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Upnp and chromecast have quite some stuff in common. I think its all politics and messed up standardization. Add some recoding services like bubbleupnp server,

by riedel 7y ago

Upnp and chromecast have quite some stuff in common. I think its all politics and messed up standardization. Add some recoding services like bubbleupnp server, browser support and dlna can still serve as a nice alternative with tons of hw. But people like their locked ecosystems and are not willing to invest in interop. Upnp was build for home automation so i guess it was too ambitious considering the company political minefield. Its successor dpws lives in an equally strange niche now: printer autoconfiguration. The open source community never cared much to provide robust free implementations. (I wrote upnp and dpws gateways for smartdevices more than 10 years ago and the situation hasnt changed since)

reificator 7y ago
> But people like their locked ecosystems and are not willing to invest in interop. I think that's a mischaracterization. Given two identical experiences, one that locked you in and one that didn't, I'd imagine most people (though sadly not all) would choose the more open one. The locked in experience here is simply substantially more seamless and out-of-the-box ready than the open alternative. Given that the point of a handover system is to make using multiple devices seamless, it's obvious that being "more seamless" is an advantage. I setup a Chromecast for my mother who doesn't have cable or anything at home, and it took several explanations spread out over a year before she finally started using it on her own, but now she's using it daily. Any harder to use and it wouldn't have been helpful at all. She's not exactly a luddite either, this is actually the first thing I've tried to teach her that she's struggled so hard with. Hopefully it's not a sign of aging...
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  What does she watch with it? YouTube?
  - reificator 7y ago
    That, Prime Video, some knitting thing, probably more than that tbh. We don't share a TV so I don't have a clue what she watches.
- philsnow 7y ago
  Not at all, the casting model is fundamentally different from a device like a Roku. It's like the difference between subject-verb-object languages and subject-object-verb languages. You want some video to appear on the TV, so instead of driving some thing that's attached to the TV, you cause that thing to pull the video, using your phone or other device. It has never "clicked" for me.
  - reificator 7y ago
    Don't think of it like "causing that thing to pull the video using your phone or other device". Think of it like pushing the video you're watching to the other device. You're taking the thing you have and throwing it onto the TV.
    - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
      This exactly. The fact that internally the TV is pulling the software and content itself is mostly an implementation detail (I say mostly because once you've 'thrown' the video to your TV you can do other things with your phone). It's less confusing if you don't think too hard about it.
    - Brian_K_White 7y ago
      Except that is exactly wrong. The use of "cast" in the name, and explainations like this, are exactly why it's so confusing, because they are wrong. You should be saying that the phone is a remote control. That is both what's actually going on, and a paradigm everyone understands. And it's a stupid short and simple phrase to say. They've ingested it before they even got a chance to subconsciously go into "I don't want to try to figure this out." mode. I would also say while giving that explaination something like "It's not you. Google intentionally makes this confusing because they want you to think you are casting or projecting something for who knows what marketing reasons." Takes the bad feelings of not understanding something off their shoulders and lets you both comiserate over a 3rd party, Google, and any stress is is laid on them instead of you or themselves. "You find this confusing and difficult, and guess what, so does your sysadmin son! Google is annoying but you & me will get it anyway."
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  What do you think she had specific trouble with? Really curious from an 'inmate in the asylum' perspective. Other than the need for the two devices to each be connected to the same Wi-Fi network and the non-obviousness of being able to use your phone for other things once you start casting, I find it generally seamless, bit again I'm an 'inmate in the asylum' :)
  - reificator 7y ago
    Don't worry I've got the next cell over from you. I think it's sort of like what the other reply was talking about. Thinking about getting something onto the TV by opening something on her phone and then hitting some buttons was confusing. I started presenting it as a process where you take something on your phone and push it to the TV, and I think that helped.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      Isn't it functionally just like a traditional remote control, but you can preview the "channel" on the remote. Selecting the channel (which is a URL, but they don't need to know that), tell the TV to tune to that channel?
      - reificator 7y ago
        No. Remote controls let you change channels up or down, or navigate through menus on the TV. If you explain it like a remote control it will confuse people who don't really understand the underlying technology. Instead just tell them to watch something on their phone. Then press this button and it sends it over to the TV instead. End of instructions. This was what finally made it click for my mother.
- NicoJuicy 7y ago
  Weird, my mom doesn't understands it either. Although there concept is simple: your phone is the remote, you need to connect to the TV. The app you would normally play it on, shares it to the TV. I don't know how to explain it more simple
  - reificator 7y ago
    More simply? Forget about the word "remote" because it doesn't work like any remote in the history of the universe and it confuses the hell out of people to say it's one. Here's simpler: Start watching something on your phone. Now hit this button, this is the button to send what you're watching to the TV. Now choose the TV. See, it's stopped playing on your phone and picked up on the TV from right where you were.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
> people like their locked ecosystems and are not willing to invest in interop I don't think this is true or fair. Competition in capitalism is the reason companies create ecosystems like this in the first place (and also different adapters ;P). If we (the society) would reward interoperability and punish lock-downs e.g. because they are bad for customers and harm the environment the market would have no choice but react to this. But because it is not like that we will suffer adapter-hell and missing interop until we dedicate enough effort, tears and blood to hack together systems that kind-of-work for some time (I've been there and done that, learned a lot and lost a lot of time and nerves in the process). I only invest in ecosystems because it saves time and I can do what I intended to do instead of hacking and slaying my way to it. I hate the lock-down and if we would have more open alternatives I would jump on it in a minute but so far the open source world just can't offer some of the services/protocols/features that I just want to use. When possible I still hack and I admire many very skilled people in this area so please don't get me wrong. E.g. I just jailbroke my iPad to get UTM (QEMU for iOS) running to break out of the "shiny apple ecosystem" but it is again more hacking and playing than doing some serious work or "just using stuff as it was intended to be used". It is not the fault of the consumer alone while I am sure a rational consumer would put more knowledge and effort into politics and consumption to get companies more aligned with what is good for the planet and the people. As long as most people only buy and never complain or do something about it this will probably not change.
- theK 7y ago
  Agreed. Currently it seems though the EU is doing more for limiting vendor lock in than anybody else, let alone consumers.
himinlomax 7y ago
I looked at UPnP programming a while back, it's such a complicated, over-engineered mess. All this XML.

by riedel 7y ago

reificator 7y ago

> But people like their locked ecosystems and are not willing to invest in interop. I think that's a mischaracterization. Given two identical experiences, one that locked you in and one that didn't, I'd imagine most people (though sadly not all) would choose the more open one. The locked in experience here is simply substantially more seamless and out-of-the-box ready than the open alternative. Given that the point of a handover system is to make using multiple devices seamless, it's obvious that being "more seamless" is an advantage. I setup a Chromecast for my mother who doesn't have cable or anything at home, and it took several explanations spread out over a year before she finally started using it on her own, but now she's using it daily. Any harder to use and it wouldn't have been helpful at all. She's not exactly a luddite either, this is actually the first thing I've tried to teach her that she's struggled so hard with. Hopefully it's not a sign of aging...

mixmastamyk 7y ago
What does she watch with it? YouTube?
- reificator 7y ago
  That, Prime Video, some knitting thing, probably more than that tbh. We don't share a TV so I don't have a clue what she watches.
philsnow 7y ago
Not at all, the casting model is fundamentally different from a device like a Roku. It's like the difference between subject-verb-object languages and subject-object-verb languages. You want some video to appear on the TV, so instead of driving some thing that's attached to the TV, you cause that thing to pull the video, using your phone or other device. It has never "clicked" for me.
- reificator 7y ago
  Don't think of it like "causing that thing to pull the video using your phone or other device". Think of it like pushing the video you're watching to the other device. You're taking the thing you have and throwing it onto the TV.
  - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
    This exactly. The fact that internally the TV is pulling the software and content itself is mostly an implementation detail (I say mostly because once you've 'thrown' the video to your TV you can do other things with your phone). It's less confusing if you don't think too hard about it.
  - Brian_K_White 7y ago
    Except that is exactly wrong. The use of "cast" in the name, and explainations like this, are exactly why it's so confusing, because they are wrong. You should be saying that the phone is a remote control. That is both what's actually going on, and a paradigm everyone understands. And it's a stupid short and simple phrase to say. They've ingested it before they even got a chance to subconsciously go into "I don't want to try to figure this out." mode. I would also say while giving that explaination something like "It's not you. Google intentionally makes this confusing because they want you to think you are casting or projecting something for who knows what marketing reasons." Takes the bad feelings of not understanding something off their shoulders and lets you both comiserate over a 3rd party, Google, and any stress is is laid on them instead of you or themselves. "You find this confusing and difficult, and guess what, so does your sysadmin son! Google is annoying but you & me will get it anyway."
Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
What do you think she had specific trouble with? Really curious from an 'inmate in the asylum' perspective. Other than the need for the two devices to each be connected to the same Wi-Fi network and the non-obviousness of being able to use your phone for other things once you start casting, I find it generally seamless, bit again I'm an 'inmate in the asylum' :)
- reificator 7y ago
  Don't worry I've got the next cell over from you. I think it's sort of like what the other reply was talking about. Thinking about getting something onto the TV by opening something on her phone and then hitting some buttons was confusing. I started presenting it as a process where you take something on your phone and push it to the TV, and I think that helped.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Isn't it functionally just like a traditional remote control, but you can preview the "channel" on the remote. Selecting the channel (which is a URL, but they don't need to know that), tell the TV to tune to that channel?
    - reificator 7y ago
      No. Remote controls let you change channels up or down, or navigate through menus on the TV. If you explain it like a remote control it will confuse people who don't really understand the underlying technology. Instead just tell them to watch something on their phone. Then press this button and it sends it over to the TV instead. End of instructions. This was what finally made it click for my mother.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
Weird, my mom doesn't understands it either. Although there concept is simple: your phone is the remote, you need to connect to the TV. The app you would normally play it on, shares it to the TV. I don't know how to explain it more simple
- reificator 7y ago
  More simply? Forget about the word "remote" because it doesn't work like any remote in the history of the universe and it confuses the hell out of people to say it's one. Here's simpler: Start watching something on your phone. Now hit this button, this is the button to send what you're watching to the TV. Now choose the TV. See, it's stopped playing on your phone and picked up on the TV from right where you were.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

> people like their locked ecosystems and are not willing to invest in interop I don't think this is true or fair. Competition in capitalism is the reason companies create ecosystems like this in the first place (and also different adapters ;P). If we (the society) would reward interoperability and punish lock-downs e.g. because they are bad for customers and harm the environment the market would have no choice but react to this. But because it is not like that we will suffer adapter-hell and missing interop until we dedicate enough effort, tears and blood to hack together systems that kind-of-work for some time (I've been there and done that, learned a lot and lost a lot of time and nerves in the process). I only invest in ecosystems because it saves time and I can do what I intended to do instead of hacking and slaying my way to it. I hate the lock-down and if we would have more open alternatives I would jump on it in a minute but so far the open source world just can't offer some of the services/protocols/features that I just want to use. When possible I still hack and I admire many very skilled people in this area so please don't get me wrong. E.g. I just jailbroke my iPad to get UTM (QEMU for iOS) running to break out of the "shiny apple ecosystem" but it is again more hacking and playing than doing some serious work or "just using stuff as it was intended to be used". It is not the fault of the consumer alone while I am sure a rational consumer would put more knowledge and effort into politics and consumption to get companies more aligned with what is good for the planet and the people. As long as most people only buy and never complain or do something about it this will probably not change.

theK 7y ago
Agreed. Currently it seems though the EU is doing more for limiting vendor lock in than anybody else, let alone consumers.

himinlomax 7y ago

I looked at UPnP programming a while back, it's such a complicated, over-engineered mess. All this XML.