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The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

cnbc.com

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Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#131

Post by tazjin »

f6v wrote: post #88
michaelmcdonald wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rather short-sighted to refer to one application of technology as useful and another as not needed. Is the computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-efficient needed? No. Is the car even needed? No. But we have found a use for that technology that improves our daily lives. Perhaps for you a fridge with a screen is not useful; however for others it may be.

> Is the computer controlling the engine to be more fuel-efficient needed? No. Is the car even needed? No. We can continue ad absurdum, but it's clear that more screens is added to our lives to: 1. Consume more content 2. As a result, see more ads 3. Finally, buy more stuff I'm not against technology, but electronics producers have been going out of their way to continue growth. That's fine, but I'd love to have a ro…

With those gimmicky features there's also only a slim chance that anyone is actually using them because it's often hard to impossible, especially for people with less interest in tech.

For example, in a large company like Samsung some product manager might show up and require that users of the food scanning feature have a Samsung account. Now you have to register for a Samsung account on your fridge, but the embedded web view is being redirected to a new thing with 35% heavier Javascript which doesn't really run on your fridge anymore and that's the end of that.

This example is made up but it wouldn't surprise me if things very close to this have happened on these fridges, and they definitely happen all the time in consumer electronics.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#132

Post by anonymousab »

perardi wrote: post #95
devney wrote: post #11

For years I've been asking: Why does my toothbrush have to connect to bluetooth? Why does my refrigerator twitter? These were always useless mis-features and we can hope some of them can get pared down now with the shortage. Bring back old style dumb appliances!

There are still lots, and lots, and lots of dumb appliances. I think you’d have to go out of the way to buy a toothbrush with Bluetooth, and I see many a non-smart fridge in the best sellers at Home Depot. ( https://www.homedepot.com/b/Appliances-Refrigerators-Side-by... ) For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread and Merlin Mann screaming about HomeKit and blah blah blah…most people have dumb lightb…

> For all the hooplah about smart homes and Alexa and Thread and blah blah blah…most people have dumb lightbulbs, dumb garage doors, and dumb fridges.

For now. The profits to be made on microtransactions and subscriptions from internet-requiring features are too gargantuan to pass up, to not become the new norm. And, of course, unblockable ads and tracking.

A fun recent example is a motorcycle emergency vest that stops inflating when you stop paying the subscription. An outlier for now, but the average tomorrow; The slope is real and it's coated with vaseline.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#133

Post by tomxor »

rightbyte wrote: post #112
tomxor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful to conflate internet connected trash with enough ARM cores and LoC to make your brain melt with the likes of a well placed humble microcontroller.. the mechanical or analogue components they replaced were usually far more temperamental, bulky, expensive and bad at their job. There are exceptional environments like in nuclear power, but for most purposes integrated electronics have improved reliabil…

Ye well I agree. As sibling comment pointed out I rather have a chip then a motor driven timer switch with fancy grooves. My point is that simple systems like coffee cookers don't benefit much from having microcontrollers and you introduce alot of complexity. My 3yo Mocca Master just have a timing relay and a switch for the aux. heater. If they added a IC to have eg. a 'smart heater' or what ever the complexity and r…

If it's added complexity for no fundamental improvement to the device then I'd agree it's bad. I find that avoiding buying devices with "smart" in the name eliminates most such designs... i'm starting to worry about the availability of dumb cars in the future though (consider that dumb cars are packed full of microelectronics and sensors that do a fantastic job of managing the engine, they work more independently, simply, almost mechanically compared to the "smart" bits).

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#134

Post by dahart »

jfoster wrote: post #4

Why is there a shortage rather than a price hike, similar to what would happen with fuel? Long term contracts?

Maybe we have both? A price hike won’t necessarily fix a shortage, right? (Price hikes didn’t exactly fix n95 mask demand, for example.)

The video in the article explains that the auto industry stepped out of the queue by cancelling all their orders. Now demand is high and they want to cut back in line. So this story about auto makers is taking advantage of a loose and slightly misleading use of the word “shortage”. It implies there’s only a supply-side shortage, when in fact car makers dropped demand before and are now spiking demand.

Plus a chip fab can take months, and I have no idea what the lead time on ordering one is, but it’s probably not zero, right? Especially with other customers in the queue. The process of ordering fuel is somewhat different and doesn’t need to serialize the buyers.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#135

Post by pitaj »

jpm_sd wrote: post #12
jamiek88 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is there is a substrate shortage as well as a foundry slot shortage.

This is correct. The industry is currently constrained on everything from water to wafers, in addition to fab time slots. Everyone is panic buying too, so shortages are getting amplified.

Also assembly houses are way backed up

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#136

Post by PeterisP »

kiddico wrote: post #47
mhh__ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connected devices are a good thing - i.e. I should be able to make the washing machine scriptable from my computer, but I bet these solutions are always crap because they are implemented in a hurry by engineers who don't understand either the hardware or software well enough to make it work, so you end up with quasi-useless boss-pleasers like we have now.

Connected washing machines continue to make little sense to me. The only benefit I can think of is a notification when it's done. Otherwise all the interactions with it are done in person. (loading/unloading etc) What would you want to script?

The common use case is to want to set the time so that it runs not right now but later - either because for noise reasons, or so that it finishes when you're back home to unload.

Also, of course, there's the "internal scheduling" of various different activities that the machine is doing; you can do that mechanically but IMHO it's simpler now to do that with a cheap microcontroller.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#137

Post by dukeyukey »

perardi wrote: post #97
im3w1l wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people I know are asking for and seeking out smart tvs. It's not being pushed on them. I don't hear those people asking for smart fridges (but occasionally I hear them talk about integrated ice makers).

TVs are Netflix terminals. Why not get a TV with Netflix built in? At this point, it just makes sense to have apps on the TV.

For me it's like separation of concerns. Give me a TV with good picture/sound and a good selection of ports. If I want a smart TV I'll stick a Chromecast/Fire stick in it; if I want a metrics displayer I'll use a Raspberry Pi; or maybe I'll use it with a games console. I'd prefer not to pay for smart features If I'm not gonna use them.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#138

Post by ineedasername »

My wife just needed to get a new car, and the salesman was complaining that just as demand was starting to increase the chip shortage means they're barely getting any new ones in stock.

And of course the popular models are the ones that are selling out the fastest, meaning people are holding off on purchases because they can't get what they want. My wife's was one of maybe 8 in the entire state that had the features she wanted. Even that one we had to wait about a week because it was in transit from the factory to the dealership, and the other ones in the state were at dealerships a bit further away.

I know car salesman don't get a whole lot of sympathy, but they still need to make a living and that industry got hit hard by Covid, and now is getting hit again.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#139

Post by slver »

mhh__ wrote: post #103
slver wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really dedicated to this scriptable washing machine project. You should talk to your landlord.

You're really dedicated to being needlessly argumentative. Wrt to your previous comment, of course I'm talking about my model of washing machine. I genuinely cannot fathom how it's hard to work out that my point is that if they'd stuck even the most basic interface on the back, which I bet the higher end ones already have for debugging just not exposed, I could make the machine do what I want. That's not the way the…

In software you should be familiar that exposing a debugging interface can be a 10 minute job. Exposing a public service can be a 3 month job. And not just for developers, but also for documentation writers, marketing, legal, and so on.

If you're an expert, then you can hack with the debug interface, many enthusiasts do things like that with their devices.

And if you're not an expert, you don't want, you can't, and you'd never need to script your washing machine.

Re: The global chip shortage is starting to have consequences

#140

Post by bonestamp2 »

f6v wrote: post #48

There's useful technology, like computer controlling your engine to make it more fuel-efficient or whatever. And then there're "smart appliances", like a fridge with a screen. Do we really need it? The companies try to sell us more useless stuff, that's what it is.

Just to add on to this (because I think it's interesting)... the Engine Computer (PCM - Powertrain Control Module) does so much! Just to name a few:

- Coordinates the engine and the transmission for smooth shifts - Holds a gear while the engine is in the power band if the throttle position meets a certain threshold - Makes diagnosing complex problems much easier, even remembering data so it can be diagnosed when the problem is not happening at the time you drop your car off with a technician - Shuts the engine and fuel pump off if it receives a message on the vehicle bus that an airbag was deployed - Can advance or retard ignition timing depending on the grade of fuel you put in the tank - Reads/Adjusts combustion parameters thousands of times per second on each cylinder (prioritizing fuel economy, power output, and emissions depending on the situation).

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