111–120 of 303 posts
Zigbee is nasty enough to develop for even if you HAVE all the relevant docs and everything, without adding stuff developed by others into the mix. The only thing why this crap ended upon users is because it's less power hungry than WiFi will be and has a bigger range than Bluetooth.
Surely with the Pi Zero selling at $5 there has got to be way to do this without Philip's locked in, expensive system?
Even more relevant is the ESP8266 at $2. The Pi Zero doesn't have WiFi, and has _way_ more computing power than you would need to run a few RGB LEDs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boss: We introduced Hue back in 2012 w/ a plan to lose money the first 3 years developing the hub, subsidizing partners, and getting our product out in the market. Tell me we're seeing a positive ROI now. Hue PM: Hue is profitable, but only marginally so. Our strategy of making up the initial investment on $60 per bulb hardware is being undermined by cheap 3rd party lighting fixtures. Plus we're incurring costs respo…
That doesn't seem like a fair view of the analysis. If the real value was in the hub, and these other lights were getting a free ride on it, then the opportunity would be to charge more for the hub. What is far more likely to be the case is that the support costs around problems caused by random third party components messing with the Zigbee network were exceeding the value of providing that support, particularly whe…
Put another way, if your analysis is correct, it presents a fundamental weakness in any standardized architecture that relies on a central managing device, which could prevent the development of a robust ecosystem with many vendors.
Are there grounds for a lawsuit when a manufacturer pushes out an update to a product that intentionally degrades its feature set like this? This is no longer the same product that these users bought, it's effectively damaged by the update.
Generally, the agreements you agreed to allow them to do this. Those agreements tend to be held valid (despite what folks want to happen ;p) If someone you bought it from made implied warranties around this, you may be able to sue them (They often cannot disclaim implied warranties in consumer transactions)
Today I don't have time and I think it might one day be a good thing to be able to say: "you seriously thought anyone read and agreed to that thing? bwa bwa bwa hahahaha".
I think this part of law is ripe for some serious updates; some updates that will hurt a few established law firms but help everybody else, users, companies and lawyers currently boring them selves almost to death over standard contracts.
I'd hope in the future we'll have baseline contracts (around here this is already partially implemented in a few areas) protecting both users and producer, but seeing UK trying to implement restrictions on photography I'm not to optimistic.
So what would you recommend we use instead?
I have 12 LIFX bulbs that I really love. No base station needed and it has a local and web API.
I was literally about to make a purchase but now I'll be considering other options. Good timing on your part hue. Do these idiot companies not learn anything from backlashes against Keurig and others?
Didn't Keurig just get valued at $shitton BN? If anything, this case teaches us that being customer-hostile and abusive pays off. Which is sort of obvious if you think about how the market works, but people still act surprised.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/coffee-machine-maker-...
I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. I can't see any upside to this and I can't imagine what the discussion looked like when implementing this decision. My (admittedly cynical) guess is that it was one part "We're fielding a lot of support questions on products that aren't ours and our malfunctioning" and two parts "Our customers will be more motivated to buy Philips Hue products…
Boss: We introduced Hue back in 2012 w/ a plan to lose money the first 3 years developing the hub, subsidizing partners, and getting our product out in the market. Tell me we're seeing a positive ROI now. Hue PM: Hue is profitable, but only marginally so. Our strategy of making up the initial investment on $60 per bulb hardware is being undermined by cheap 3rd party lighting fixtures. Plus we're incurring costs respo…
FTFY
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> I'll never understand why companies make such customer hostile decisions. Because they can. John Doe will think "oh, I just need to shell out some money to get it working again", or "oh, the system needed an upgrade anyway". The mobile bonanza (well, that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware) in last couple of years perverted the word "upgrade" from "a software upgrade, which adds new features and…
> that one company who gets majority of revenue from hardware I hope you are not referring to Apple, because compared to other companies , iPhones and iPads are the one who can run current software on older devices with almost no issues. Samsung and other android manufacturers on the other hand have not supported older devices at all until recently (and even now not as good as Apple does). My first gen iPad still run…
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The slippery slope of "intellectual property" is so steep that even building interface-compatible products is now considered ripping something off. We've come a long way from the age of IBM compatibles and the PC revolution.
Except that at the time IBM tried to prevent people from making compatible PCs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't Keurig just get valued at $shitton BN? If anything, this case teaches us that being customer-hostile and abusive pays off. Which is sort of obvious if you think about how the market works, but people still act surprised.
They did, but they were worth double the shittons a year ago. That's why they got bought. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/coffee-machine-maker-...