[HN Gopher] Amazon is bricking $2,350 Astro robots 10 months aft...
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Amazon is bricking $2,350 Astro robots 10 months after release
Author : elsewhen
Score : 67 points
Date : 2024-07-06 13:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| lisper wrote:
| Discontinuing the product is one thing, but intentionally
| bricking the existing ones (and leaving it up to the former
| owners to dispose of the resulting e-waste) seems uncalled for to
| me.
| ars wrote:
| > and leaving it up to the former owners to dispose of the
| resulting e-waste
|
| "Amazon's email to customers encourages owners to recycle Astro
| for Business through the Amazon Recycling Program, with Amazon
| covering associated costs."
| CydeWeys wrote:
| These devices are heavily dependent on software running on
| servers in Amazon's cloud. They're being bricked only because
| those servers are being turned off because continuing to
| maintain the server software would be expensive and not to
| Amazon's gain.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Maintaining it wouldn't sell more of this specific product,
| but simply shutting it down damages their reputation far
| beyond those directly impacted.
| RoyalHenOil wrote:
| Indeed. I recently inherited a bunch of Amazon stock, and I
| sold it a few days ago because I just don't have much
| confidence in the way Amazon operates. Decisions like these
| (releasing products that are not profitable, bricking
| products shortly after release, etc.) make me think that
| the company is being poorly managed.
| gusmd wrote:
| They are taking the devices back for recycling.
| zamadatix wrote:
| An invite only product with extremely meager sales realized to
| have been about as worthwhile as a brick being fully refunded
| with $300 extra plus cost of recycling covered may not be a
| hacker's utopia but seems like a pretty good option to me. Much
| better than imagining any of these businesses were going to
| hack the failed gear into something useful instead.
| massysett wrote:
| Seems it requires cloud services, so once Amazon shuts these
| down it's as good as bricked. Otherwise they have to run the
| cloud forever, or reprogram them not to need cloud.
|
| I had a cat feeder that required cloud, and when that company
| went out of business I had a brick and no refund. (Yeah I was
| crazy to buy the thing, but I had my reasons and knew the
| risks.) That's the risk with these cloudy devices.
| wongarsu wrote:
| It's always sad when a small startup like Amazon doesn't have
| the resources to keep a couple servers running and updated.
| If only some company invented some kind of service to make
| that kind of thing easier.
| userbinator wrote:
| Business opportunity to provide a service to reprogram them for
| non-cloud use.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| They are refunding for them. But in my opinion, you only get a
| couple of these un-launches before you get a reputation like
| Google has.
|
| Amazon has cancelled lots of consumer stuff in the past (the
| Alexa buttons or whatever they were) but cancelling business-
| facing things is new. Businesses are much more cancellation
| averse than forgetful consumers have proven to be.
| qubex wrote:
| Don't forget their Fire Phone.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| This is practically the same management that produced Fire
| Phone. It's actually quite something. This division of Amazon
| management produced Fire Phone, was forgiven and produced
| Alexa to superficial success so were allowed to then produce
| this. When now we know that all these projects were huge
| money trash fires.
| sib wrote:
| Sorry, but the team that produced Alexa (& Echo) were
| completely separate from the team that produced the Fire
| Phone. There were distinct product teams, design teams,
| software engineering teams, hardware teams, and GM-
| equivalents (Amazon didn't really call people GM so much in
| those days.)
|
| (Unless you're talking about the entirety of Dave Limp's
| organization, which produced a lot of things...)
| bmitc wrote:
| I think that's actually worse. It's several disparate
| teams failing in similar ways. It makes Amazon
| looknfoolosh with their hiring process and "principles".
| 999900000999 wrote:
| As long as they refund people it's all good.
|
| Would of been nice for them to open source the SDK too.
| wongarsu wrote:
| To a consumer it's fine. For a business the amount of money
| spent is only one part of the equation. Some places will have
| spent significant time both in the procurement process and
| setting this thing up. Time that can be translated to
| opportunity cost.
|
| As the person proposing such purchases you want to be able to
| show successes. Amazon just bricking it means you don't have
| much to show for, probably burnt political capital for
| nothing to get these, and if anyone was opposed to getting
| these they are now proven right.
|
| Both on the organizational and individual level these kinds
| of things are far more impactful in business products than in
| a hobbyist product
| CydeWeys wrote:
| It's also not necessarily super easy to refund money to a
| business. I know that accounts receivable at my company is
| a serious pain in the ass, and it's not a given that
| refunds on anything purchased via PO are gonna be easy or
| quick. And of course there are restrictions on how you can
| purchase things that might easily have required these to be
| bought via PO (rather than corporate CC).
| hdhshdhshdjd wrote:
| Exactly, time is money. Amazon wasted customer time,
| therefore money.
|
| Very bad look.
| Someone wrote:
| > To a consumer it's fine.
|
| Is it? Let's say I buy a Foo rather than a Bar because it
| brings better value for money. A few months later, the
| device is bricked, and I get my money back, but Bar doesn't
| sell my 2nd choice anymore or it got more expensive.
|
| Even if it isn't, I may have made additional investments in
| time (e.g. learning how to operate it) or money (e.g.
| buying an longer charging cable) that I won't get back.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I think basically any consumer buying something like this
| thinks of it as an expensive toy, not a permanent
| investment in their lifestyle. What would the Bar even be
| to the Astro's Foo?
| greenthrow wrote:
| It's not all good just because you refund someone. You're
| also ending something they bought to fulfill a purpose.
| Making every device require a specific back end to continue
| working and making them unusable if the manufacturer no
| longer wants to provide that back end should be illegal. They
| should have to open the devices up. This practice creates so
| much unnecessary e-waste.
| krisoft wrote:
| > As long as they refund people it's all good.
|
| If you are a business owner who bought one of these and happy
| with the device would you be "all good" with a refund?
|
| There are costs associated with fielding new tech. At the
| minimum now people have to evaluate and install some new
| tech/service. Possibly you are now scrambling around to get a
| new guard service which can keep your property secure,
| perhaps at an elevated rate. At the worst your property is
| going to be burglarised because of the lack of security
| coverage.
|
| This sucks. It damages Amazon's reputation a tiny little bit.
| Every time anyone evaluates some tech or service they think
| about "will this thing go away one day and leave me in the
| lurch"? Doing this just increased the estimated probability
| of Amazon flaking out on you just a tiny bit. That means the
| next time they are selling something their own brand they
| will have just a tiny bit harder time to convince companies
| to be the early adopters. This kind of damage is cumulative
| in a non-linear way. And reputation is one of those things
| which are very hard to restore once you have ruined it.
|
| There is nothing "all good" about it. At best this is an "on
| balance of costs and benefits this course of action was less
| damaging for Amazon than the alternatives".
| mihaaly wrote:
| I am doubtful that people bought these to park their money in
| it so as long they get back the money 'it is all good'.
| Whatever the vague use of this was that failed so bad those
| purchased it for a purpose that needs to be fulfilled, again.
| Waste of efforts, have to try again.
|
| The root comment was not about money but reputation. How
| confidently can someone buy something from Amazon to use if a
| 'sorry, I changed my mind, give it back and solve your task
| some other way, I am out of here!' is hanging over the head.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| They could of also supported it for another 2 or 3 months,
| to get to a full year( most electronics are only warrantied
| for a year), and then bricked them without a refund.
|
| It's the risk of buying experimental tech. If you don't
| want this to happen you can wait until it's an established
| product.
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's not "all good". Businesses have to invest in change,
| employee time is expensive, refunding equipment doesn't
| refund the cost of resources put into the project and
| resources required to change after the plug is pulled.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| The Amazon buttons were arguably wasteful, but kinda cool. I
| had a few mounted on the back of the cabinet door under my
| kitchen sink...
|
| Out of garbage bags? Press the button. Out of dishwasher tabs?
| Press another button. Rinse aid? Same.
| OJFord wrote:
| They probably resulted in too many returns/complaints over
| price, I suspect. I use 'subscribe & save', but I necessarily
| monitor & adjust it, otherwise it is absolutely not '& save'.
| Or it is, but only relative to the Amazon non-subscription
| price at that time, from that seller, with absolutely no
| guarantee it's reasonable.
|
| For me it's just a way to get 15% off stuff that isn't too
| time-sensitive. Running a little low, stock up. Same way
| people use Costco or similar if there's one convenient I
| suppose.
|
| (Tangential, but would be great if you could subscribe on a
| price basis: send me two of these with my S&S order if the
| price is below PS12.34 or whatever (and not otherwise).)
| gertlex wrote:
| For anyone wondering, these were called the Dash buttons.
|
| I have a few from ~2016 that I was playing with a couple
| months ago. You have to block them from connecting to amazon
| servers... I got them working and started but didn't finish
| tying them into a local flask server.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| I've actually seen one of these in person (the guy had it for
| free because he knew someone at Amazon working on the personal
| dogfood version).
|
| I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was actually
| _for_ , and neither could he, as it was basically solely a party
| trick for him. They don't even vacuum floors like a Roomba does!
|
| The linked article talks about security patrols or whatever, but
| simply installing security cameras is cheaper and better. A robot
| obviously rolling along the floor is easy to avoid or to disable.
| smashah wrote:
| Power to the reverse engineers who will stop this stuff from
| turning to junk. Death to TOS.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| My employer exists because one day Amazon didn't feel like
| supporting their warehouse robot b2b anymore. I have a sense that
| they do this kind of thing to _use_ companies as Guinea pigs.
| They experiment and then abandon the product and take the lessons
| elsewhere.
| Animats wrote:
| Ah, that would be Kiva.
|
| That was a shock in the warehousing industry. Many companies
| make equipment for automated warehouses, and those are long-
| term commitments for the buyer. To have a key supplier bought
| out by a competitor, and external customers then cut off was a
| new thing.
| awestley wrote:
| After this who on earth would trust the "home" version will stick
| around?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I never really got my head around why users would trust the
| home version in the first place.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Microsoft is the king of enterprise because they support their
| products.
|
| https://killedbymicrosoft.info/
|
| Skype for Business is still supported!
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| > skype
|
| Because it is data mining source!
|
| google voice, you can still even get under 24h support replies!
| From freaking google! An actual support email reply, with a
| first name basis message!
|
| It's awesome and scary, Like having a bear waking you up while
| camping.
| gerdesj wrote:
| Exchange (on-prem) and MS Office (on your PC, not in browser)
| are due to get the green curtain, single shot heard treatment
| in a couple of years time. Outlook is already going oddly
| Electron flavoured.
|
| I think you may mean king of (y)our enterprise, not in a
| constitutional monarchy way but the feudal form. Note how hard
| it is to make One Drive go away permanently on Windows. You
| can't, unless you nobble Windows updates and that is not too
| bright an idea.
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| > autonomously patrol spaces up to 5,000 square feet with an HD
| periscope and night vision, it could carry small devices
|
| please, tell me someone had an armed response Astro video
| somewhere
| anigbrowl wrote:
| This really ought not be allowed. If you take a product off the
| market and stop supporting it, you should release the code and
| support information to enable people who bought it to keep it
| viable. Subscription models and clever contractual arrangements
| are bullshit fig leaves for companies trying to have their cake
| and eat it too.
| jijji wrote:
| reminds me of the Amazon Cloud Cam product. I had over a hundred
| of those cameras on my rentals, and in one day there useless.
| Just like how Google is found to be doing this kind of behavior
| in the past, Amazon now too is the new brand not to trust with
| any long term investment.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| This type of thing is bad for the internal innovator who must
| expend political capital to get their organization to try new
| things. "Hey boss, Amazon has this new thing we should try."
|
| Burn those people a few times and they're gone forever.
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