12 ms·
Kami home camera app suddenly started displaying ads in the app
- zbendefy 3y agoHi! There is this remote camera app for baby cameras and home survelliance cameras, that all of a sudden started displaying ads in the application that lets you access the camera remotely. Also these ads are full screen, unskippable 5-10 second ads that occasionally have sound as well. Upon asking about this, the only reaction from them is a canned response telling about some discount, but there was no ad in the product before, they changed the deal afterwards. Is this the new trend for companies to extract revenue from already sold products? How is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards?
- hammock 3y agoSame thing happened to me after I started using Facebook. No ads for the first couple years (around 2004). Now there’s an ad every 5 or 10 posts I read
- zbendefy 3y agoThats true, but facebook is a free product (in a monetary sense), however these cameras are sold at a price.
- rightbyte 3y agoSamsung TVs show ads. It is an ever expanding list of companies to avoid.
- petepete 3y agoThe worst part is they released an update that added this obnoxious behaviour to TVs that were clean.
- okanat 3y agoTBH their appliances were never good quality compared to locally European or American manufactured ones. They always bet on tech enthusiasm and the short term wooing of the users. Their software is almost always short-term supported and degrade in quality very quickly.
- JKCalhoun 3y agoAhhh, cable television... the early years.
- LinuxBender 3y agoHow is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards? I am not a lawyer but I would guess it is probably in an Acceptable Use or Terms of Use page you may have clicked through or maybe there was just a link to it. So it's probably legal but that does not exclude it from being shady, deceptive and crass. If it is not on the outside of the hardware box then maybe there is a case that it was misleading and deceptive since one would have to buy it to know about the Acceptable Use Policy. Consider asking LegalEagle [1] if he would do a Youtube video on this topic. Maybe there is a market for a pre-configured Zoneminder [2] RasPi that could optionally use something like tailscale for remote access so people could just buy some cheap onvif compliant cameras and keep their private home security streams private. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle https://www.youtube.com/@LegalEagle [video channel] [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us20t1gQPOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us20t1gQPOE [video][48 mins][zoneminder how-to]
- karaterobot 3y ago> How is it legal to add ads into an already sold product afterwards? I assume that, unless they advertised it as being free of advertisements, that there is no conflict with them adding them into the product later. They can make even make an argument that those ads add value: wow, you get to learn about all these cool products that are relevant to you! But in general, I don't believe inserting ads into an existing product is against the law on its face. It's a shitty thing to do though.
- yieldcrv 3y agoWhy would it be illegal? Deterrents don’t have to come from the state
- prawn 3y agoAssuming there is no legal issue, the opportunities would be to shame them with publicity like this, or make your opinion clear by reviews. Reviews will forewarn other users and (potentially) sway future behaviour of the product creator.
- pdntspa 3y agoIt's the drug dealer strategy. First hit is free... get em hooked then hit em with the ol' pricing one-two I absolutely hate that tech has been overrun with these shitstains
- andersrs 3y agoI got a dumb baby camera from vtech and I love it. The system has it's own wireless channel, no wifi. No 'smart' bullshit. Someone is always going to be somewhere nearby the baby so it doesn't need internet.
- sen 3y agoVTech stuff has always been awesome. Indestructible, simple, etc. We have a bunch of their stuff.
- oschvr 3y agoWhat a shitty move.. someone told me about these cameras..I guess I'll have to pass
- libpcap 3y agoWell, it's a PRC-based company.
- rchaud 3y agowell known as the originators of the SaaS model /s
- syntaxing 3y agoI didn't look into it but you might be able to flash a custom firmware on it. I do that with the yi home cameras + frigate and they have been super solid. Edit: Seems like all the Kami ones have an equivalent yi home one. Should be doable from what I can tell. The process is pretty straight forward, flash the SD card with a folder, take it back out and add a file for wifi, then reinsert.
- bsagdiyev 3y agoI did that with the Wyze Pan cam we used to keep an eye on our son when he was an infant. Same app functionality but we could also do an RTSP stream out and I could keep an eye on my desktop while working.
- user3939382 3y agoThis is why I strongly encourage people to only buy cameras that are ONVIF compatible, which makes the cameras viewable with an open protocol.
- squarefoot 3y agoThis a hundred times. ONVIF cameras plus Zoneminder can make a great video security system, totally ad and spyware free thanks to 100% open source software. https://zoneminder.com/ https://zoneminder.com/ A firewall is however needed, since the cameras firmware can't be audited, therefore one should assume the worst. Just allow secure connections from trusted sources outside only and block any access from the IP cameras subnet to anywhere else. Advertising is just one of the problems plaguing consumer surveillance cameras; many of them have been already caught while either phoning home somewhere in China or being so poorly secured that they're wide open to exploitation that can turn them into botnet nodes. https://blog.zositech.com/unsecured-network-cameras-list/ https://blog.zositech.com/unsecured-network-cameras-list/
- go2carter 3y ago[flagged]
- ilyt 3y agoDid you made the account just to advertise the company ?
- BastyKumor 3y agoIf I have to make my own app then I don't wanna pay another subscription lmao
- 0xblinq 3y agoYi cameras are the worst piece of crap you can get. The app is terrible, constantly pushes you toward the subscription and if you don’t subscribe they intentionally make it worse. And now you get ads. Just trash these cameras if you have one
- j00pY 3y agoAgree with this. Also, the cost of the 24/7 cloud sub jumped up wildly. The event recording always misses the first crucial few seconds off of what ever caused the event to be recorded so they are next to useless. As soon as I have budget, I will scrap my cameras and move to something better.
- rchaud 3y agoSounds like Spotify.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ComputerGuru 3y agoTheir app has been showing advertisements in notifications for the past few months, where previously a notification was only generated if movement was detected while the cam was in away mode (i.e. a serious matter).
- ilyt 3y agoReminds me of old Samsung phone I had. It had IR transmitter and some app to control it as TV remote. But it wasn't Samsung's app, nor (I assume) one owned by them. Still installed as system app so unable to uninstall tho. So one day the company decided to monetize on that and just started to display ads on lockscreen. No way to remove it either. So I rooted that POS and never bought any Samsung shit again...
- yieldcrv 3y agoyeah, all the sensors and reality bending futuristic technology in the universe would not be enough for me to switch back to android away from the Apple ecosystem, due to experiences like what you described Apple would really have to mess something up, and another vendor would need to be more committed to their hardware than I’ve seen I would probably jump on the dumbphone luddite trend before going back to android
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoYou can at least root android, use some kind of ad-away or other ad blocking software and also remove 95% of the ads within apps and games.... on apple, you're stuck with those.
- technothrasher 3y agoThis is why I'm itching to go back to Android. I switched to an iPhone because my car only supported CarPlay, and I've regretted it ever since.
- userbinator 3y agoYou can(could?) jailbreak iOS too.
- jchw 3y agoApple has started adding advertisements into their built-in apps, so it's probably not a bad idea to get an idea of what the dumb phone market is looking like. (though spoiler alert, a lot of them actually do still run Android internally.)
- kraptv 3y agoUnfortunately, the Yi Home cameras have eroded other functionality too to force their users into an upsell. Many users are now reporting they are forced to use Kami cloud storage instead of local storage. Their ability to use the local SD card storage has been disabled in newer versions of the app.
- efitz 3y agoThere is a special circle of hell for business people who try to turn every single product into a continuous revenue stream. It’s just artificial rent seeking and people who involve themselves in it are morally deficient.
- duxup 3y agoI don’t disagree, but also feel that consumers also so price sensitive that they will buy whatever cheap thing appears in front of them and don’t think twice about the results. The Internet is a great example of that where we demand everything be free and then we get upset when it’s not.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zopa 3y agoThat’s mistaking an effect for a cause, in my mind (your first paragraph). If companies are constantly changing the rules to squeeze more monetization out of existing relationships, of course consumers will only care about the lowest upfront cost: it’s the only benefit that’s real. If relationships with companies can’t be trusted, paying more to be treated better just makes you a mark.
- duxup 3y agoDoes it matter? If consumers choose the cheapest thing it is a race to the bottom regardless.
- shortcake27 3y agoSamsung forces ads and malware down users throats regardless of whether they buy the cheapest phone or the latest flagship. Same goes for their highest end TVs. It’s really hard to blame the consumer for being price sensitive when they get ads on their $5,000 TV.
- duxup 3y ago
- johnea 3y agoThe primary reason any company forces users into an app as opposed to a web interface is for monitization.
- duxup 3y agoThe home security or just monitoring camera market is so cheap and thus you get flaky software and bad actors. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground between the cheap stuff and the super duper professional expensive stuff where you need to buy a controller and etc. Ive settled on wyze for now but I wouldn’t have a problem with a middle ground product.
- aardvarkr 3y agoWyze for the win. Their early stuff was super hackable with open source operating systems. I’m glad they’re challenging the big players with a genuinely good and cheap product. Now I sound like a paid shill but it’s truly one service that I’m glad exists.
- CincinnatiMan 3y agoWhat about cameras that operate with Apple's HomeKit Secure Video (aka HKSV)? There seem to be decent cameras that aren't at risk of bad software or bad actors.
- yazzku 3y agoYI Technology must be one of the stupidest companies we've seen in a while. Those guys need a "never go full retard" poster somewhere in the office. ALERT! Heavy smoke detected in the house. Click to stream. But first, a word from our sponsor!
- pettycashstash2 3y agoCan’t disagree. Also I enjoyed the “ never go full retard" clip on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X6WHBO_Qc-Q
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pettycashstash2 3y agoI posted about the bait and switch 7 months ago. I see they have steered the wrong way and in a bad way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33336722 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33336722
- rchaud 3y ago> "Is there a way to get these away without purchase cloud subscription?" Even with a subscription the ad-free honeymoon won't last.
- artdigital 3y agoReminds me of a wifi connected sharp air conditioner I bought. Great device all in all but at some point sharp decided they want more revenue, so now the app to control the expensive hardware I bought is displaying completely random banner ads I can already imagine the thinking process to hit some arbitrary OKR to somehow increase revenue per user or some crap like that Very frustrating
- labster 3y agoAre you sure you bought the air conditioner, or just a perpetual license to use it? Check the EULA, and you may find you have a license to cool.
- chaostheory 3y agoThis is terrible, but if we’re looking at things half glass full, a revenue stream gives manufacturers a reason to keep maintaining their products as opposed to abandoning them in 1-2 years
- nipperkinfeet 3y agoThis is the reason I changed to Amcrest and started entirely local recording. Ads have been introduced in all camera apps recently. Even the Ring app started to bother me because of their product discounts spammed all over the place.
- andersrs 3y agoIf they've sold you out to advertisers who is to say they're not selling the image/video feed data too.
- userbinator 3y agoAvoid anything that requires its own app, Internet access, or mentions "cloud" in any way. AFAIK plain old "dumb" IP cameras with widely compatible HTTP/RTSP streams are still available. Ironically, you used to be able to just Google for publicly accessible IP cameras, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5116676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5116676 , and those don't need anything more than a browser to view, so that might guide your buying decision.
- pedrovhb 3y agoFwiw I don't use the app, but I have a Yi 4k camera, which I bought used as a cheap GoPro alternative, and it's surprisingly easy to hack some stuff with. It has a WiFi connection feature which is primarily meant for use with their app (which is kind of garbage), but it's a Linux system and I can telnet into it with root privileges and mess around with the filesystem. It has an rtsp stream, a fairly ok remote control API with some community libraries in github, and even has Python (2.7, at least until I take the time to figure out how to cross-compile a more recent version, but still). Just this week I was playing with building a script to hook up the rtsp stream to my PC so I could use an AI model to do bird classification and set it up next to my bird feeder. It's not advertised as being hacker friendly and I imagine this openness is more due to a lack of the zealousness and resources that more expensive products seem to insist on dedicating to locking everything down, but it's been really fun and I'd definitely get a couple more cheap ones, given the opportunity. No idea what the situation is on their other products though, and it does suck that non-technical users are stuck with an app with ads.