Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#421

Post by La1n » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #401

La1n wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So if you move to a world where selling your data for services isn't available, then you're forcing them to pay and since we've determined they can't pay, all you're doing is removing the choice from them and forcing them in to the no-service option. Like this is the only option... We already see a lot of services that sell multiple tiers of their products, with power users or larger companies paying significantly m…

Oh and now they don't deserve this better service and you've made the choice for them. No thanks. So eager to remove choices from someone else.

>So eager to remove choices from someone else.

Oh people can't afford a car if it has seatbelts? Poor people should be able to buy unsafe cars! It's their choice!

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#422

Post by Can_Not » Tue, Jul 28, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #307

When you buy food there's a label on the package that tells you what's in it. When you buy cigarettes there's a big warning label about the risk to your health. I think consumer devices need something like that. Imagine browsing an aisle and seeing a label on the package like "WARNING: These earbuds phone home with the track names you play, your GPS location and menstruation cycle history." How many people do you thi…

The vast majority of bluetooth headphones don't even mention their Bluetooth version!

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#423

Post by renewiltord » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 2:59 AM UTC

La1n wrote: post #421

renewiltord wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh and now they don't deserve this better service and you've made the choice for them. No thanks. So eager to remove choices from someone else.

>So eager to remove choices from someone else. Oh people can't afford a car if it has seatbelts? Poor people should be able to buy unsafe cars! It's their choice!

Well, yes, obviously.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#424

Post by outadoc » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 12:13 PM UTC

cactus2093 wrote: post #396

outadoc wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is funny to me because I have a pair of WH-1000XM3 and the one feature I'm missing the most is Bluetooth multi-point pairing. It's super easy to switch devices with the Bose (even though yeah, it can be finicky) meaning you don't have to re-pair your devices every time you want to listen to music on your phone, use them for a Slack call or for a TV show.

Re-pairing takes likes 2 seconds though when it works well, like with the airpods. It's just as fast as multi-point pairing without the downsides.

How? I always have to press the power button for like 8 seconds to re-enter pairing mode, otherwise my second device complains about an error :(

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#425

Post by mnm1 » Wed, Jul 29, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #62

mnm1 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sound algorithm uses menstruation data to optimize sound output?

"Fitbit for your ears" Seems pretty clear it is advertised to do more than play audio.

Ah yes, company speak for "collecting massive amounts of personal data for our profits and your detriment." It's clear now with the fitbit reference that this is mainly a spying device.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#426

Post by cjsawyer » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 12:21 AM UTC

NoPicklez wrote: post #417

cjsawyer wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t change the noise canceling settings without the phone app. They also default back to “full” after you power cycle the headset. I wanted to use them with a PC and no ANC but no luck without the clunky phone process.

This is actually a positive to using the app. I have the original QC 35's and they never originally gave us the option to change the ANC. Only through an update and using the app that they switched it on. If our headphones didn't use can app, we would still be stuck without being able to modify the ANC level.

That finally explains why it has hardware to remember the voiceover setting but not the ANC setting

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#427

Post by NoPicklez » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

cjsawyer wrote: post #426

NoPicklez wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a positive to using the app. I have the original QC 35's and they never originally gave us the option to change the ANC. Only through an update and using the app that they switched it on. If our headphones didn't use can app, we would still be stuck without being able to modify the ANC level.

That finally explains why it has hardware to remember the voiceover setting but not the ANC setting

Its bugs me as well

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#428

Post by lrem » Thu, Jul 30, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

lm2s wrote: post #359

inetknght wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly don't use bluetooth. I keep them wired 95% of the time and noise cancelling just eliminates office noise. The remaining 5% of the time is typically on a flight to somewhere connected to my iPhone a couple of feet away.

>I mostly don't use bluetooth. I keep them wired 95% of the time (...) IMO this seems like a very big detail that should be included when describing your battery longevity.

I'm using mine for over 3 years over bluetooth, somewhere between 10 and 20 hours in a regular (pre-covid) week, the battery feels like new.

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#429

Post by patcon » Sat, Aug 01, 2020, 4:40 AM UTC

dragonsngoblins wrote: post #327

patcon wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I say the following as kindly-spoken words :) I'm grateful that you and I both know to be critically-minded, and we understand the difference between essential features and data-grabs, but honestly... my Dad needed me standing over the sketchy wifi thermostat (that required an app and Facebook login), loudly complaining about how invasive it was, to even understand that this was not OK and worth returning…

I do care about people's data in general, but also I don't recall the documentation for the device pushing the app much or at all and instead just suggesting you use whatever your device's way of connecting to bluetooth devices is, though I might be wrong there. If it did then it is a bit worse than I recall. However if the app isn't really pushed at all then this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others…

> this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others happening in the technology space...

Ah ok, that's understandable. I get desensitized to a lot of this too :)

> I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do

Good point. I'm glad to be reminded of this :)

> Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere.

Ah, this is prob the root of much of our divergence. I recognize that tons of my view emerge from my skepticism of what seems to me a cult of personal responsibility in the west. I lean much more toward collectivist mentalities, and suspect individualistic perspectives in USA are it's achilles heel.

The content and information flow of the world (and so a single life) has become densely packed with so much more context compared to 100 or so years ago when these ideals took form and served us. A founding principle of personal responsibility will increasingly fail us as we become emmersed in an ever-complexifying data and knowledge landscape. imho we can choose to be darwinian about that, or we can insist that our duty is to push knowledge and learning up through the system to _shared_ strata, to higher levels of societal abstraction beyond individual daily affairs. At least that's my hot take :)

Anyhow, thanks a ton for engaging! We may disagree, but your perspective got a lot more "real" to me as you shared :)

Re: Headphones are collecting too much personal data (2019)

#430

Post by dragonsngoblins » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

patcon wrote: post #429

dragonsngoblins wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do care about people's data in general, but also I don't recall the documentation for the device pushing the app much or at all and instead just suggesting you use whatever your device's way of connecting to bluetooth devices is, though I might be wrong there. If it did then it is a bit worse than I recall. However if the app isn't really pushed at all then this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others…

> this is so minor an infraction compared to so many others happening in the technology space... Ah ok, that's understandable. I get desensitized to a lot of this too :) > I do want to point out that not really giving a damn isn't the same as thinking it is a morally ok thing to do Good point. I'm glad to be reminded of this :) > Lastly I do kind of think personal responsibility has to enter into things somewhere. Ah…

I'm definitely a collectivist when it comes to many things, and this is one of them. I just explained myself poorly. I think we should have legislation that prevents this kind of data vacuuming, or at least makes it more transparent to lay people. I'm from Australia too, not the US and we definitely are more collectivist in general than the US is.

The comment about personal responsibility is more representative of why I don't especially feel sympathy about this stuff on an emotional level anymore. We've had multiple, huge, public data breaches in years and the average citizen does not care. Hell in Australia we have some of the worst data privacy laws in the world. I wrote my member about it and only know one other person who did. The "personal responsibility" thing isn't a comment on people not reading the T&Cs, it is a comment on them letting the entire industry get away with this shit time and again.

The fact that people on the whole don't seem to care makes it hard for me to feel a good deal of emotional sympathy when it bites them at this point, even if I do feel they shouldn't have been bitten.