4 ms·

I'm afraid we're going to have a couple of really bad years with products like this pumped out every week. Hardware that's turned to bricks when the company goe

by pi-rat 10y ago

I'm afraid we're going to have a couple of really bad years with products like this pumped out every week. Hardware that's turned to bricks when the company goes bankrupt, has server issues, or simply abandons the product in favour of focus on the next big thing(tm). This pet-feeder is simply a motor on a timer. You have to make some hilariously bad design choices to make it 100% dependent on the internet for scheduling.

flyinghamster 10y ago
Looks like they applied the CueCat model to actual cats. A pet feeder that needs Internet access? Come on. This is something that's a job for a dumb timer, or, at most, a simple microcontroller.
- napworth 10y ago
  I understand the benefit of creating a pet feeder with Internet connectivity. It allows you to provide a web portal to your customers so they can update their feeder timings or view food reserve quantities while they're in the office or on holiday. But making it so the pet feeder needs to be connected to dispense food?? That's insane. The internet connectivity should be to upload new timings. But if a connection can't be made, the old timings should continue to be used. Write failsafes into your models!
  - arethuza 10y ago
    "But making it so the pet feeder needs to be connected to dispense food??" I suspect it will be someones bright idea to generate recurring revenue.
    - napworth 10y ago
      It always is. When will business people learn that money is literally the least valuable thing in the world?
- 50CNT 10y ago
  Which in this case is just a slightly smarter timer. But then slapping pointless "HOT NEW TECHNOLOGY" on things thinking you'll make a buck isn't exactly new. <s>That said, you wanna invest in my "Big Data pet feeder"? It runs hadoop and its all cloud 2.0.</s>
AJ007 10y ago
A broken automatic door from Amazon killed my friend's chickens. Not quite an automated feeder, but since the door opening was a condition of the chicken eating, similar situation. There are some interesting points this brings up expanding beyond the whole internet-of-things/robot-ification of the world. a) Google, Amazon, and Facebook mean really bad products can get global reach instantly. Even Walmart had pretty big hurdles which products had to cover. There are some controls in place, but the problem has to be pretty large to register. b) Products accidentally killing humans let alone animals is a very common occurrence, see global vehicle deaths. Plenty of stories of very dangerous products litter Amazon reviews. c) The companies making a lot of money from bad products are the online marketplaces. Somehow this hasn't hurt their brands too much yet, which is interesting. d) There is a market need for a better rating and review process for everything. Given the more reviews are viewed publicly the greater their perverse effects are so maybe it won't even be publicly viewable. I spend a lot of time thinking about the d) problem. The scarier thing is that this already exists to a large extent in many businesses using machine learning methods and labeled fraud detection. What happens in a future IOT where you product doesn't function on purpose?

by pi-rat 10y ago

flyinghamster 10y ago

Looks like they applied the CueCat model to actual cats. A pet feeder that needs Internet access? Come on. This is something that's a job for a dumb timer, or, at most, a simple microcontroller.

napworth 10y ago
I understand the benefit of creating a pet feeder with Internet connectivity. It allows you to provide a web portal to your customers so they can update their feeder timings or view food reserve quantities while they're in the office or on holiday. But making it so the pet feeder needs to be connected to dispense food?? That's insane. The internet connectivity should be to upload new timings. But if a connection can't be made, the old timings should continue to be used. Write failsafes into your models!
- arethuza 10y ago
  "But making it so the pet feeder needs to be connected to dispense food??" I suspect it will be someones bright idea to generate recurring revenue.
  - napworth 10y ago
    It always is. When will business people learn that money is literally the least valuable thing in the world?
50CNT 10y ago
Which in this case is just a slightly smarter timer. But then slapping pointless "HOT NEW TECHNOLOGY" on things thinking you'll make a buck isn't exactly new. <s>That said, you wanna invest in my "Big Data pet feeder"? It runs hadoop and its all cloud 2.0.</s>

AJ007 10y ago

A broken automatic door from Amazon killed my friend's chickens. Not quite an automated feeder, but since the door opening was a condition of the chicken eating, similar situation. There are some interesting points this brings up expanding beyond the whole internet-of-things/robot-ification of the world. a) Google, Amazon, and Facebook mean really bad products can get global reach instantly. Even Walmart had pretty big hurdles which products had to cover. There are some controls in place, but the problem has to be pretty large to register. b) Products accidentally killing humans let alone animals is a very common occurrence, see global vehicle deaths. Plenty of stories of very dangerous products litter Amazon reviews. c) The companies making a lot of money from bad products are the online marketplaces. Somehow this hasn't hurt their brands too much yet, which is interesting. d) There is a market need for a better rating and review process for everything. Given the more reviews are viewed publicly the greater their perverse effects are so maybe it won't even be publicly viewable. I spend a lot of time thinking about the d) problem. The scarier thing is that this already exists to a large extent in many businesses using machine learning methods and labeled fraud detection. What happens in a future IOT where you product doesn't function on purpose?