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> Honestly there are many good reasons to do so and it does result in finding real problems and solving them. Honest question, what is a good reason to do this

> Honestly there are many good reasons to do so and it does result in finding real problems and solving them. Honest question, what is a good reason to do this? My Logitech software sends telemetry to Logitech. My VW apparantly sends my GPS coordinates. How is this useful for improving their hardware?

surajrmal 2y ago
I'm not sure I can defend all choices various vendors make, but there are plenty of signals that are helpful. Precise gps coordinates seem unnecessary, but some sort of region based information can help correlate whether there is a particular problem that might happen at far higher rates in hilly terrain or specific humidity levels. Users also often use products in a way that doesn't line up with how the product owner thinke it should be used. Metrics don't replace interviewing people but it might help you craft the right questions. In the case of a Logitech mouse, it might be useful to understand if people are actually using those extra features you've added or maybe it's worth removing in a future version. The most obvious metric that everyone wants to know is failure or crash rates. After a software update it's always good to know if those rates went up. Those errors may be recoverable, but it's good to try and understand them to improve reliability. Maybe pairing android auto with specific phone models is more problematic, or maybe trying to pair Bluetooth is particularly bad under specific conditions like high thermals in warmer climates. It's pretty difficult to interop testing with all possible parties in all conditions.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > some sort of region based information can help correlate whether there is a particular problem that might happen at far higher rates in hilly terrain or specific humidity levels. You know what will help in those situations ? Testing. It is expensive, i know. Why not skip it and just analyse the KPIs from the telemetry. /s
  - surajrmal 2y ago
    Testing is not really an economically viable option in all cases. Ecosystems are simply to diverse and products are so complex that covering every case is not really possible. There is likely no software you use today short of projects like sqlite which don't leverage user reported bugs or telemetry to improve the software.

surajrmal 2y ago

I'm not sure I can defend all choices various vendors make, but there are plenty of signals that are helpful. Precise gps coordinates seem unnecessary, but some sort of region based information can help correlate whether there is a particular problem that might happen at far higher rates in hilly terrain or specific humidity levels. Users also often use products in a way that doesn't line up with how the product owner thinke it should be used. Metrics don't replace interviewing people but it might help you craft the right questions. In the case of a Logitech mouse, it might be useful to understand if people are actually using those extra features you've added or maybe it's worth removing in a future version. The most obvious metric that everyone wants to know is failure or crash rates. After a software update it's always good to know if those rates went up. Those errors may be recoverable, but it's good to try and understand them to improve reliability. Maybe pairing android auto with specific phone models is more problematic, or maybe trying to pair Bluetooth is particularly bad under specific conditions like high thermals in warmer climates. It's pretty difficult to interop testing with all possible parties in all conditions.

hulitu 2y ago
> some sort of region based information can help correlate whether there is a particular problem that might happen at far higher rates in hilly terrain or specific humidity levels. You know what will help in those situations ? Testing. It is expensive, i know. Why not skip it and just analyse the KPIs from the telemetry. /s
- surajrmal 2y ago
  Testing is not really an economically viable option in all cases. Ecosystems are simply to diverse and products are so complex that covering every case is not really possible. There is likely no software you use today short of projects like sqlite which don't leverage user reported bugs or telemetry to improve the software.