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Breaking Free from DRM: Hacking My Air Purifier
- _fw 3y agoBloody good work!
- jtrowbridge 3y agoThis is awesome! Frustrating they'd DRM lock the air purifier but looks like a fun hack :)
- tpowell 3y agoLongtime Winix user here, but this is a fantastic write-up. I’m sure the NFC stuff will come in handy one day.
- Pomfers 3y agoI've seen a lot of people getting Xiaomi air purifiers. Had no idea they put DRM on the filters, and they cost more. Really glad I went with Winix years ago, cheaper filters that last longer, and no DRM. I don't get why people can't just put a reminder in a calendar in the future to let them know to replace the filter instead of dealing with this stuff.
- okasaki 3y agoOr, you know, put a piece of paper on it to block the LCD. Also, I thought air purifier filters aren't 'cleanable'. Like, you can't just hoover them.
- jsheard 3y agoThere's usually a pre-filter on the outside which stops larger particles from entering the actual HEPA filter, and you can clean that at least.
- okasaki 3y agoYes, certainly, but the OP describes it as a replace filter warning, which is usually for the actual filter.
- zeroimpl 3y agoEven if not cleanable, the machine isn't going to actually know if they need to be replaced or not. It will depend on how dirty the air was and how much stuff got filtered out. Normal air purifiers would have a reset option to reset the timer.
- okasaki 3y agoIndeed, but the OP says he's cleaned it several times, so it "should be good". What I'm saying is that you're not supposed to clean them.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago>the machine isn't going to actually know if they need to be replaced or not The machine can know if it measures differential pressure across the filter. If the DP across the filter is too high (indicating a clogged filter), the filter needs to be replaced.
- jsheard 3y agoI know for a fact that my Levoit unit isn't that sophisticated because when it asks you to replace the filter there's simply a button which resets the filter life back to 100% that you're supposed to press after changing it - if it were actually doing anything clever to determine the state of the filter then you wouldn't have to tell it that it's been replaced, it would be able to tell on its own. I suspect it's nothing more than a timer which triggers the warning after running for some hardcoded number of hours.
- v1deojames 3y ago[dead]
- ngneer 3y agoKeep Up the Good Work. I used to think ICs would grant the individuals in society more and more power, that could hopefully be leveraged to do some good (for a broad enough and sufficiently universal definition of good). What a shame to see that people use these ICs and exploit expected knowledge asymmetry to limit functionality.
- loa_in_ 3y agoThere's so much potential in DIY. It's a real shame that market promotes solutions as it does. The asymmetry of knowledge, that is, keeping important details from the buyer/user needs to be dealt with one way or another. There's people born every day that don't know anything. Some would rather exploit that rather than facilitate openness and creativity.
- graphe 3y ago> There was nowhere in the app I could disable the warning, having cleaned the filter several times throughout the year I was sure it had at least another 12 months of life left in it. I decided to investigate the nightmare DRM RFID chip that was stuck to the bottom of my filter. What's the point of having a warning of the life of the filter if OP ignores it? Why did it say it couldn't filter? If his house is dusty, and he cleaned it there's probably dust that isn't visible, he hacked the drm but he also looked for the "best air filter" and found this instead of a fan with some filters on it with no verification. You don't just clean a filter and say I KNOW there is 12 months more.
- jsheard 3y ago> What's the point of having a warning of the life of the filter if OP ignores it? Why did it say it couldn't filter? So you'll buy a replacement filter to make the warning go away, a filter you can't (easily) buy from anyone besides the original manufacturer since they DRMed it? Obviously HEPA filters do expire eventually, but there's a perverse incentive here for the warning to undershoot the actual useful life of the filter.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago>but there's a perverse incentive here for the warning to undershoot the actual useful life of the filter Hypothetically, yes, there's a perverse incentive, but is that what is actually happening? A clogged filter can stress the fan motor which can A) increase power consumption and B)reduce overall product life.
- typh00n 3y agoAnd it is for the consumer to decide which path to take. Not the product itself.
- sofixa 3y agoUntil the consumer complains that the air purifier isn't doing its job and thrashes the company online, and changes for a model from a competitors. Most consumers aren't really capable of this type of nuance.
- rkagerer 3y agoShow me one customer who WANTS DRM in their air purifier. I remember when manufacturers competed to make their products desirable, and appliances came with schematics.
- jrockway 3y agoThose that "sort by price ascending" and click the first one, on the fan but not on the filters. DRM makes being the cheapest a viable business model, and people LOVE picking the cheapest over the best. You'll also see this in action, without DRM, whenever you buy a razor. The handles are free. But the blades will get you.
- MostlyStable 3y agoIf this was restricted to the cheapest products, I'd maybe buy this, but this kind of behavior is littered across the entire price spectrum of a whole host of different products. It's less that it enables being cheap, and more that it is just an extra revenue stream that isn't visible at the time of purchase so consumers don't realize it's there and can unknowingly get locked in, but this is equally true for both $ and $$$ price levels.
- nobody9999 3y ago>It's less that it enables being cheap, and more that it is just an extra revenue stream that isn't visible at the time of purchase so consumers don't realize it's there and can unknowingly get locked in, but this is equally true for both $ and $$$ price levels. Absolutely. cf. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/business/bmw-subscription/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/14/business/bmw-subscription/ind... as just one example of dozens, if not hundreds.
- vintermann 3y agoConsumer tests also don't give a damn about DRM typically.
- 3y ago
- doublerabbit 3y agoLooking forward to future articles such of "Breaking Free from DRM: Hacking Air."
- freedomben 3y agoIndeed, companies definitely need to figure this out. People are pirating air all over the place! Breathing air that was cleaned by someone's intellectual property (without a royalty payment and code to ensure their lungs only process it according to the license) is theft. Unless we DRM it, the incentive to clean the air will be gone and nobody will do it!
- graphe 3y agoWhy? A glut of complicated smart devices connected to simple electronics such as motors and lights are easily rerouted to another IC.
- neilv 3y agoDoesn't the filter fill up well before 12 months? Looks like it is 3 stages ("primary", "high-efficiency", and "activated carbon"). https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-smart-air-purifier-4-pro-filter/ https://www.mi.com/global/product/xiaomi-smart-air-purifier-... I keep a low-dust apartment, and my 2 Levoit air purifier HEPA filters get changed every 3 months (sooner, if there was an unusual incident). The white of the HEPA material is sometimes visibly gray after 3 months, even though I vacuum the first stage surface every 1-3 weeks.
- Havoc 3y agoThey’re designed for dirty environments so I’ve found the usage estimates feel quite short for contexts that have relatively clean air. Seems to be calculated purely by air volume rather than actual dirt
- CatWChainsaw 3y agoSomeone thought adding DRM to an air purifier was a Top Priority, and got it implemented. IMO any form of planned obsolescence is a subset of enshittification, not just Doctorow's step-by-step lock-in tactics.
- elitistphoenix 3y ago"I had set my unit up to disable the LCD" - how did you do this?
- scq 3y agoThere's an option in the Xiaomi Home app. Three dot menu -> Screen brightness.
- elitistphoenix 3y agoThat's what I thought it might have been. Tried there and through Home Assistant. Neither worked. It's weird that the bottom "buttons" on the unit itself work and light up and the colour indicator works but not the "top" panel (still in the round circle). Was wondering if I or someone else has hit the wrong button at one point but I think it might just have broken. Not a massive deal can still monitor in app and HA.
- ajb 3y agoThese filters probably do really age out, though perhaps more slowly than the DRM There is a mechanical filter that will be cleanable, but the HEPA filter works by having an injected electrostatic charge which will leak away over time, and the activated carbon will deactivate over time. It would be interesting to know if there are statistics on how quickly those processes occur, and whether they are affected by volume of air or just elapsed time
- fsckboy 3y agodon't forget volume of dust
- amluto 3y ago> the HEPA filter works by having an injected electrostatic charge which will leak away over time Nope, HEPA filters are not dependent on electrostatic effects and do not magically start leaking. When they are too loaded with dust, air has a harder time getting through, which is the main factor that causes them to need replacement.
- steve_rambo 3y agoThey also get more efficient at filtering out PM the dirtier they are, not less.
- ajb 3y agoI can't edit my comment any more, but on researching, I see you are correct. I thought I had read that HEPA used electret material like FFP3 filters, but most do not.
- dheera 3y agoOK nice work, but seriously, why not just hotwire the blower motor directly from DC + and - and bypass all the DRM chips entirely? That way you'll never have to deal with it again.
- jacquesm 3y agoThis is by far the most direct and least work solution.
- graphe 3y agoSome people don't want the best solution. It doesn't work as well for a writeup either.
- scq 3y agoIf you do that, you'll lose other features, like "auto" mode where it varies the fan speed depending on the amount of particles in the air, or the ability to control it remotely. On lower fan speeds it's essentially silent.
- RockRobotRock 3y agopersonally i would have just taped over the light
- Havoc 3y agoI bought a handful of those stickers. Neat to have a way to get around it though. Imported Xiaomi filters are annoyingly expensive though
- userbinator 3y agoAll this complex user-hostility for a fan with a filter. Just like with ink cartridges that only count and don't have any actual sensors, they could make an air purifier which has a differential pressure sensor to tell you how much the filter is really clogged, like many HVAC systems have, and even vacuum cleaners (some work entirely mechanically), but then they wouldn't be able to squeeze more $$$ out of the users.
- lispisok 3y ago[flagged]
- kvdveer 3y agoFor most consumers, there is no good way to know ahead of time if tge device pulls DRM shenanigans. It's not on the packaging, and there is no online database of this kind of things. Reddit threads are too full of technobabble to comprehend for the average consumer.
- nfriedly 3y agoIt'd bee neat if we could get a labeling requirement for DRM, similar to "Made in China".
- hammyhavoc 3y agoI'm not convinced that most consumers understand or even care about the ways they're abused by corporations. Most actually seem to enjoy ecosystems because things "just work"—for a time, some of the time, at least for a while—sometimes.
- zelon88 3y agoYou can pretty much assume that if your simple fan+filter has a screen, Bluetooth, wifi, an app, and proprietary filter media that it's going to have some means of vendor locking the user. Let's face it, that's the goal behind all of this stuff. To give you a pathway to purchase more products and generate brand awareness and engagement. It's the same people who buy $350 Bluetooth Air purifiers with fancy screens and then try in earnest to disable the fancy screen who also make asides about how backwards ICE cars are. Then act surprised when their drive by wire steering refuses to work, or their seat warmers don't work because of an "account problem" (their credit card was declined).
- curtgrimes 3y agoThey shouldn’t have bought an air purifier with DRM to begin with. That is the real problem.
- edb_123 3y agoA simpler solution: Just physically remove the RFID tag. The unit continues working fine without it, with no further complaints. At least on the 3H model. I think the main point of the RFID tag is mainly to prevent sellers from selling either fake, or even worse, selling cleaned but used filters as new. So when you use the air purifier with a filter without the RFID tag, it just throws a warning the first time and then just works™. As a user it's important to know that you have an authentic, original (and new) HEPA filter. So while it's a cool hack, I really hope that this doesn't result in a flood of low quality counterfeit filters on the market.
- steve_rambo 3y agoThere are many clones with RFID tags that get accepted as originals. They're even being sold as clones with generic brand names or no brand name at all. If the tag is there to prove that you've bought an authentic filter, it's not doing that very well.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoHEPA filter is not a high tech device, it’s a mass produced commodity, like coffee. Sure, quality varies, but they should all function well enough for domestic function of capturing dust and pollen. I say this as someone who has terrible allergy, I know when they work and when they don’t, no lab equipment necessary. The the main thing that matters in air purifier is size, for delivering volume of cleaned air. The problem is we keep putting them into strange shapes like cylinders and every purifier has an incompatible cartridge. And also we made a filter and a fan into a strange luxury product that costs hundreds of dollars. I will be switching to IKEA purifiers because they are flat, simple, and filters are cheap.
- elv0 3y agoThose IKEA purifiers are garbage in my opinion. I sent all of them back. The flat one shook all the time and was loud, as if the fan had been badly balanced or not balanced at all. I was also not convinced by the built quality compared to my Xiaomi Air purifiers.
- 3y ago
- suction 3y ago[dead]
- Sparkyte 3y agoThe fact we HAVE to buy into stuff where we can't buy 3rd party replacements should be illegal. It should fall under the category of right to repair. The purifier can't function without a filter from the manufacturer.
- kragen 3y agowell, repeal the dmca
- 93po 3y agorepeal capitalism
- kragen 3y agowe tried that it killed a quarter of a billion people do not recommend https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
- headhasthoughts 3y agobillionaires constantly complain about overpopulation and some complain about underpopulation either a bunch of people die or a bunch get poor and either way one half of these complaints goes away if even the winners of the game want it repealed why not it could be fun and it worked for the ussr, with only a loss of a few million lives and the gain of millions this is also true for china net gain for communist china in citizens also please start a site with an rss feed collecting kragen notes releases semantic kragen-web 2.0
- kragen 3y agocausing new people to be born doesn't cancel out mass murder from a moral perspective or from the perspective of what kind of future the people now alive are likely to find fun you can git clone http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/pavnotes2.git http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/pavnotes2.git and run git pull every half hour if you want. a git pull when there are no updates involves two http transactions sending a total of 486 bytes, it's a lot more lightweight than an rss fetch
- herbst 3y agoI have 2 xiaomis (work great btw) and 3 extra filters we are just cleaning and rotating the filters, and replacing after a few rotations. They seem to forget that they already knew a filter after a few changes, plus they also work with 'empty' filters, just a warning on the first start. Obviously they aren't as new, but they still work very well.
- em1sar 3y ago[dead]
- wkat4242 3y agoThanks, this is great news! I have the same unit, except an older one, which doesn't really cause problems (it just displays the 0% for a few seconds when turning on). But the newer models do have this issue. I basically replace mine once per year even though Xiaomi considers it to have a service life of about 6 months when running 24/7 as it does here. I run it at a pretty low speed because it's too noisy otherwise but they don't seem to take this into account when calculating the lifespan. When the hayfever season starts, I put in a fresh one to get maximum benefit. But it's nice to be able to reset this. PS: I didn't "see" the tag on my last filter with my phone, I thought it was a different type with a different frequency. Guess I'm wrong.
- phkahler 3y agoWe need a logo that combines a poop emoji overlaid with the red circle with a line through it. This will mean "No Enshitification" Edit: prohibited is U+1F6AB So place this over U+1F4A9 That is the logo! Is there a way to specify combinations of characters in unicode?
- hedora 3y agoIn fairness, this looks more like a user interface bug than a DRM mechanism. The fan runs regardless of whether the warning light is on. It's a bit suspicious that older models only showed the warning at power on and they changed it to be more annoying. It's possible that the change was malicious (an intentional dark pattern).