8 ms·

> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that

> For whatever reason (I suspect some sort of storage failure) everyone’s tablets die around the same time. What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey?

irjustin 2y ago
knowing a lot of these companies. it wouldn't really matter if it fell inside of the warranty. they would simply screw a lot of people over until there's a class action lawsuit (or whatever equivalent is in that country) where they get a slap on the wrist for not honoring warranty claims.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  Carrier back in the 2000's had a problem with their heat exchangers in their gas furnaces failing far more often than they should. They were sued, settled, and part of the settlement was an extended warranty of the heat exchanger, including labor. Great, right? The local carrier dealer lied and said the unit wasn't under warranty. They lied again when reminded of the class-action settlement, claiming only part were included and said would cost a fortune in labor. When I called Carrier and told them what their factory authorized gold/preferred/whatever-they're-called dealer was pulling, Carrier confirmed I was correct and even verified the unit's serial number and said that if the dealer had checked the SN, they would have found it was covered. The dealer then said 'fine, but those parts are going to take weeks to get from the warehouse' knowing damn well I had no heat, in the winter. They had us over a barrel and they fucking knew it, and I didn't have any way to prove that claim wrong.
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    I'd have let the dealer do the install, and then only brought up the fact that it was under warranty afterwards.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kmoser 2y ago
  My A/C unit is fairly new but there are signs the condenser unit fan is starting to go. Since it is still under warranty for parts (not labor) I thought I would be able to just get a replacement fan and install it myself. But no, the manufacturer will only deal with a "certified technician," who of course charges an outrageous amount of money (many hundreds of dollars) to replace the fan. When I asked the technician why the labor cost so much, they gave me some song and dance about how the prices were set by their central office (true) and that the cost also included filing the paperwork to make a warranty claim (seriously?). At the end of the day, I could probably buy an aftermarket fan off the Internet and install it myself, spending far less than the certified technician would charge to install the "free" OEM replacement part.
  - Gabrys1 2y ago
    This reads similarly to how with certain medical insurance you only pay a flat $5 (instead of the full price of $25+) for common meds that you can get for $1.50 outside of insurance...
  - freetanga 2y ago
    Also, likely the technicians company paid big money to be an official provider (or pays a % of this job up) At least Ponzi had style.
  - liminalsunset 2y ago
    Just as a data point for those in Canada (maybe US, but I'm not sure if it's the same company), I have a Senville unit, bought from their website, and they sent a replacement plastic (yes, it's a plastic bead in a piece of rubber) bearing for the indoor fan for free with shipping free too a few years ago, after providing the unit's serial number and the original name on the receipt. The unit was in-warranty. They claim that you have to have the unit professionally installed to get the warranty, but nobody asked for this at any point (could have been due to triviality of the part). Either way I was pleasantly surprised by the willingness to provide parts, even though the documentation of part numbers and models/generations on their site isn't super clear. It's now out of warranty, but most of these units are built by either Gree (some Trane, Tosot, Gree, some Lennox iirc) or Midea (MrCool, Eco-Air, Senville, Pioneer, Carrier), so searching for the "canonical name" of your system can be helpful in finding parts. (usually, its of a pattern like "M5OG-48HFN1-M", can be found with meticulous googling for catalogs). There is a lot of parts commonality between units. You have to be creative with finding parts on AliExpress as they go by any number of names that you wouldn't expect, and a lot of this stuff is bought by eye (or random dimensions, of which there are some canonical ones for each part) and not by part number unfortunately.
- juanani 2y ago
  [dead]
Lammy 2y ago
Very convenient for them and also easy to accomplish by buying the cheapest parts. It's probably eMMC-based and writing a logfile constantly. Source: every Android that has ever died on me in this exact way (four and counting)
- girvo 2y ago
  Yep this is nearly guaranteed. Kills so many IoT things, logging the world and eMMC write limits being garbage.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    I feel this may be natural selection at play. With bottom-of-the-barrel (and/or "value add") IoT garbage, hardware suppliers are a commodity, and under competitive pressure, the winners will be ones that can make cheapest hardware that just about outlasts a typical warranty period of their customers' products. Shorter-lived parts will not bring repeat business; longer-lived parts will get value-optimized further. Failing just after warranty period is Just Right.
    - nairboon 2y ago
      Depending on the particular consumer group, this could also backfire in the long term. With consumer warranty being ridiculously short. They will increasingly notice the pattern, that devices from brand X always brick shortly after warranty is over. And maybe moving to more trusting, but pricey brands.
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        Unfortunately, there are almost no "pricey brands" left that serve the middle range of price/quality. Most of them sold out to or just became replaced by bottom-of-the-barrel shit sellers, that are happy to continuously cycle through dozens of fly-by-night brands. It's still possible to get quality work done, but that's one of the few very premium brands and/or bespoke work; if you have to ask, you can't afford it. (Just look at Amazon marketplace if you think I’m exaggerating.) Customers have been "noticing" this pattern for couple decades now; it's not just in tech, but everywhere across the board - from foodstuffs, through appliances, sports equipment, clothing, hygiene, all the way to computing. Unfortunately, this is a pattern in the same sense a tsunami is - you notice the wave is growing and about to flood everything around you, but there's fuck all you can do about it.
boopdewoop 2y ago
I wonder if it could be they are logging and not clearing the logs, filling up the storage - since its happening around the same time for everyone.
- grishka 2y ago
  Maybe not filling up but wearing out the flash chip itself. If it was filling up, then a factory reset should've helped.
1024core 2y ago
I wish he had poked around the Java code and looked for what might be triggering that.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey? Isn't that the point of the warranty? They tell you they think the product will last for X years, and then it lasts about X years, just like they warranted.
- thayne 2y ago
  HVAC systems are usually advertised as lasting at least a decade, but the warranty is usually only a year or two. Honestly, I think something needs to be done so that companies are held liable for expensive products failing and needing expensive repairs after a year or two.
TrackerFF 2y ago
Component failures happen. I had a Phillips 4K LED TV I purchased on sale in April 2021. The TV was glitchy, and I'd get all sorts of weird problems with it - but nothing really terrible. Then two weeks into January this year, the picture suddenly becomes a jumbled mess of vertical stripes. One second it's fine, the next second it's broken. Luckily we have a general 5 year warranty period here in Norway, and TVs are expected to last for at least 5 years. I called the shop, and they told me to just bring the TV. When I get there with the TV, I notice two other identical TVs. I check out the note that hangs on them, and see that they are broken, with the same symptoms as mine. Both had purchase dates around March / April 2021. I can only assume some component failure.

irjustin 2y ago

knowing a lot of these companies. it wouldn't really matter if it fell inside of the warranty. they would simply screw a lot of people over until there's a class action lawsuit (or whatever equivalent is in that country) where they get a slap on the wrist for not honoring warranty claims.

KennyBlanken 2y ago
Carrier back in the 2000's had a problem with their heat exchangers in their gas furnaces failing far more often than they should. They were sued, settled, and part of the settlement was an extended warranty of the heat exchanger, including labor. Great, right? The local carrier dealer lied and said the unit wasn't under warranty. They lied again when reminded of the class-action settlement, claiming only part were included and said would cost a fortune in labor. When I called Carrier and told them what their factory authorized gold/preferred/whatever-they're-called dealer was pulling, Carrier confirmed I was correct and even verified the unit's serial number and said that if the dealer had checked the SN, they would have found it was covered. The dealer then said 'fine, but those parts are going to take weeks to get from the warehouse' knowing damn well I had no heat, in the winter. They had us over a barrel and they fucking knew it, and I didn't have any way to prove that claim wrong.
- Marsymars 2y ago
  I'd have let the dealer do the install, and then only brought up the fact that it was under warranty afterwards.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kmoser 2y ago
My A/C unit is fairly new but there are signs the condenser unit fan is starting to go. Since it is still under warranty for parts (not labor) I thought I would be able to just get a replacement fan and install it myself. But no, the manufacturer will only deal with a "certified technician," who of course charges an outrageous amount of money (many hundreds of dollars) to replace the fan. When I asked the technician why the labor cost so much, they gave me some song and dance about how the prices were set by their central office (true) and that the cost also included filing the paperwork to make a warranty claim (seriously?). At the end of the day, I could probably buy an aftermarket fan off the Internet and install it myself, spending far less than the certified technician would charge to install the "free" OEM replacement part.
- Gabrys1 2y ago
  This reads similarly to how with certain medical insurance you only pay a flat $5 (instead of the full price of $25+) for common meds that you can get for $1.50 outside of insurance...
- freetanga 2y ago
  Also, likely the technicians company paid big money to be an official provider (or pays a % of this job up) At least Ponzi had style.
- liminalsunset 2y ago
  Just as a data point for those in Canada (maybe US, but I'm not sure if it's the same company), I have a Senville unit, bought from their website, and they sent a replacement plastic (yes, it's a plastic bead in a piece of rubber) bearing for the indoor fan for free with shipping free too a few years ago, after providing the unit's serial number and the original name on the receipt. The unit was in-warranty. They claim that you have to have the unit professionally installed to get the warranty, but nobody asked for this at any point (could have been due to triviality of the part). Either way I was pleasantly surprised by the willingness to provide parts, even though the documentation of part numbers and models/generations on their site isn't super clear. It's now out of warranty, but most of these units are built by either Gree (some Trane, Tosot, Gree, some Lennox iirc) or Midea (MrCool, Eco-Air, Senville, Pioneer, Carrier), so searching for the "canonical name" of your system can be helpful in finding parts. (usually, its of a pattern like "M5OG-48HFN1-M", can be found with meticulous googling for catalogs). There is a lot of parts commonality between units. You have to be creative with finding parts on AliExpress as they go by any number of names that you wouldn't expect, and a lot of this stuff is bought by eye (or random dimensions, of which there are some canonical ones for each part) and not by part number unfortunately.
juanani 2y ago
[dead]

Lammy 2y ago

Very convenient for them and also easy to accomplish by buying the cheapest parts. It's probably eMMC-based and writing a logfile constantly. Source: every Android that has ever died on me in this exact way (four and counting)

girvo 2y ago
Yep this is nearly guaranteed. Kills so many IoT things, logging the world and eMMC write limits being garbage.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  I feel this may be natural selection at play. With bottom-of-the-barrel (and/or "value add") IoT garbage, hardware suppliers are a commodity, and under competitive pressure, the winners will be ones that can make cheapest hardware that just about outlasts a typical warranty period of their customers' products. Shorter-lived parts will not bring repeat business; longer-lived parts will get value-optimized further. Failing just after warranty period is Just Right.
  - nairboon 2y ago
    Depending on the particular consumer group, this could also backfire in the long term. With consumer warranty being ridiculously short. They will increasingly notice the pattern, that devices from brand X always brick shortly after warranty is over. And maybe moving to more trusting, but pricey brands.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Unfortunately, there are almost no "pricey brands" left that serve the middle range of price/quality. Most of them sold out to or just became replaced by bottom-of-the-barrel shit sellers, that are happy to continuously cycle through dozens of fly-by-night brands. It's still possible to get quality work done, but that's one of the few very premium brands and/or bespoke work; if you have to ask, you can't afford it. (Just look at Amazon marketplace if you think I’m exaggerating.) Customers have been "noticing" this pattern for couple decades now; it's not just in tech, but everywhere across the board - from foodstuffs, through appliances, sports equipment, clothing, hygiene, all the way to computing. Unfortunately, this is a pattern in the same sense a tsunami is - you notice the wave is growing and about to flood everything around you, but there's fuck all you can do about it.

boopdewoop 2y ago

I wonder if it could be they are logging and not clearing the logs, filling up the storage - since its happening around the same time for everyone.

grishka 2y ago
Maybe not filling up but wearing out the flash chip itself. If it was filling up, then a factory reset should've helped.

1024core 2y ago

I wish he had poked around the Java code and looked for what might be triggering that.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

thaumasiotes 2y ago

> What a fun, completely coincidental quirk that that time appears to fall outside the warranty window, hey? Isn't that the point of the warranty? They tell you they think the product will last for X years, and then it lasts about X years, just like they warranted.

thayne 2y ago
HVAC systems are usually advertised as lasting at least a decade, but the warranty is usually only a year or two. Honestly, I think something needs to be done so that companies are held liable for expensive products failing and needing expensive repairs after a year or two.

TrackerFF 2y ago

Component failures happen. I had a Phillips 4K LED TV I purchased on sale in April 2021. The TV was glitchy, and I'd get all sorts of weird problems with it - but nothing really terrible. Then two weeks into January this year, the picture suddenly becomes a jumbled mess of vertical stripes. One second it's fine, the next second it's broken. Luckily we have a general 5 year warranty period here in Norway, and TVs are expected to last for at least 5 years. I called the shop, and they told me to just bring the TV. When I get there with the TV, I notice two other identical TVs. I check out the note that hangs on them, and see that they are broken, with the same symptoms as mine. Both had purchase dates around March / April 2021. I can only assume some component failure.