Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

dyson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 61 posts

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#21

Post by baroffoos »

nickloewen wrote: post #16

This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades apparently requires an app to operate many of it's key features. Sixty years ago there was, as far as I can tell, one significant digital network in the world[0], and the smallest computers weren't desktops--they were desks .[1] It seems all but impossible that Dys…

Devices that require apps to use are infuriating. I recently got a bose soundbar and subwoofer and the instructions tell you to install the app so you can connect the subwoofer to the soundbar. I don't have any devices that can run the bose app...

I eventually found out if you use an AUX cable (not included) you can connect the two devices together without an app.

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#22

Post by askvictor »

abtinf wrote: post #12

This is crazy expensive for a desk lamp, but I can imagine applications that would justify expensive lighting. I’d happily pay 10-20x premium for guaranteed ultra-long life bulbs to use in built-in home fixtures—especially difficult-to-reach locations.

Except that the guarantee here is only for 5 years :-/

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#23

Post by cma »

keyle wrote: post #6

That's great, but who wants to pay that much to have the same light for 60 years? One "advantage" of consumerism is cheap = changeable The sad part of modern technology is that you can't fix it yourself, nor do you understand how it works. It doesn't make you any smarter. That said, having a luxury product that last 60 years is a very niche market.

You pay to signal that you can buy and throw away something marketed to be a 60 year product.

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#24

Post by hiven »

God these products are terrible. All that added cost to protect some budget LEDs from burnout or discolour. They cost next to nothing. There is no innovation in this product.

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#26

Post by oeuviz »

doe88 wrote: post #8
keyle wrote: post #6

That's great, but who wants to pay that much to have the same light for 60 years? One "advantage" of consumerism is cheap = changeable The sad part of modern technology is that you can't fix it yourself, nor do you understand how it works. It doesn't make you any smarter. That said, having a luxury product that last 60 years is a very niche market.

> That's great, but who wants to pay that much to have the same light for 60 years? This. Technologies evolve/improve so fast, you don't want to be stuck with them forever anyway.

My coffee maker is from 1972 which makes it more than a decade older than the user. So there seems to be a market for high quality, unbreakable technology.

But then again, how many years could it be operational when depending on an app.

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#27

Post by BFLpL0QNek »

baroffoos wrote: post #21
nickloewen wrote: post #16

This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades apparently requires an app to operate many of it's key features. Sixty years ago there was, as far as I can tell, one significant digital network in the world[0], and the smallest computers weren't desktops--they were desks .[1] It seems all but impossible that Dys…

Devices that require apps to use are infuriating. I recently got a bose soundbar and subwoofer and the instructions tell you to install the app so you can connect the subwoofer to the soundbar. I don't have any devices that can run the bose app... I eventually found out if you use an AUX cable (not included) you can connect the two devices together without an app.

It is infuriating. Read the terms and conditions/privacy policy for the apps!

For a soundbar, that sits in my living room to produce sound from a television, maybe stream music to it via Bluetooth or listen to online radio why does it need to send analytical data home! I run my own local DNS server with blocklists with one domain being metrics.bose.com. No way am I buying the newer models with built-in microphones.

Likewise, I have the soundtouch on it's own IoT of crap VLAN which has very restrictive firewall rules. I had to jump through several hoops to get this to work so I can control it from my phone which is on a trusted VLAN. This should be straight forward enough using avahi mDNS reflector and igmpproxy however Bose says the Soundtouch does not support cross VLAN https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/SoundTouch-.... That's not completely true, by default it does support it as it is just standard networking with unroutable requests being past to the default gateway however Bose have gone out of there way and done extra work to explicitly block traffic from a different subnet the soundbar is on, probably as a cheap way of securing the device for people who leave their internet routers wide open. The proper solution would have been for Bose to provide some authentication mechanism between the app and soundbar. Luckily it's easy to work around with NAT / IP masquerading.

Even with this, I've had the app switch the soundbar from it's IoT wifi SSID to the trusted wifi SSID on one occasion. I'm not sure how or why but I'll be monitoring it.

I'm going to actively avoid IoT devices now on, the general implementation seems to be substandard, end-of-life will generally be the end of app updates instead of the device physically breaking. Sonos have already done this by essentially changing the terms and conditions for users with existing devices and users not agreeing have their devices essentially become bricks https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-polic....

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#28

Post by jacklewis »

baroffoos wrote: post #21
nickloewen wrote: post #16

This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades apparently requires an app to operate many of it's key features. Sixty years ago there was, as far as I can tell, one significant digital network in the world[0], and the smallest computers weren't desktops--they were desks .[1] It seems all but impossible that Dys…

Devices that require apps to use are infuriating. I recently got a bose soundbar and subwoofer and the instructions tell you to install the app so you can connect the subwoofer to the soundbar. I don't have any devices that can run the bose app... I eventually found out if you use an AUX cable (not included) you can connect the two devices together without an app.

I understand the frustration but you really have the need for a bose soundsystem while not owning any modern computing device or smart phone?

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#29

Post by NeedMoreTea »

Whereas an Anglepoise lamp actually will last 60 years. Many already have. It's too early to know if their LED variant will.

Dyson had one decent idea that everyone else adopted too - cyclones instead of bags. Everything else seems to require paying 10x what a sane premium and expensive cost might be - lamps, hair dryers, fan heaters.

The innovation is making it appear complex enough to justify the absurd price. I bet they are still using too much ABS plastic that'll be disintegrating after 5 years.

Re: Dyson Lightcycle Task Lamp

#30

Post by bigiain »

nickloewen wrote: post #16

This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades apparently requires an app to operate many of it's key features. Sixty years ago there was, as far as I can tell, one significant digital network in the world[0], and the smallest computers weren't desktops--they were desks .[1] It seems all but impossible that Dys…

I have an app for a product I helped build at a startup that launched and went under back in 2014.

The app which now displays the "This app needs to be updated by the developer to work on this version of iOS" message.

That ain't gonna happen. (Not even sure if anybody still has the keys to that Apple Developer account or not. The end of that startup was not very pretty...)

Fortunately, this device exposes all its functionality via a local web server - the app was mostly a neat way of finding the device's local IP address then opening up a web view for that. So at least it still works and can be configured - you just need to know how to find it's IP address via other means...

Six decades? We didn't quite make it 6 years...

:sigh:

Post reply on HN