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This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades appar

This has some very appealing aspects—I'm particularly intrigued by the stand design—but I'm mystified by the idea that a lamp designed to last six decades apparently requires an app to operate many of it's key features. Sixty years ago there was, as far as I can tell, one significant digital network in the world[0], and the smallest computers weren't desktops--they were desks.[1] It seems all but impossible that Dyson's app is still going to be available and functional for more than maybe a decade of this lamp's projected lifespan. Computer technology just evolves too fast. I would really appreciate if $600+ appliances would include in the box everything that they need to operate to the best of their capabilities, so that we don't end up with lamps stuck in alarm clock mode when Dyson doesn't upgrade their app to work with iOS 16. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Automatic_Ground_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Automatic_Ground_Environm... [1]: eg https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-computers/7/166/664 https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-compute...

baroffoos 8y ago
Devices that require apps to use are infuriating. I recently got a bose soundbar and subwoofer and the instructions tell you to install the app so you can connect the subwoofer to the soundbar. I don't have any devices that can run the bose app... I eventually found out if you use an AUX cable (not included) you can connect the two devices together without an app.
- BFLpL0QNek 8y ago
  It is infuriating. Read the terms and conditions/privacy policy for the apps! For a soundbar, that sits in my living room to produce sound from a television, maybe stream music to it via Bluetooth or listen to online radio why does it need to send analytical data home! I run my own local DNS server with blocklists with one domain being metrics.bose.com. No way am I buying the newer models with built-in microphones. Likewise, I have the soundtouch on it's own IoT of crap VLAN which has very restrictive firewall rules. I had to jump through several hoops to get this to work so I can control it from my phone which is on a trusted VLAN. This should be straight forward enough using avahi mDNS reflector and igmpproxy however Bose says the Soundtouch does not support cross VLAN https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/SoundTouch-300-app-connection-issue-after-update-to-19-x/td-p/127886 https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/SoundTouch-.... That's not completely true, by default it does support it as it is just standard networking with unroutable requests being past to the default gateway however Bose have gone out of there way and done extra work to explicitly block traffic from a different subnet the soundbar is on, probably as a cheap way of securing the device for people who leave their internet routers wide open. The proper solution would have been for Bose to provide some authentication mechanism between the app and soundbar. Luckily it's easy to work around with NAT / IP masquerading. Even with this, I've had the app switch the soundbar from it's IoT wifi SSID to the trusted wifi SSID on one occasion. I'm not sure how or why but I'll be monitoring it. I'm going to actively avoid IoT devices now on, the general implementation seems to be substandard, end-of-life will generally be the end of app updates instead of the device physically breaking. Sonos have already done this by essentially changing the terms and conditions for users with existing devices and users not agreeing have their devices essentially become bricks https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-policy-speakers-cease-to-function/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-polic....
- jacklewis 8y ago
  I understand the frustration but you really have the need for a bose soundsystem while not owning any modern computing device or smart phone?
  - larkeith 8y ago
    Keep in mind that many (all?) smartphones are deliberately obsoleted within 2-3 years of release - as an example, my S5 (released 2014) only supports through Marshmallow (obsolete as of 2016). Any apps requiring Nougat or later are unavailable to me. Given that I personally use my phone for communication, browsing the web, reading, and note-taking (and occasionally SSH), this isn't a concern, but it might well be a deal-breaker for a Bose soundsystem, unless their apps happen to be backwards-compatible (though being IoT-connected would be enough to make me avoid it like the plague regardless).
    - kbenson 8y ago
      Same situation here, but with an S6. I would probably pay a subscription for an AOSP based install that was supported and got updates. The volunteer level of support for supporting different devices that LineageOS gets means that for some phones (namely the one I'm using), have poor or nonexistent current offerings. :/
    - ndnxhs 8y ago
      I reccomend installing lineageos. It works great on the s5 and still gets regular updates. Its not too hard but you may want to dedicate an hour on the weekend to set it up.
  - gtyras2mrs 8y ago
    Yea, But a soundsystem is supposed to last much longer than an app. It might work now, what if someone needs to reconnect it 3-4 years from now and the app no longer runs?
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    I run Linux on my computers and degoogled android on my phone. Do I not deserve to have speakers because I don't run google spyware? Why should speakers even need an app, I just want to plug them in and have sound.
bigiain 8y ago
I have an app for a product I helped build at a startup that launched and went under back in 2014. The app which now displays the "This app needs to be updated by the developer to work on this version of iOS" message. That ain't gonna happen. (Not even sure if anybody still has the keys to that Apple Developer account or not. The end of that startup was not very pretty...) Fortunately, this device exposes all its functionality via a local web server - the app was mostly a neat way of finding the device's local IP address then opening up a web view for that. So at least it still works and can be configured - you just need to know how to find it's IP address via other means... Six decades? We didn't quite make it 6 years... :sigh:

baroffoos 8y ago

Devices that require apps to use are infuriating. I recently got a bose soundbar and subwoofer and the instructions tell you to install the app so you can connect the subwoofer to the soundbar. I don't have any devices that can run the bose app... I eventually found out if you use an AUX cable (not included) you can connect the two devices together without an app.

BFLpL0QNek 8y ago
It is infuriating. Read the terms and conditions/privacy policy for the apps! For a soundbar, that sits in my living room to produce sound from a television, maybe stream music to it via Bluetooth or listen to online radio why does it need to send analytical data home! I run my own local DNS server with blocklists with one domain being metrics.bose.com. No way am I buying the newer models with built-in microphones. Likewise, I have the soundtouch on it's own IoT of crap VLAN which has very restrictive firewall rules. I had to jump through several hoops to get this to work so I can control it from my phone which is on a trusted VLAN. This should be straight forward enough using avahi mDNS reflector and igmpproxy however Bose says the Soundtouch does not support cross VLAN https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/SoundTouch-300-app-connection-issue-after-update-to-19-x/td-p/127886 https://community.bose.com/t5/SoundTouch-Archive/SoundTouch-.... That's not completely true, by default it does support it as it is just standard networking with unroutable requests being past to the default gateway however Bose have gone out of there way and done extra work to explicitly block traffic from a different subnet the soundbar is on, probably as a cheap way of securing the device for people who leave their internet routers wide open. The proper solution would have been for Bose to provide some authentication mechanism between the app and soundbar. Luckily it's easy to work around with NAT / IP masquerading. Even with this, I've had the app switch the soundbar from it's IoT wifi SSID to the trusted wifi SSID on one occasion. I'm not sure how or why but I'll be monitoring it. I'm going to actively avoid IoT devices now on, the general implementation seems to be substandard, end-of-life will generally be the end of app updates instead of the device physically breaking. Sonos have already done this by essentially changing the terms and conditions for users with existing devices and users not agreeing have their devices essentially become bricks https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-policy-speakers-cease-to-function/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/sonos-accept-new-privacy-polic....
jacklewis 8y ago
I understand the frustration but you really have the need for a bose soundsystem while not owning any modern computing device or smart phone?
- larkeith 8y ago
  Keep in mind that many (all?) smartphones are deliberately obsoleted within 2-3 years of release - as an example, my S5 (released 2014) only supports through Marshmallow (obsolete as of 2016). Any apps requiring Nougat or later are unavailable to me. Given that I personally use my phone for communication, browsing the web, reading, and note-taking (and occasionally SSH), this isn't a concern, but it might well be a deal-breaker for a Bose soundsystem, unless their apps happen to be backwards-compatible (though being IoT-connected would be enough to make me avoid it like the plague regardless).
  - kbenson 8y ago
    Same situation here, but with an S6. I would probably pay a subscription for an AOSP based install that was supported and got updates. The volunteer level of support for supporting different devices that LineageOS gets means that for some phones (namely the one I'm using), have poor or nonexistent current offerings. :/
  - ndnxhs 8y ago
    I reccomend installing lineageos. It works great on the s5 and still gets regular updates. Its not too hard but you may want to dedicate an hour on the weekend to set it up.
- gtyras2mrs 8y ago
  Yea, But a soundsystem is supposed to last much longer than an app. It might work now, what if someone needs to reconnect it 3-4 years from now and the app no longer runs?
- ndnxhs 8y ago
  I run Linux on my computers and degoogled android on my phone. Do I not deserve to have speakers because I don't run google spyware? Why should speakers even need an app, I just want to plug them in and have sound.

bigiain 8y ago

I have an app for a product I helped build at a startup that launched and went under back in 2014. The app which now displays the "This app needs to be updated by the developer to work on this version of iOS" message. That ain't gonna happen. (Not even sure if anybody still has the keys to that Apple Developer account or not. The end of that startup was not very pretty...) Fortunately, this device exposes all its functionality via a local web server - the app was mostly a neat way of finding the device's local IP address then opening up a web view for that. So at least it still works and can be configured - you just need to know how to find it's IP address via other means... Six decades? We didn't quite make it 6 years... :sigh: