Kind of concerning this could turn into another toner ink situation
That's exactly why they did this. They can lock out 3rd party vendors and also force you to buy new heads at an interval of their choosing all in the name of "ensuring quality".
Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
11–20 of 311 posts
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#12I have one, but it never occurred to me to want to hack it. "But how do you know when it's time to change the brush?" Well, how about when it starts getting soft?
How about when the blue part goes away, as documented? :-) I've used a Sonicare for, what, ten years or more? And I don't think I've ever seen an indication that the NFC is communicating anything to me. That's not to say that it isn't, but if I'm going to ignore something[0] and replace the head when I damned well please, I just ignore the blue part of the bristles. I could probably adjust my behavior to ignore whate…
I just change the brush head on the 1st of every month. They say it lasts for 3 months, I must press too hard. So it goes.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#13Kind of concerning this could turn into another toner ink situation
That's exactly why they did this. They can lock out 3rd party vendors and also force you to buy new heads at an interval of their choosing all in the name of "ensuring quality".
It runs normally without a head attached, so they must not be doing this yet. The architecture authenticates the body to the brush, which is the reverse of what you would do to lock out brushes. (A third party brush can get the password from the body and say "yup, that's definitely the password" and then the body thinks it's genuine. Meanwhile, a third-party body could use genuine brushes because a brush can't mechanically make itself not work. So there just isn't any lock-in here.)
The main feature this seems to be used for is to put the body into "whitening" mode if you use a whitening brush.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#14I have one, but it never occurred to me to want to hack it. "But how do you know when it's time to change the brush?" Well, how about when it starts getting soft?
How about when the blue part goes away, as documented? :-) I've used a Sonicare for, what, ten years or more? And I don't think I've ever seen an indication that the NFC is communicating anything to me. That's not to say that it isn't, but if I'm going to ignore something[0] and replace the head when I damned well please, I just ignore the blue part of the bristles. I could probably adjust my behavior to ignore whate…
what is this "as documented" of which you speak? /s
toothbrushes come with documentation???
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#15> that the tag is configured to permanently disable all write access after three wrong password attempts Why is this kind of thing legal? For how many politicians and activist groups claim to care about the environment, why hasn't anyone introduced a bill to ban intentionally turning useful equipment into waste? Any legitimate security needs would be fulfilled just as well by doing a full wipe and factory reset inste…
Why is this kind of thing legal?
For starters, my experience says that, unlike an HP printer, your toothbrush still works just fine[0] if you ignore anything that tells you to replace the head.
[0] At least as fine as a toothbrush with a worn-out head is going to work.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#16Kind of concerning this could turn into another toner ink situation
It works happily with a brush head without NFC. That was the first thing I tried with my new toothbrush.
It works /right now/. Revisit this comment in 3-5 years and see if the behavior of new brushes and brush heads has changed for the worse...
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#17[deleted]
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about when the blue part goes away, as documented? :-) I've used a Sonicare for, what, ten years or more? And I don't think I've ever seen an indication that the NFC is communicating anything to me. That's not to say that it isn't, but if I'm going to ignore something[0] and replace the head when I damned well please, I just ignore the blue part of the bristles. I could probably adjust my behavior to ignore whate…
I just change the brush head on the 1st of every month. They say it lasts for 3 months, I must press too hard. So it goes.
...I must press too hard
Could be. My wife presses so hard, I hear the motor bog down. "JFC, honey, let up a bit", to no avail. She's constantly replacing her heads. I literally can't remember the last time I popped a new one on mine. I could easily believe it's been six months (and, yeah, it's about due).
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about when the blue part goes away, as documented? :-) I've used a Sonicare for, what, ten years or more? And I don't think I've ever seen an indication that the NFC is communicating anything to me. That's not to say that it isn't, but if I'm going to ignore something[0] and replace the head when I damned well please, I just ignore the blue part of the bristles. I could probably adjust my behavior to ignore whate…
I just change the brush head on the 1st of every month. They say it lasts for 3 months, I must press too hard. So it goes.
OT but said that I was brushing too hard and told me that holding the brush at the tip (so that you have less physical leverage on it (instead of gripping it like you would some other appropriately shaped bodily appendage)) will result in the right amount of pressure.
Re: Hacking my “smart” toothbrush
#20> that the tag is configured to permanently disable all write access after three wrong password attempts Why is this kind of thing legal? For how many politicians and activist groups claim to care about the environment, why hasn't anyone introduced a bill to ban intentionally turning useful equipment into waste? Any legitimate security needs would be fulfilled just as well by doing a full wipe and factory reset inste…
Why is this kind of thing legal? For starters, my experience says that, unlike an HP printer, your toothbrush still works just fine[0] if you ignore anything that tells you to replace the head. [0] At least as fine as a toothbrush with a worn-out head is going to work.
I don't really mean about the toothbrush. I mean, why is it legal for NXP to make chips that permanently brick instead of just factory resetting when too many wrong passwords are tried?