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I'm of the opinion that products which require a separate service to perform their advertised functions (i.e. a "cloud" service-- be it "free" with the product

I'm of the opinion that products which require a separate service to perform their advertised functions (i.e. a "cloud" service-- be it "free" with the product or subscription-based) should be clearly labeled as such. I know that I don't actually own anything that I can't self-host (or pay whoever I want to host it), but it's clear that most people don't. Public education on this front seems valuable to me (but, then, I'm one of those crazy people who believes in standards-based protocols and commodity hosting service).

0xcde4c3db 9y ago
Yes. A couple years ago I bought a network-attached hard drive with some kind of cloud backup service bundled (the current marketing-speak seems to be "personal cloud"); fortunately I did a little extra reading before opening it, because it wouldn't even let you set it up for local access without registering an account on the cloud service.
- downer72 9y ago
  For sure, that’s what killed the Pebble watch for me. I got it home, opened the box, thinking I had a new watch! Nope. You have to connect it to the internet and let it phone home first. It would not tell time, permit you to manually set the time, or let you explore that watch at all, until it spoke with it’s mothership. I put it back in the box, and tossed it in the closet, and it’s still there, and now it’s completely unusable because the company collapsed.
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    Technically it is still usable, with an update that allows the watch to be de-tethered from the old Pebble servers[0], and there is an open-sourced version in active development as of this Spring[1]. [0]https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-update/ https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-u... [1]https://rebble.io/ https://rebble.io/
  - oneweekwonder 9y ago
    If it is in a mint condition with boxing, hold on to it, in a decade or so I believe it would be worth a lot.
    - 24gttghh 9y ago
      As long as it isn't the Pebble Time Round, and the battery doesn't swell and require replacement...
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      In a decade the hardware may fail (yay today's manufacturing practices). But in 2-3 years, most Pebble fans will probably have broken their current watch, and will be desperately looking for replacement. Since among smartwatches, Pebble was the single least shitty option (by a wide margin) and no company is stepping up with a comparable alternative, people might pay good money to get a working one. I know I probably will.
  - teekert 9y ago
    What a waste! Here in the EU you have 8 days to sent it back without any reason. That is a nice rule for this type of nonsense.
    - def_true_false 9y ago
      Wasn't it 14 days? And it only applies to online shopping (supposedly to compensate for losing the ability to see/try things before buying them)...
npsimons 9y ago
> I'm one of those crazy people who believes in standards-based protocols and commodity hosting service). If that counts as crazy, then lock me up, because I'm crazy too. I'll second everything you said, but I'm not so sure it's entirely ignorance - I believe a large number of people just don't care (which is ignorance of another kind).
- oneweekwonder 9y ago
  > standards-based protocols Ok seeing we talking IoT what standard: of the top of my head mqtt, coap, http/rest, soap? Those are just communication protocols. Now we still need to standardize the application data layer jsonschema, swagger/openapi, wsdl? and most of the time the vendor wants to own the application for their benefit. Also the classic xkcd of standards leading to more standards is so true. As you mentioned the problem lies with the general public, don't care attitude. Hopefully there is enough that will try to educate and help their peers. But a lot of us is going to learn the hard way how criminals used our iot devices against us to rob us blind and only then change will truly start to take place.
  - throw2016 9y ago
    This self serving 'general public don't care' argument by software folks is becoming tired and cliched. The general public doesn't care about freedom of press. Let's take that away. The general public doesn't care about elections. Let's take that away. People use these self serving assumptions of ignorance to empower themselves. You have a ton of devices and things you use in your everyday life. Why should a doctor or civil engineer need to understand the details of software and hardware technologies to get value from it? Do all software folks understand the details of medical stuff or their home construction? That's why you need regulations, so vague terms like the 'general public don't care' are not used to abuse them.
    - npsimons 9y ago
      > That's why you need standards, so vague terms like the 'general public don't care' are not used to abuse them. I wouldn't argue so much for standards of technology, as for standards of conduct. It's funny you mention doctors and civil engineers, two professions with high ethical standards precisely because they went through the same painful growth the software industry is going through now. The 'general public', quite frankly, is ignorant about a great many things. And let's be honest: it is very rare indeed to be the kind of person with the aptitude, time and willingness to become a polymath to the point that you'll never be scammed in any field, ever. It is incumbent upon us, the knowledgeable and ethical practicioners of our field, to hold not just ourselves, but our whole industry to a higher standard. Thus, discussions such as this one on HN where we point out that IoT devices could cause a world of hurt because of all the make-a-quick-buck hucksters who couldn't be arsed to do due diligience.
FabHK 9y ago
Yes. There's this doorbell (400-1500 USD) that connects via internet to a central host, and then notifies you on your smartphone. Seems sort of a neat idea, but a house lasts several decades - is that startup and its server going to be around that long? http://www.doorbird.com http://www.doorbird.com
- ygra 9y ago
  Well, not many things remain the same in a house over several decades. Yes, such a doorbell is more or less an expensive toy that likely will cease to work within half a decade, but normal doorbells tend to break once a decade as well.
  - Silhouette 9y ago
    And I just visited a building that is several centuries old, and gained admission by using a solid iron knocker on a big wooden door, both of which are original. Not all technological changes are advances.
- teekert 9y ago
  Well, a doorbell is not exactly a part of the foundation and it is easily replaced. My house from the 1930's has seen several doorbells already.
  - thinkling 9y ago
    This isn't limited to the doorbell. It's the doorbell, the stereo system (Sonos), the connected garage door, the alarm, the security cameras, the thermostat, ... they're all dependent on their dedicated app. When the vendor stops updating the app that goes with a 5-yo product that they no longer sell, at some point that app will no longer work under the new version of your mobile OS (iOS 16? 17?), and you'll have to give up on it. There's a huge amount of obsolescence coming down the pike in 5-10 years.
    - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
I'd like to go further and require the seller to pay for insurance to give an extended server life in the event the company folds OR release code for public servers that work all advertised features of the device.

0xcde4c3db 9y ago

Yes. A couple years ago I bought a network-attached hard drive with some kind of cloud backup service bundled (the current marketing-speak seems to be "personal cloud"); fortunately I did a little extra reading before opening it, because it wouldn't even let you set it up for local access without registering an account on the cloud service.

downer72 9y ago
For sure, that’s what killed the Pebble watch for me. I got it home, opened the box, thinking I had a new watch! Nope. You have to connect it to the internet and let it phone home first. It would not tell time, permit you to manually set the time, or let you explore that watch at all, until it spoke with it’s mothership. I put it back in the box, and tossed it in the closet, and it’s still there, and now it’s completely unusable because the company collapsed.
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  Technically it is still usable, with an update that allows the watch to be de-tethered from the old Pebble servers[0], and there is an open-sourced version in active development as of this Spring[1]. [0]https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-update/ https://developer.pebble.com/blog/2017/04/04/transitioning-u... [1]https://rebble.io/ https://rebble.io/
- oneweekwonder 9y ago
  If it is in a mint condition with boxing, hold on to it, in a decade or so I believe it would be worth a lot.
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    As long as it isn't the Pebble Time Round, and the battery doesn't swell and require replacement...
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    In a decade the hardware may fail (yay today's manufacturing practices). But in 2-3 years, most Pebble fans will probably have broken their current watch, and will be desperately looking for replacement. Since among smartwatches, Pebble was the single least shitty option (by a wide margin) and no company is stepping up with a comparable alternative, people might pay good money to get a working one. I know I probably will.
- teekert 9y ago
  What a waste! Here in the EU you have 8 days to sent it back without any reason. That is a nice rule for this type of nonsense.
  - def_true_false 9y ago
    Wasn't it 14 days? And it only applies to online shopping (supposedly to compensate for losing the ability to see/try things before buying them)...

npsimons 9y ago

> I'm one of those crazy people who believes in standards-based protocols and commodity hosting service). If that counts as crazy, then lock me up, because I'm crazy too. I'll second everything you said, but I'm not so sure it's entirely ignorance - I believe a large number of people just don't care (which is ignorance of another kind).

oneweekwonder 9y ago
> standards-based protocols Ok seeing we talking IoT what standard: of the top of my head mqtt, coap, http/rest, soap? Those are just communication protocols. Now we still need to standardize the application data layer jsonschema, swagger/openapi, wsdl? and most of the time the vendor wants to own the application for their benefit. Also the classic xkcd of standards leading to more standards is so true. As you mentioned the problem lies with the general public, don't care attitude. Hopefully there is enough that will try to educate and help their peers. But a lot of us is going to learn the hard way how criminals used our iot devices against us to rob us blind and only then change will truly start to take place.
- throw2016 9y ago
  This self serving 'general public don't care' argument by software folks is becoming tired and cliched. The general public doesn't care about freedom of press. Let's take that away. The general public doesn't care about elections. Let's take that away. People use these self serving assumptions of ignorance to empower themselves. You have a ton of devices and things you use in your everyday life. Why should a doctor or civil engineer need to understand the details of software and hardware technologies to get value from it? Do all software folks understand the details of medical stuff or their home construction? That's why you need regulations, so vague terms like the 'general public don't care' are not used to abuse them.
  - npsimons 9y ago
    > That's why you need standards, so vague terms like the 'general public don't care' are not used to abuse them. I wouldn't argue so much for standards of technology, as for standards of conduct. It's funny you mention doctors and civil engineers, two professions with high ethical standards precisely because they went through the same painful growth the software industry is going through now. The 'general public', quite frankly, is ignorant about a great many things. And let's be honest: it is very rare indeed to be the kind of person with the aptitude, time and willingness to become a polymath to the point that you'll never be scammed in any field, ever. It is incumbent upon us, the knowledgeable and ethical practicioners of our field, to hold not just ourselves, but our whole industry to a higher standard. Thus, discussions such as this one on HN where we point out that IoT devices could cause a world of hurt because of all the make-a-quick-buck hucksters who couldn't be arsed to do due diligience.

FabHK 9y ago

Yes. There's this doorbell (400-1500 USD) that connects via internet to a central host, and then notifies you on your smartphone. Seems sort of a neat idea, but a house lasts several decades - is that startup and its server going to be around that long? http://www.doorbird.com http://www.doorbird.com

ygra 9y ago
Well, not many things remain the same in a house over several decades. Yes, such a doorbell is more or less an expensive toy that likely will cease to work within half a decade, but normal doorbells tend to break once a decade as well.
- Silhouette 9y ago
  And I just visited a building that is several centuries old, and gained admission by using a solid iron knocker on a big wooden door, both of which are original. Not all technological changes are advances.
teekert 9y ago
Well, a doorbell is not exactly a part of the foundation and it is easily replaced. My house from the 1930's has seen several doorbells already.
- thinkling 9y ago
  This isn't limited to the doorbell. It's the doorbell, the stereo system (Sonos), the connected garage door, the alarm, the security cameras, the thermostat, ... they're all dependent on their dedicated app. When the vendor stops updating the app that goes with a 5-yo product that they no longer sell, at some point that app will no longer work under the new version of your mobile OS (iOS 16? 17?), and you'll have to give up on it. There's a huge amount of obsolescence coming down the pike in 5-10 years.
  - aeorgnoieang 9y ago

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

I'd like to go further and require the seller to pay for insurance to give an extended server life in the event the company folds OR release code for public servers that work all advertised features of the device.