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The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

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Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#21

Post by eropple »

alkonaut wrote: post #10
gedy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or vote with our dollars and reject "cloud" connected devices

It’s really hard for the average user to even tell what’s local and what’s not. Perhaps some labeling similar to energy efficiency labeling could be regulated where anything that doesn’t allow for use without the remote service gets a big red “D”sticker, while things that are completely local gets a big green “A”? Some of the best gear I have uses different cloud services but I won’t buy something that would be a pap…

Transparency in terms and branding is a really good idea, but it's probably insufficient. In this scheme, devices marked "A" will effectively be restricted to people with the time to manage local infrastructure--recording cameras, for example, will eventually have disks fail, and at that point the repairs are likely beyond more than a subset of people. Probably a small one, at that.

Cloud stuff is here to stay. We deserve clarity in what does use cloud stuff, but we also need legislation that puts a proper fear into bad actors who make expansive promises (and, likely, stronger liability applied to shipping software that needs patching).

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#22

Post by fsflover »

voisin wrote: post #3

This problem will only be solved by legislation. If countries seek to reduce e-waste they need to force electronics makers to ensure a minimum length of support on the same conditions as existed on the date of sale - say 10 years.

Minimum length of support is not necessary. It's sufficient to force the companies to release the software as FLOSS after the support is ended.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#23

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

kbuck wrote: post #9
tarotuser wrote: post #5

To put bluntly, anybody who buys hardware that is inexorably linked to some cloud-crap should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the loss of money as a learning experience. I *only* buy hardware that can be controlled and/or managed locally. Sure, it means some 'cool' gadgets aren't available in my world. But it does mean that what I buy will be supported and will just work. If that means you buy PoE cameras and ge…

Just because a device isn't cloud-connected doesn't mean it isn't designed for planned obsolescence. For example, the ongoing cheapening of major appliances, or the DRM applied to printer cartridges and coffee pods. This is a legislation problem IMO: companies need to be held to reasonable expectations when they sell a product. My ink cartridge shouldn't say it's "empty" when the page counter reaches 100 [and it's st…

fully with you except

> because the company selling them decided that they don't want to support them anymore.

in IoT for consumer devices companies must ensure that a software is free of security issues. in some cases the support period of 3rd party dependencies is out of control of the vendor. and vendors usually don't control the upstream silicon and firmware. so if an SDK ships an outdated mbedtls and upstream refuses to patch their SDK also downstream will not be able to release a patch. and in that case the law says connectivity needs to be disabled for that appliance. the situation today is that vendors are only starting to realize that this is the future in which they operate. so while the appliance is still operable in a dumb-mode any smart-features will have to be reduced to the max time you can ensure support.

while this sounds like pretty normal and sane to most it absolutely isn't how IoT vendors in the past have operated. And i hope the minute RED directive kicks into gear by Aug 2024 consumers will start to sue them into oblivion if a vendor is for some reason unable to ship a security update.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#24

Post by belorn »

themitigating wrote: post #17
bell-cot wrote: post #6

Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.

So if ford stops making spare parts 30 years after a car was discontinued is the car rented?

If the car has drm in it that refuses alternative third-party parts, then yes, the car was rented. This is why right to repair laws are needed. It fixes this missrepresentation.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#25

Post by shkkmo »

themitigating wrote: post #17
bell-cot wrote: post #6

Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.

So if ford stops making spare parts 30 years after a car was discontinued is the car rented?

If they take steps to prohibit other people from making their own parts, then yes.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#26

Post by spacephysics »

bell-cot wrote: post #6

Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.

It’s tough because what if the company doesn’t want to maintain the software? Are they obligated to keep the software up to date despite the one-time-sale?

It’s a similar reason why much of the software moved to a subscription model, the recurring costs.

Alternatively, there should be some group of smart individuals who come up with some protocol for various devices where, if a manufacturer decides to EoL the sale (specifically saying not a rental), of a product, then they must switch to that protocol. But after their hands are clean.

This issue sucks on many levels, one of which is someone like myself, and many others here, want the convenience of say smart home products.

For instance, with Nest, due to their mothership and proprietary API’s, I have to settle for either an inferior product, or spend time setting up a home automation stack.

Which is great if it’s a hobby and/or enjoyable, but I just want the features without the hassle.

The real open source revolution will come when many of these privacy-first, host-your-own XYZ are truely turn key. I think we’re getting closer but just not their yet

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#27

Post by Forge36 »

themitigating wrote: post #17
bell-cot wrote: post #6

Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.

So if ford stops making spare parts 30 years after a car was discontinued is the car rented?

This is more like if BMW stops supporting their servers so they disable your heated seats.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#28

Post by [deleted] »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #14
ninkendo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not always clear you’re getting cloudcrap when you buy the product. Sure, you and I can do the research and see that it’s tied to a service that will eventually shut down, but do you expect 100% of people out there to understand this?

Anything with the word "smart" falls under this -- that's a good heuristic that covers a large fraction of cases.

[deleted]

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#29

Post by sircastor »

eropple wrote: post #12
tarotuser wrote: post #5

To put bluntly, anybody who buys hardware that is inexorably linked to some cloud-crap should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the loss of money as a learning experience. I *only* buy hardware that can be controlled and/or managed locally. Sure, it means some 'cool' gadgets aren't available in my world. But it does mean that what I buy will be supported and will just work. If that means you buy PoE cameras and ge…

> To put bluntly, anybody who buys hardware that is inexorably linked to some cloud-crap should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the loss of money as a learning experience. This isn't "blunt", this is just cruel. Nobody "deserves" to be the victim of false advertising or broken guarantees, particularly when they can reasonably lack the necessary contextual knowledge to analyze them beyond face value. Most people…

For a while I ran DDWRT on my routers, and spent hours learning about FreeNAS and ZFS. And I ran out of patience for it after a few years. I had more important things to do, and people to spend time with. My routers got replaced with Eeros and my NAS got replaced with a Synology. And while I don’t love that the former got bought by Amazon, both are pain free, and I spend a lot less time on them.

Re: The cameras worked fine, but their maker said they had reached their end of life

#30

Post by LocalH »

themitigating wrote: post #17
bell-cot wrote: post #6

Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.

So if ford stops making spare parts 30 years after a car was discontinued is the car rented?

Bad analogy. There's a difference between that, where the hypothetical car in question has malfunctioned, and a company being able to just decide that a feature that they offered across the board for free is suddenly being discontinued. Imagine that you have a Ford that comes with seat heaters. You've been able to use those seat heaters, at no additional charge, for several years. All of a sudden, Ford decides they want to make existing customers pay for something they've been using for years. The next time you go to the dealer for an unrelated reason, they silently install Ford's new update that restricts you from turning on the seat heaters without paying a monthly subscription to Ford. Even this analogy breaks down, as with the Arlo situation they have to provide server-side storage for the feature, whereas such a seat heater conundrum would not. However, this analogy is closer to the real situation than "manufacturer stops making parts three decades after discontinuation".
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