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Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

annoying.technology

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Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#261

Post by walrus01 »

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #243
kristiandupont wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar feeling and I am quite pessimistic about the future in this regard. Currently, I have been able to avoid it pretty well, but appliances break and need replacing, and I suspect there will be a day where I cannot find a washing machine that isn't "smart", much less a car!

>... and I suspect there will be a day where I cannot find a washing machine that isn't "smart"... What's worse is you'll have to have a monthly subscription to their service or it won't work. I bet there are people just salivating at the thought of all that MRR. Our future is one in which we don't own a damn thing. We're all renters.

I am already receiving targeted ads for what appears to be a roomba subscription

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#262

Post by walrus01 »

jaywalk wrote: post #254
AviationAtom wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cable companies really ushered it in, with their dual SSID setup. I refused to use their gear for a host of reasons, this being one of them.

To be fair, the "public" SSID on cable company wireless routers is using a separate DOCSIS service flow, so it's not actually using your Internet connection like Amazon Sidewalk would be.

It's still using the same wifi channel and TDD/CSMA half duplex rf/air media contention as your home wifi service, in the typical cable operator all-in-one DOCSIS/router/wifi device.

Meaning that if you have any appreciable portion of traffic on the public SSID it can impact your own speeds/jitter/latency/service. It's not like these devices have indepenent secondary 2.4/5.x GHz 802.11ac/ax radios for the public SSID operating in their own separate 20/40/80 MHz channels.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#263

Post by jaywalk »

walrus01 wrote: post #262
jaywalk wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the "public" SSID on cable company wireless routers is using a separate DOCSIS service flow, so it's not actually using your Internet connection like Amazon Sidewalk would be.

It's still using the same wifi channel and TDD/CSMA half duplex rf/air media contention as your home wifi service, in the typical cable operator all-in-one DOCSIS/router/wifi device. Meaning that if you have any appreciable portion of traffic on the public SSID it can impact your own speeds/jitter/latency/service. It's not like these devices have indepenent secondary 2.4/5.x GHz 802.11ac/ax radios for the public SSID…

This is true, although the public hotspot speeds are usually fairly limited so it shouldn't impact your private network too much.

I use my own equipment for a whole host of reasons, but I also appreciate having WiFi I can connect to more often than not without having to drain my phone's battery using it as a hotspot.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#264

Post by stavros »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #245
stavros wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, the half-duplex conversation is terrible. If people start cutting off whenever someone else speaks, I tell them to wear headphones, but I really don't understand how headphones + push-to-talk isn't standard for everyone by now.

It's the difference between: 1. Grouchy geek who wants to optimize 2. Cheerful regular person who thinks everything is great (*and doesn't really want to bother) As well, it reminds me of how everybody believes themselves to be a great driver. Try getting advanced driving school gift certificate to a friend, family or special someone - they almost universally find it insulting and offensive. "I've been driving for 20…

Hmm, the "oh you're cutting out, you aren't using headphones, right?" works great for me, because the accurate prediction of non-headphoneness is enough to make them believe that that's the problem.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#265

Post by Schroedingersat »

fsflover wrote: post #212
grey_earthling wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or remove the opt out option from 'your' phone This is why we need viable open source phone OSes. Refuse to “just install the app”!

It's impossible to install fully FLOSS OS on a typical phone, due the proprietary hardware drivers. The latter force you to buy new hardware every few years. Consider a GNU/Linux phone, Librem 5 or Pinephone, instead.

Doesn't help if your tv is using your neighbor's router to phone home and download ads

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#266

Post by cowvin »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #152
andrewia wrote: post #57

I've seen this issue in a slightly different context. A few years ago, my Android phone began dying much more quickly than before. Looking at the built-in battery stats, nothing was amiss and there were no apps causing excessive wakeups. It was only when I used Android Battery Historian that I saw there was a ton of bluetooth wakeups caused by Google Play Services. But why would it be waking up so much? Usually the w…

That could also just be a bug. I remember installing an energy sucking application in 2014 on my Android; I think it was Expensify. I had noticed my battery was draining pretty fast, but then I noticed it took forever to even charge the phone. Upon closer examination, the app was consuming like 65% of all the energy being used. It must have been a bug, as there's no way they would make an app drain the battery that f…

LOL a long time ago I had a similar problem with Words With Friends. The app somehow never seemed to sleep. Even when plugged into a 2A charger, my phone would slowly drain.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#267

Post by least »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #237
least wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the threshold for how informed someone must be in order to be allowed to give consent or make their own decisions here? What responsibility would you place on Apple here versus on the consumers of its devices, specifically? More than likely if you ask for more than what exists what will actually happen is that another blurb will show up in the long terms of service that most people don't read and people aren'…

Don't operate something you've sold to someone remotely for your own benefit with explicit opt in that is difficult to do without understanding. Full stop. Don't mine their device for data. Don't harvest anything at all from it without an explicit interaction or intentional manually configured automation. So far, far, far away from where google/apple/ms have drawn it.

This feels like a really loose interpretation of operating something remotely. If they have a backdoor to your phone that lets them flip a switch, that's one thing... I think in this case it's turned on through a software update, which is in the control of the people using the device. That's another feature that is opt-out, by the way. Why? Because requiring input from users to update their phones results in most people not updating their phone, which is a security risk.

It's not so cut and dry and being that dogmatic about it in one direction when there's clear and significant downsides to doing that way is shortsighted. Even if you prompt the user asking for permission for every single thing going on on their device, what do you think the outcome of that will be? Most people I know have tons of notifications from every app they install on their phone because they don't even look at the popup after the first couple times it appears.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#268

Post by heavyset_go »

jaywalk wrote: post #263
walrus01 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still using the same wifi channel and TDD/CSMA half duplex rf/air media contention as your home wifi service, in the typical cable operator all-in-one DOCSIS/router/wifi device. Meaning that if you have any appreciable portion of traffic on the public SSID it can impact your own speeds/jitter/latency/service. It's not like these devices have indepenent secondary 2.4/5.x GHz 802.11ac/ax radios for the public SSID…

This is true, although the public hotspot speeds are usually fairly limited so it shouldn't impact your private network too much. I use my own equipment for a whole host of reasons, but I also appreciate having WiFi I can connect to more often than not without having to drain my phone's battery using it as a hotspot.

Extra WiFi traffic, even if not coming from your AP or devices, will still interfere with your own AP and devices for the reasons walrus01 pointed out, that WiFi is half duplex and needs to share the same RF space as every other WiFi device nearby.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#269

Post by varenc »

Nextgrid wrote: post #87
varenc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: AirPlay speakers, if you really never want to use AirPlay you can apply a configuration profile that disables it entirely. These are the profiles that allow IT departments to enforce all sorts of policies on employee computers. You could use ProfileCreator to make one: https://github.com/ProfileCreator/ProfileCreator Increasingly it feels like powerful configuration settings are only available via IT management p…

Oh thanks, I'll definitely do that. I use profiles on iOS and am fairly familiar with them but didn't bother checking as I assumed macOS not being so locked down wouldn't have "profile-only" settings. I'll also use the opportunity to disable Apple News, TV+, widgets and similar bloat I'm not using.

Wow I’m glad to meet someone else that does this as well! Next iOS device I get I’m going to set it up as “managed” from the start so I’ll have access to the more powerful security configuration profile settings.

It’s telling that these days corporate IT departments have more powerful configuration options available to them than us mere users.

Re: Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by

#270

Post by heavyset_go »

kaba0 wrote: post #176
cobertos wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the point OP is trying to make. It's an opt-out feature, and only once you know it's an issue and continuously making sure you're never opted back in.

Opt-in vs opt-out is a huge psychological difference. Opt-out organ donation has like 90+% of the population, while opt-in only around 10%. You can believe how much of a difference does that mean.

The US is opt-in and has an organ donor rate of about 60%.

More than half of adults in the US choose to opt-in, and I believe that if there were better education and marketing campaigns for organ donation, more people would sign up, too.

Nothing stops Apple from doing the same education and marketing for an opt-in system.

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