the faucet
| silently without me knowing, potentially causing a flood.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I wouldn't buy one. Especially at that price point. But I
| admit that a faucet which could reliably do things like
| "dispense 6 ounces of water" is kind of a neat idea. But I
| wouldn't want it tied to Amazon or anything like that. It'd
| need to be self-contained, with it's own computer, speaker,
| mic, voice analysis, no internet connection required, and a
| reliable failure mode that never interferes with the handle
| working. In other words, something which will never exist.
| pfarrell wrote:
| Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >He had found a Nutri-Alexa machine which had provided
| him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was
| almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
| wubbert wrote:
| >I'm not aware of any companies keeping servers running for a
| product that matches the life expectancy of a kitchen
| appliance
|
| I think this is the key right here. They want to reduce the
| life expectancy of kitchen appliances to force people to buy
| new ones sooner.
| ajford wrote:
| Agreed. The only one I want "connected" is my washer/dryer,
| and for that I only want the damn thing to be able to remind
| me it's done!
|
| Things like that is where I wish local-only home automation
| had become more prevalent. Imagine if your washer or
| dishwasher could send a "completion reminder" to your home
| assistant to push to you. No need for a dozen different apps
| and C&C servers, just a local MQTT or SNMP like message to
| the on-prem hub or listener.
| causality0 wrote:
| It's the same horseshit with smart thermostats. I expect a
| thermostat to last ten years minimum, if not twenty or
| thirty. How many times do these companies have to fuck their
| customers before people stop buying them? The very _instant_
| you become more profitable to abandon than to support
| everything you bought will stop working. If it can happen to
| Revolv customers it can happen to you.
|
| I recently bought a thirty year old home complete with its
| contents whose owner was an old man. The newest thing in it
| was an air conditioner from 2007. Know what? Every single
| thing is in perfect working order. AC, fridge, stereo,
| dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, thermostat. The list goes
| on and on. Everything from electric can openers to garage
| door openers works like it was brand new. If Google can't
| match that standard it can get stuffed.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Dont worry, by 2035 or manufacturers will buy laws
| requiring all appliances to last only 5 years at most. It
| will be like the right to read, but for physical artifacts.
| salawat wrote:
| Thermostat companies are too busy selling remote
| administration connections to power companies to allow them
| to control your thermostat to care about what you, the end
| user, wants.
|
| Many Texans discovered this the hard way.
| null_object wrote:
| throw10920 wrote:
| Now that you're actually in the process of upgrading, I
| suggest you take advantage of the fact that you're an
| actually-paying customer to slightly influence the
| retailer(s) you buy from.
|
| "Can you show me only the non-smart appliances, please? Oh,
| you don't have any? Are you sure, can you ask the manager?
| Alright, I'm not interested in anything, have a nice day."
|
| Sure, it doesn't mean very much on your own, but neither does
| voting - the value is in _collective action_. If everyone who
| specifically doesn 't want a smart appliance, smart car, or
| smart TV makes a big deal about it, then manufacturers and
| retailers will start to notice.
| omoikane wrote:
| It has been increasingly difficult to do that, probably
| because a lot of these "smart" appliances sells for more
| and thus have more "vote".
|
| Last time I went to buy a refrigerator, there maybe only
| one or two that were freed of the extra features that I did
| not want, compared to the 30 or so that were on display.
| And TVs without wifi were nonexistent.
| throw10920 wrote:
| I mean, sure, it's increasingly hard to buy a non-smart
| appliance, but the value of making your preference known
| should be obvious.
|
| Even if a regulatory solution is ideal (which I'm leaning
| toward), corrupt politicians will make it very difficult
| to get that regulation enacted, which means that "voting
| with your wallet" _and_ making a big deal about it are
| both still necessary in the meantime, and will provide
| some benefit if done en-masse.
| na85 wrote:
| The future is here and it's awful.
| smilespray wrote:
| "Oh my God -- it's full of ads!"
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Had a Hotpoint friege freezer where the door handle broke due to
| the vacuum seal being too strong, engineer came out, replaced the
| door because you couldnt just replace the handle and then he
| plugged it into a device on the pretense of checking the
| electrical safety. Fast forward a few weeks the compressor would
| not start.
|
| Hotpoint is part owned by Us company Whirlpool and Chinese
| company Haier.
|
| Its my belief the fridge freezer firmware was updated using the
| mains cable much like thernet powerline adapters work. I still
| have the fridge freezer so will be tearing it down and inspecting
| the electrical components to prove this in good time.
| swayvil wrote:
| On my oven I want a knob. That's it. I'll light it with a match.
|
| Presently have those lighting spark things on my 5 year old
| samsung. Already failures.
|
| No, I do not want networking, apps, wifi, touchscreens or any
| form of digitality.
|
| This shit is glitter for the "technologically educated" class.
| Turning a $1 tshirt into a $10 tshirt
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Wifi/network access shouldn't ever enable turning an oven on,
| but it'd be cool as hell if:
|
| - I could turn it _off_ from my phone when I hear the timer,
| but don 't feel like going to the kitchen to silence the oven
| alarm.
|
| - I could view what's cooking inside without having to be at or
| open the oven.
| _justinfunk wrote:
| My old range had two pilot lights under the cover, when the
| knob allowed gas to flow - the pilot ignited the burner. No
| electronics and no matches!
|
| Unfortunately, there were 4 knobs - so you wouldn't be
| interested.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Yeah I'm in a similar situation, I just use a match lol. Every
| now and then it will make a sad little "tick tick" as I turn
| the knob. Not sure what's wrong with it but it doesn't matter,
| we have mastered fire.
| otikik wrote:
| HTTP status 427 I'm an oven
| [deleted]
| eMSF wrote:
| Has artificial intelligence gone too far? (j/k)
| Qub3d wrote:
| Working in the IoT space can be... fun. Here's a high-level PDF
| on good OTA practices I've seen passed around before:
| https://mender.io/resources/product-briefs/_resources/Requir...
| taffronaut wrote:
| It's installed into a cabinet, so there's no quick access for a
| visiting technician to get to the back panel, let alone the
| internals, in case they need to access a debug port to reflash
| it.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| AEG consumer electronics are pure trash nowadays and have nothing
| to do with the OG AEG company. IIRC, it's a Chinese brand now who
| licensed the AEG brand name.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Are there still consumer white goods brands that aren't lowest-
| bidder Chinese crap? I've learned not to trust brand names
| anymore and just assume everything is crap and buy cheap stuff
| that I wouldn't mind replacing at the smallest problem.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Miele
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Yeah, but their pricing is just insane. Far out of the
| reach of the middle class, at least in Europe.
|
| I would say Siemens and Bosch are solid while still being
| affordable.
| cr3ative wrote:
| Their pricing is fairly reasonable when their hugely
| extended lifetime is considered. The Vimes Boot theory in
| action.
| voakbasda wrote:
| Bosch pulls the same kind of user-hostile shenanigans as
| described herein. Any appliance connected to the internet
| should be tossed in the trash.
| oblio wrote:
| It's Electrolux, Swedish company and apparently second
| appliance company worldwide by number of units sold.
| deelowe wrote:
| Electrolux is one of those companies that I avoid at all
| costs. Everything they make is garbage.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| I think already in the 80s AEG's inofficial slogan was
| "Ausgepackt - Eingeschaltet - Geht nicht" (unwrapped, turned
| on, didn't work).
| PinguTS wrote:
| Ausschalten - Einschalten - Geht (aka: have tried switching
| it off and on again)
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| Not in this case apparently ;)
| chokma wrote:
| Auspacken, Einschalten, Garantiefall
| gandalfian wrote:
| Owned by Electrolux. So in Europe at at least Electrolux,
| zanussi and AEG will be roughly similar parts aimed at
| different market segments. My AEG oven from a year ago was
| still made in Germany so hopefully ok. They may well ajbe sold
| the branding rights in some cases though.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I bet assembled, not made.
| Calamitous wrote:
| We're inching ever closer to the day when HTTP 418 is no longer a
| joke.
| mushyhammer wrote:
| Hi, have you googled "smart kettle"?
|
| They already exist. We're living in the future and/or a joke.
|
| This and Russia turning the yellow arches sideways calling it
| Uncle Vanya make it feel like we've entered Los Santos.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| Hackers took down some Russian military sites, including the
| main one (.mil) subdomain and made them return the 418 I'm a
| Teapot error.
|
| It has double meaning in Russian because chainik (chaynik) -
| Russian for teapot is also slang for a fool, a newbie,
| inexperienced, dumb.
| ale42 wrote:
| Why in the world would one connect a microwave to the Internet in
| the first point?! (I guess that's the way they received the wrong
| update...)
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| i could see having something in there ready to go, and waiting
| until the meat hits a certain temperature to turn it on. If the
| microwave and the thermometer can both make it to the same
| service that could be automated. Since so few people run on
| premiss home automation that would require internet access. It
| is way easier to connect to a phone if the device and app just
| know to connect to a spot on the internet. port forwarding and
| whatnot are a pain for some people. That said I suppose the
| real reason is the company is collecting marketing data.
| sp332 wrote:
| To preheat before you get home, or to make sure the oven is off
| after you've left.
|
| https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00049148/
|
| With AEG's app, you can find a recipe and the app will
| automatically set the temperature and cooking time for you.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Hmmm, I've never considered pre-heating a microwave; I
| thought it wasn't necessary, because the food would be heated
| using - um - microwaves. I must have been missing a trick.
| sp332 wrote:
| Yes this is a "combi microwave". It is also an oven.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| We had analog timers 50 years ago, so that the Sunday roast
| would be ready when you came home from church. This crap is
| unneeded, unnecessary complexity. To hell with it.
| freemint wrote:
| Do you always know when you come home? Can you excuse
| yourself with i have to leave this meeting now or my house
| burns down in your job?
| sofixa wrote:
| Well for security updates of course!
|
| As to why it needs security updates, it's because it's
| connected(able) to the internet.
| ale42 wrote:
| I see... to prevent an army of zombie ovens coordinating to
| DDoS some service or web site...
| sofixa wrote:
| It's not like this hasn't already happened - the Mirai
| botnet was just that, Internet of Shit appliances.
| ben_w wrote:
| "The kitchen of the future will only employ one man and one
| dog: the man's job is to feed the dog, the dog's job is to
| bite the man if he tries to touch anything".
| martopix wrote:
| Why do you need the man to feed the dog, you can have a
| timed dog food distributor.
| squidbot wrote:
| Mine connects, specifically to allow Alexa voice control. It
| actually comes in handy once and a while (or should I say,
| handless...)
|
| The one appliance I have that has internet capability that I
| don't understand is my dishwasher. It has the ability to be
| remote started. I can't think of a single use case for this,
| since you need to load soap to use it, and it has a delay
| feature. It's a great dishwasher, and I bought it in spite of
| the silly internet option, which I've never enabled.
| beeboop wrote:
| This sounds like an awful idea. you'll have a kid somewhere
| mimic their parents, throw their plastic fruit in the oven,
| and tell alexa to cook it (starting a fire)
| planb wrote:
| There's so much wrong about this, but please don't assume that an
| oven with internet connection is useless just because you have no
| use for it. Having food in there and turning it on so it's ready
| when you come home is convenient - I did this with an old oven
| and a HomeKit-enabled outlet. Now we have a new oven that has to
| much electronics for this to work (but not enough to remember the
| f**g time when unplugged).
|
| So if I _would_ trust these internet connected devices (which I
| do not, because of stories like this and other user hostile
| behavior), I'd really like to use the features that would make
| possible.
| muhehe wrote:
| Should have taken this a bit further. I think that microwave
| showing you "I'm a teapot" error would be hilarious.
| throwawayninja wrote:
| "Refusing to heat pizza, please insert water. Error 418: I'm a
| teapot."
| 533474 wrote:
| A microwave with identity crisis
| quercusa wrote:
| I wonder how many EUR0.01 per unit they saved by not having
| enough storage to keep the old firmware version while they loaded
| the new one?
| zwirbl wrote:
| The update process finished successfully, very likely no one
| thought a downgrade would be needed in such a case. I wonder
| why they can't just roll out another, maybe that would also hit
| the legit steamovens
| evandale wrote:
| The update killed the Wi-Fi on the device too
|
| >The ovens can no longer connect to Wi-Fi due to the wrong
| software update, so a new update cannot be performed.
|
| >The problem must therefore be solved on location, the
| spokesperson confirms.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The steam ovens probably use a different WiFi chipset. What
| a colossal mess up.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Imagine how much they could have saved by not requiring any
| firmware at all in the design.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Custom ROMs? What is this, 1990?
| bob1029 wrote:
| Perhaps, but I don't recall 1990s microwaves having
| identity crises which result in total dysfunction.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I wonder how many EUR0.01 per unit they saved by not having
| enough storage to keep the old firmware version while they
| loaded the new one?_
|
| You're maybe joking, but when I worked in automotive, they
| really worked hard to save 2mm in length of a thicker copper
| wiring inside the ECU to save maybe a cent. No joke.
|
| Unless you're in the high margins league of Nvidia, Apple, etc,
| the rest of the HW industry is insanely price sensitive, so all
| these jokes on how cheap manufacturers are, are the reality on
| how the industry is staying afloat.
| kuroguro wrote:
| They would have saved a lot of cents if the device wasn't
| internet connected tho.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| You're underestimating the amount of consumers who value
| the "Wi-Fi enabled" feature sticker plastered on the box
| and marketing spec sheet of a product on display at
| Walmart.
|
| Manufacturers go with whatever marketing tells them will
| sell and what consumers are buying.
|
| Personal anecdote time: I was part of a team developing a
| HW product a few years back and one day our boss comes in
| fumigating:
|
| Boss: "RGB! Management wants us to put damn RGB LEDs in our
| up-coming products."
|
| Us: "But why, what for? Do they know it has zero usage in
| our products?"
|
| Boss: "Doesn't matter to them. Sales guys said our
| competitors have RGB now and customers will not buy our
| products anymore since they see that the competition has
| one extra feature we don't have, so we gotta put that RGB
| in ASAP somehow."
|
| Us: "Ok, and what shall our firmware do with the new RGB
| LEDs?"
|
| Boss: "Don't know <shrugs>. Marketing is still trying to
| figure that one out, so we'll code the firmware before the
| product launch."
|
| I rest my case. This whole consumer industry is absolutely
| mental.
|
| And so, today everything needs to be internet connected,
| because it's another feature on a spec sheet that
| marketing/sales demands.
| teraku wrote:
| Reminds me of the documentary of how the wah-wah pedal was
| invented. Apparently Warwick Electronics told one engineer to
| swap out an On/Off switch with a turn knob because these cost
| 0.25$ per piece instead of 1$. Which was huge savings in the
| 60s.
|
| While experimenting, the engineer, who was also a guitarist,
| found that it sounds really cool to play while you turn the
| knob.
|
| The director wanted to sell these knobs to jazz orchestras
| and big bands for the trumpeters, but the engineer was like
| "Hold on a second, I think we can put this in a pedal and
| make it a guitar thing".
| throw0101a wrote:
| See also "My dishwasher won't start until I let it update its
| firmware over the WiFi" (Jan 31):
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30147379
|
| And "GE won't let me use convection roast on my new oven without
| connecting to WiFi" (Mar 5):
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30570027
| beeboop wrote:
| My friend got a generator recently that wouldn't work unless
| connected to wifi, which he didn't have onsite because it was
| his cabin in the middle of nowhere. He had to call customer
| service which gave him a PIN to enter on the generator to
| bypass the requirement.
| bitwize wrote:
| Remember that story by that old Ada programmer about the object-
| oriented breakfast food cooker? Yeah, that was a joke back then.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Why does a microwave oven need firmware updates?
| colordrops wrote:
| I just went with the Breville Air Fryer Pro. It's a great toaster
| oven and doesn't connect to the network. Unfortunately even
| Breville's latest oven is now WiFi enabled.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| > "An employee manually entered a wrong number somewhere, causing
| an incorrect update. As a result, all combi microwaves of this
| type no longer work in the Benelux," says a spokesperson for the
| umbrella company Electrolux.
|
| All????? They didn't roll out the release gradually? Holy hell.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> They didn't roll out the release gradually? Holy hell._
|
| Have you looked at dev wages for appliances? That explains
| everything in short. Everything has to be done for the cheapest
| price in the shortest amount of time. Fractions of cents are
| cut in every directions when possible. So when you're operating
| dev teams on shoe string budgets under constant crunch, there's
| no talent nor resources for sane management, dev and testing
| practices. Kind of like the game dev industry, but worse.
|
| And the sad part is, there are really great devs stuck in that
| shitty industry, as it takes a lot of skill to write code so
| efficient it fits in undersized ROM or write firmware that can
| replace HW components.
|
| Source: former embedded dev
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It really depends on the expected production numbers whether
| it makes sense to save on hardware. I have worked on
| expensive products of which only a few thousand were made,
| predictably because it was specialized stuff, and a lot of
| money was spent to make the software aceptably fast...
|
| It's different for e.g. cars where it's typically millions,
| at least for the computing parts.
| bitwize wrote:
| Makes you wonder why they don't take it to the extreme and
| remove the computer entirely.
| gpvos wrote:
| Because implementing the functionality in physical hardware
| instead of software is much, much more expensive.
| jb1991 wrote:
| Well, not all. Sounds like Belgium, the Netherlands, and
| Luxembourg were the beta-testers :)
| [deleted]
| tombert wrote:
| I worry that there will be a day, similar to the problem we
| currently have with TVs, that it will be difficult (or even
| impossible) to buy non-smart kitchen appliances.
|
| I still don't see the point of my fridge being connected to wifi,
| but I'll admit that I might just be a bit of a Luddite.
| shever73 wrote:
| Another quality product from the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
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