4 ms·

And what if there is a bug in their payment checking system and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is functional? This idea is just not something that is p

And what if there is a bug in their payment checking system and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is functional? This idea is just not something that is possible to defend. It is a really bad all around. Not everything in life can or should be made into a subscription service or a financial instrument. I think I know what the universe’s great filter is. It is that in any society eventually a biologist will lapse on his bio-safe subscription so that it, according to contract, releases the world ending pathogens into the air conditioning system.

dahart 5y ago
> what if there is a bug in their payment checking system and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is functional? Then you get a free day of airbag protection. The vest won't tell you it's functional and then stop working while you ride. The functionality and payment check happens before you ride, if you read their product description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 > This idea is just not something that is possible to defend. I think you have the wrong idea about what it is. I am a motorcycle rider, I'm extremely safety conscious. I might buy this vest, because an airbag is good protection, and they're making this cost less to try out. Not sure if I would lease it or buy it outright, but I wouldn't hesitate to lease it over safety concerns, if buying wasn't an option for me.
- hluska 5y ago
  I choose not to trust documentation when a company shits all over everything we know about building reliable safety systems. To be blunt, if they're dumb enough to think this is a good idea, they're too dumb to make safety equipment. This is an awful idea and it's impossible to defend with any kind of integrity.
  - dahart 5y ago
    Your strong language and hyperbole isn't convincing me there's something wrong. What is the safety risk, exactly? Can you elaborate on specifically what is unreliable or why this is awful? The vest will clearly indicate the lack of protection before a ride, just like a car or computer or any reliable safety system. What is the alternative that this product should be doing that would make it safer? Isn't there a much higher safety risk of using safety products as a user, and not reading or trusting the documentation?
    - hluska 5y ago
      In short, the safety issue is that a company that makes gloves and jackets decided to build a passive safety system with an on/off switch tied to payment networks. The alternative is obvious - get rid of the on/off switch and just sell the thing. Not everything in life should be reduced to a monthly subscription.
      - dahart 5y ago
        > Not everything in life should be reduced to a monthly subscription. Hell, I am in complete agreement with that. I'm just as tired of rent-seeking subscriptions as everyone else. They do just sell the thing, that is an option. They messed up their terminology and marketing message by calling it 'subscription' and 'service'. They should have stuck strictly to "lease plan", which some of their marketing does say. If everyone here had the exact same information but had never thought of this as a subscription, I'd bet all the pitchforks would still be tucked away in their sheds.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  Ok maybe they actually implemented this extremely poor idea correctly, but it is nevertheless an extremely supremely poor idea. If this takes off, which I sure hope it never will but given our collective idiocy I’m not optimistic, how many years before someone implements the system incorrectly? I’m an embedded systems guy. A computer chip can be useful in many circumstances. A safety vest, for this purpose, it is not providing any value to anyone except a slimy money person.
  - dahart 5y ago
    > it is nevertheless an extremely supremely poor idea Can you elaborate on exactly what's wrong here, now that you know more about the implementation? Are you sure this isn't a case of getting the wrong impression about what it is because Vice said so? It's not a safety issue, the vest will notify whether it's working before the ride. > A safety vest, for this purpose, it is not providing any value to anyone except a slimy money person. The irony of your statement here is that KLIM is offering an expensive product for a half price down payment, and allowing the consumer to cancel it after trying it out without having to return the hardware or pay any penalties on the remainder. Or they can resume payments a year after lapsing. You don't find this kind of presumably money-losing proposition with any other financing plans I can think of.
    - Swenrekcah 5y ago
      You may be right, according to what you’ve said about it then it seems that maybe this company actually did design this thing properly. What I’m having a visceral reaction to is the generally wasteful idea of a physical product being rendered useless via software is being applied to a safety critical product. Like I said, even if these people got it right, it’s only a matter of time before someone doesn’t.
- g_p 5y ago
  > The vest won't tell you it's functional and then stop working while you ride. The functionality and payment check happens before you ride, if you read their product description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 Given it connects to an external server on the internet (even indirectly), it presumably has updatable firmware. Are you confident enough this company understands secure boot chains well enough to prevent a rogue firmware being flashed? And that they have protected their Bluetooth stack (?) well enough to prevent a firmware being flashed that way? It's likely (but impossible to tell without doing a teardown) that you could indicate the device is functional via firmware, while not being armed and ready to deploy, if the LED or indicator is on a separate GPIO. If this was to happen in the supply chain (like used to happen with grey market mobile phone imports getting loaded with adware), that could become a real problem...
  - dahart 5y ago
    What you're bringing up now is a general engineering safety concern that applies to any product at all. You should be equally scared of your car's airbag and other safety systems. This is a straw man in this context, and has nothing to do with the payment plan. Because the designers are making a safety product, unless there is evidence otherwise, I would speculate/assume that they have thought about whether it's possible to indicate protection and then not provide it. But, no engineered product is 100% safe, I'm not under any misconceptions about that.
    - g_p 5y ago
      When you introduce the functionality to disable a traditional safety product, you have to think about the dependency chain and how you design that system to prevent issues. Vehicles with a switchable airbag tend to display a fairly prominent red light when the airbag disable switch is used. I'm pretty sure that on some vehicles I've had, it's hard-wired to light up when the switch is used to disable the airbag. You'd have to break the light to "override" that warning. It is possible the makers of this product have done likewise, and the arming of their system is done with the same signal that's used to display a green light. But given the sheer complexity of it (Bluetooth, app Integration, server side checks), it seems likely this won't be the case - maybe the light is only momentary, in which case such hardware failsafes won't be in place. Nonetheless, adding complexity to a safety critical product should be scrutinized and held to the level of engineering as any other safety critical product. A safety critical product which will cease to function in its safety role without the ability to call home to a server seems to fail at some early hurdles of being engineered as a safety product, so I would respectfully disagree with your starting point that they've thought about this and engineered their lockout as a safety system (since it fails unsafe, rather than safe).
hluska 5y ago
I love your last paragraph - it's well written, makes a very strong point and manages to be very funny at the same time. Thanks friend - that's some great writing and thinking!! :)
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  Thanks for the kind words :)

dahart 5y ago

> what if there is a bug in their payment checking system and it incorrectly indicates that the vest is functional? Then you get a free day of airbag protection. The vest won't tell you it's functional and then stop working while you ride. The functionality and payment check happens before you ride, if you read their product description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 > This idea is just not something that is possible to defend. I think you have the wrong idea about what it is. I am a motorcycle rider, I'm extremely safety conscious. I might buy this vest, because an airbag is good protection, and they're making this cost less to try out. Not sure if I would lease it or buy it outright, but I wouldn't hesitate to lease it over safety concerns, if buying wasn't an option for me.

hluska 5y ago
I choose not to trust documentation when a company shits all over everything we know about building reliable safety systems. To be blunt, if they're dumb enough to think this is a good idea, they're too dumb to make safety equipment. This is an awful idea and it's impossible to defend with any kind of integrity.
- dahart 5y ago
  Your strong language and hyperbole isn't convincing me there's something wrong. What is the safety risk, exactly? Can you elaborate on specifically what is unreliable or why this is awful? The vest will clearly indicate the lack of protection before a ride, just like a car or computer or any reliable safety system. What is the alternative that this product should be doing that would make it safer? Isn't there a much higher safety risk of using safety products as a user, and not reading or trusting the documentation?
  - hluska 5y ago
    In short, the safety issue is that a company that makes gloves and jackets decided to build a passive safety system with an on/off switch tied to payment networks. The alternative is obvious - get rid of the on/off switch and just sell the thing. Not everything in life should be reduced to a monthly subscription.
    - dahart 5y ago
      > Not everything in life should be reduced to a monthly subscription. Hell, I am in complete agreement with that. I'm just as tired of rent-seeking subscriptions as everyone else. They do just sell the thing, that is an option. They messed up their terminology and marketing message by calling it 'subscription' and 'service'. They should have stuck strictly to "lease plan", which some of their marketing does say. If everyone here had the exact same information but had never thought of this as a subscription, I'd bet all the pitchforks would still be tucked away in their sheds.
Swenrekcah 5y ago
Ok maybe they actually implemented this extremely poor idea correctly, but it is nevertheless an extremely supremely poor idea. If this takes off, which I sure hope it never will but given our collective idiocy I’m not optimistic, how many years before someone implements the system incorrectly? I’m an embedded systems guy. A computer chip can be useful in many circumstances. A safety vest, for this purpose, it is not providing any value to anyone except a slimy money person.
- dahart 5y ago
  > it is nevertheless an extremely supremely poor idea Can you elaborate on exactly what's wrong here, now that you know more about the implementation? Are you sure this isn't a case of getting the wrong impression about what it is because Vice said so? It's not a safety issue, the vest will notify whether it's working before the ride. > A safety vest, for this purpose, it is not providing any value to anyone except a slimy money person. The irony of your statement here is that KLIM is offering an expensive product for a half price down payment, and allowing the consumer to cancel it after trying it out without having to return the hardware or pay any penalties on the remainder. Or they can resume payments a year after lapsing. You don't find this kind of presumably money-losing proposition with any other financing plans I can think of.
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    You may be right, according to what you’ve said about it then it seems that maybe this company actually did design this thing properly. What I’m having a visceral reaction to is the generally wasteful idea of a physical product being rendered useless via software is being applied to a safety critical product. Like I said, even if these people got it right, it’s only a matter of time before someone doesn’t.
g_p 5y ago
> The vest won't tell you it's functional and then stop working while you ride. The functionality and payment check happens before you ride, if you read their product description. https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 https://www.klim.com/Ai-1-Airbag-Vest-3046-000 Given it connects to an external server on the internet (even indirectly), it presumably has updatable firmware. Are you confident enough this company understands secure boot chains well enough to prevent a rogue firmware being flashed? And that they have protected their Bluetooth stack (?) well enough to prevent a firmware being flashed that way? It's likely (but impossible to tell without doing a teardown) that you could indicate the device is functional via firmware, while not being armed and ready to deploy, if the LED or indicator is on a separate GPIO. If this was to happen in the supply chain (like used to happen with grey market mobile phone imports getting loaded with adware), that could become a real problem...
- dahart 5y ago
  What you're bringing up now is a general engineering safety concern that applies to any product at all. You should be equally scared of your car's airbag and other safety systems. This is a straw man in this context, and has nothing to do with the payment plan. Because the designers are making a safety product, unless there is evidence otherwise, I would speculate/assume that they have thought about whether it's possible to indicate protection and then not provide it. But, no engineered product is 100% safe, I'm not under any misconceptions about that.
  - g_p 5y ago
    When you introduce the functionality to disable a traditional safety product, you have to think about the dependency chain and how you design that system to prevent issues. Vehicles with a switchable airbag tend to display a fairly prominent red light when the airbag disable switch is used. I'm pretty sure that on some vehicles I've had, it's hard-wired to light up when the switch is used to disable the airbag. You'd have to break the light to "override" that warning. It is possible the makers of this product have done likewise, and the arming of their system is done with the same signal that's used to display a green light. But given the sheer complexity of it (Bluetooth, app Integration, server side checks), it seems likely this won't be the case - maybe the light is only momentary, in which case such hardware failsafes won't be in place. Nonetheless, adding complexity to a safety critical product should be scrutinized and held to the level of engineering as any other safety critical product. A safety critical product which will cease to function in its safety role without the ability to call home to a server seems to fail at some early hurdles of being engineered as a safety product, so I would respectfully disagree with your starting point that they've thought about this and engineered their lockout as a safety system (since it fails unsafe, rather than safe).

hluska 5y ago

I love your last paragraph - it's well written, makes a very strong point and manages to be very funny at the same time. Thanks friend - that's some great writing and thinking!! :)

Swenrekcah 5y ago
Thanks for the kind words :)