9 ms·

> I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone. Don't know where you are but i

by consp 2y ago

> I specifically told the salesperson I didn't want wifi, and they told me it's only if you want it to operate from your phone. Don't know where you are but in most countries that would be a valid reason to return it at any time you found it out. They lied to get your money, willfully is almost never a requirement.

kube-system 2y ago
Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a valid legal issue
- theturtletalks 2y ago
  I will never buy anything Bosch again after reading this thread. What other reason could Bosch have for hiding this functionality behind a website and user account if not to monetize it down the line or worse, bring more of the functionality behind a paywall. We already saw what happened with HP charging to print and even the recent Chromecast outage where something that should be handled locally is pinging back to Google and then working.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    I think this is annoying, but given that the basic functionality works, it personally wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me. I don't normally do anything fancy with the settings on my dishwasher, I just want it to wash the dishes. I'd rather have a dishwasher that puts delay and eco mode behind an app, than some shitty dishwasher that doesn't clean the dishes well on the "normal" setting.
    - amiga386 2y ago
      This reminds me of the EU regulations, which not only: 1. _require_ dishwashers to have an Eco mode, not locked behind anything, but also 2. _require_ Eco mode to be the default. If you buy a dishwasher in the EU and turn it on, and press "start", it'll be on Eco mode, the mode that uses the least water/power. If you don't care about the dishwasher other than to turn it on, and it works for you, then everybody wins. If it doesn't wash as much as you'd like, or takes longer thank you'd like, you can still have all the other dishwasher modes (express, intensive, etc.). The whole point of the regulation is to make the default mode the most energy efficient. I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling.
      - kube-system 2y ago
        That sounds annoying too. I want the default to be the one that does what I want it to do, clean a normal load of dishes, and do a good job at it. My dishwasher defaults to the last mode I set it to. > I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling. ... they didn't do that. There is no paywall.
        amiga386 2y ago
        Perhaps I misspoke, but needing a network connection, needing a smartphone, giving over your details, very likely getting marketing materials you didn't want via app notifications, or email, requiring to comply with terms of service, and at any time the company is free to rescind or change the offer, to me is "paywalling". You are paying out, giving them things of real value, over and above buying the device, and if you don't then they're blocking functionality. All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it.
        kube-system 2y ago
        It's annoying, but it's not a paywall. > All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it. For a dishwasher yes, but I don't agree with that as a blanket statement. There are cloud connected devices that I really like. e.g. I like to run my Roomba on-demand after I leave my house, and I think that's an entirely reasonable use case. Many other devices are useful away from home as well, which would all require internet connectivity. e.g. security systems, cameras, etc.
  - hansvm 2y ago
    > pinging back to Google and then working I still have a bricked Android phone from nonsense like that. If you: 1. Factory reset the phone while not logged in to the last Google account on the phone 2. Have the Google account invalidated (e.g., using an identity verification app on a temp noogler account, ...) You'll never be able to access the phone again. The "factory reset" maintains some internal state despite a scary message on the screen promising everything is deleted and asking if that's really what you want, and it'll require the last working password. Alright ... annoying, buggy (the fact that there are two factory resets and one doesn't reset the device is a problem; either fix or delete the broken one, or make the scary message scarier), but fine in my case. It checks that password against Google's servers though instead of the local hash, and it doesn't even matter if you know the password; the fact that the account is inactive prevents you from accessing the phone.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      That's an anti theft feature. Intended to make the phone useless to a thief. It doesn't work very well, thieves manage to get around it somehow (not so much with Apple's version) so it ends up annoying the users more than it does deter thieves. Apple is really really difficult about getting these unlocked. The carriers can't do it, you have to show them proof of purchase and have an enterprise support contract. With Google the carriers can just do it usually. I managed a fleet of mobiles at work for a while, this is how I know. It often happened that colleagues returned a phone without unlocking it.
      - kube-system 2y ago
        It is a very good thing that Apple is tough about it, given the high value of the devices, and how people carry them around in public. I very much want my devices to be useless to thieves.
        powersnail 2y ago
        I want to know whether this actually deters thieves. Anecdotally, from what I heard, it seems that phone stealing is very much still a thing in areas with active pickpocketing.
  - sillysaurusx 2y ago
    I mean, is Bosch the bad guy here or the salesperson? It sounds like they either lied or were incompetent. I guess maybe both are bad. Yesterday I tried to configure a friend’s wifi router after the speed was suspiciously slow. It forced me to ask them for their Spectrum login info (the same info they use to pay the bills, not the wifi info) which nobody remembered and I gave up. Apparently this is required according to https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/s/3sLnHuWgEF https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/s/3sLnHuWgEF So if we’re badmouthing companies that lock physical functionality behind a cloud, add Spectrum. Not that you’ll have much choice if they’re the only provider, but still. The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. What if you have someone house sitting? You really need to download the Bosch app to their phone just to use the same dishwashing routine that you usually do? Blah. Any alternatives to Bosch that don’t do this?
    - kube-system 2y ago
      Cable company "Customer Premises Equipment" normally has provisioning capabilities built in, so that they can be controlled/reconfigured/reset from the upstream provider. You could probably call Spectrum and they can reset for you. The reason they do all of this is exactly because of the scenario you ran into: people are always forgetting their logins -- and back when modems/routers didn't have remote provisioning, they spent a lot of time and money sending technicians out to physically reset people's equipment.
    - monksy 2y ago
      Mesh routers are requiring an app to configure them now. TPLink and Ubiquiti is a big violator of this. (Ubiquiti you can run a docker container as a controller... but still..)
      - rblatz 2y ago
        Ubiquiti is software defined networking, so it needs software to configure it.
      - Spooky23 2y ago
        How is Ubiquiti a violator of this? You can run their Java software on anything or buy a cloud key. I use an old HP thin client. There’s a good app and a well maintained webpage. If you enjoy pain, most gear has a cli. I can’t think of a better way to offer the functionality in a way that works for so many customer segments.
  - onewheeltom 2y ago
    My relatively new Bosch dishwasher has real buttons and an LED display. No wifi required
    - edoceo 2y ago
      Could you post a model number or something?
    - dorfsmay 2y ago
      I have button and LEDs, and it works fine without wifi for "basic functions", but for "advanced functions" like washer deep cleaning I would need to use their website.
    - zargon 2y ago
      Looks like we got lucky. My unit is a couple years old and has physical buttons, a display, and no wifi. It's been discontinued. Looking at Bosch's site now, there are no models without wifi. The cheap ones (mine was in the "300 series") now lack a display, have touch buttons and require wifi.
    - tchalla 2y ago
      You could have really helped everyone here by simply posting the model number in your original message itself.
      - account42 2y ago
        That would require gp to either know the model off-hand or be in a place where he can look it up which you don't know to be the case.
    - gambiting 2y ago
      Same, my mum got a new Bosch Series 4 last year and it doesn't have wifi at all. Everything is on the control panel.
    - smileybarry 2y ago
      I just bought one and yes, mine also comes with WiFi but it's 100% optional: all features are available in menus or physical buttons too. (Including the infamous rinse cycle the blog post mentions) It's a European model ("SMV4HAX48E", I'm in EMEA) so it might differ by markets.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  Most retailers just have a standard return policy, it's a good idea to choose where you purchase a major appliance where you know the return policy. For Costco it's 90 days for a major appliance, you don't have to justify yourself as to why. Some stores have terrible return policies, some have good enough policies.
  - sethammons 2y ago
    I've seen snap together flooring, the kind that does not require nails, returned to Costco full of nails. I thought that was incredibly wrong but they took it back
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Yeah, good return policies make things easy, for sure. But retailers with bad policies still have to fulfill their legal requirements even if their policy conflicts.
- fortran77 2y ago
  Usually contracts say that the entire contract is contained within the four corners of the document and anything the salesman tells you isn’t a contract.
  - MereInterest 2y ago
    If the contract doesn’t correspond to what the salesperson said, wouldn’t the company still be on the hook for false advertising and/or fraud?
  - account42 2y ago
    Contracts do not supersede consumer protection laws.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    If there was a written contract, it might say that. I haven't always been asked to sign a written contract for appliances at retail. But even if it did, those types of contracts can not disclaim away any liability for the salesperson accurately representing the product. Verbal contracts are legally contracts whether or not the seller wants to be held liable for them.
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  He asked for no wifi, was sold a no wifi dishwasher and then later changed his mind and wanted wifi after installing it. Where's the misrepresentation?
  - kube-system 2y ago
    No, the person above was led to believe that all of the dishwasher's features could be used offline, but that was not the case.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
dorfsmay 2y ago
Bought from a dealership. I don't think he lied, I think he just didn't know about "advanced functions". I never got the "no need for wifi" in written form.

by consp 2y ago

kube-system 2y ago

Yeah, misrepresentation is basic contract law stuff that would be generally valid in the US too, but: 1. there's probably no evidence of it 2. the workers at the store will deny it 3. the workers at the store likely have no grasp of contract law and will insist on whatever their store policy is 4. hiring a lawyer to return a dishwasher is a waste of time for most anyone knowledgable enough to know that this is a valid legal issue

theturtletalks 2y ago
I will never buy anything Bosch again after reading this thread. What other reason could Bosch have for hiding this functionality behind a website and user account if not to monetize it down the line or worse, bring more of the functionality behind a paywall. We already saw what happened with HP charging to print and even the recent Chromecast outage where something that should be handled locally is pinging back to Google and then working.
- kube-system 2y ago
  I think this is annoying, but given that the basic functionality works, it personally wouldn't be a dealbreaker for me. I don't normally do anything fancy with the settings on my dishwasher, I just want it to wash the dishes. I'd rather have a dishwasher that puts delay and eco mode behind an app, than some shitty dishwasher that doesn't clean the dishes well on the "normal" setting.
  - amiga386 2y ago
    This reminds me of the EU regulations, which not only: 1. _require_ dishwashers to have an Eco mode, not locked behind anything, but also 2. _require_ Eco mode to be the default. If you buy a dishwasher in the EU and turn it on, and press "start", it'll be on Eco mode, the mode that uses the least water/power. If you don't care about the dishwasher other than to turn it on, and it works for you, then everybody wins. If it doesn't wash as much as you'd like, or takes longer thank you'd like, you can still have all the other dishwasher modes (express, intensive, etc.). The whole point of the regulation is to make the default mode the most energy efficient. I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      That sounds annoying too. I want the default to be the one that does what I want it to do, clean a normal load of dishes, and do a good job at it. My dishwasher defaults to the last mode I set it to. > I find it absolutely crazy that a German company, when given free rein in the USA, would actually paywall Eco mode. It's just mind-boggling. ... they didn't do that. There is no paywall.
      - amiga386 2y ago
        Perhaps I misspoke, but needing a network connection, needing a smartphone, giving over your details, very likely getting marketing materials you didn't want via app notifications, or email, requiring to comply with terms of service, and at any time the company is free to rescind or change the offer, to me is "paywalling". You are paying out, giving them things of real value, over and above buying the device, and if you don't then they're blocking functionality. All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it.
        kube-system 2y ago
        It's annoying, but it's not a paywall. > All the functionality should be in the device itself, and require no sign-up or ongoing relationship with the company to use it. For a dishwasher yes, but I don't agree with that as a blanket statement. There are cloud connected devices that I really like. e.g. I like to run my Roomba on-demand after I leave my house, and I think that's an entirely reasonable use case. Many other devices are useful away from home as well, which would all require internet connectivity. e.g. security systems, cameras, etc.
- hansvm 2y ago
  > pinging back to Google and then working I still have a bricked Android phone from nonsense like that. If you: 1. Factory reset the phone while not logged in to the last Google account on the phone 2. Have the Google account invalidated (e.g., using an identity verification app on a temp noogler account, ...) You'll never be able to access the phone again. The "factory reset" maintains some internal state despite a scary message on the screen promising everything is deleted and asking if that's really what you want, and it'll require the last working password. Alright ... annoying, buggy (the fact that there are two factory resets and one doesn't reset the device is a problem; either fix or delete the broken one, or make the scary message scarier), but fine in my case. It checks that password against Google's servers though instead of the local hash, and it doesn't even matter if you know the password; the fact that the account is inactive prevents you from accessing the phone.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    That's an anti theft feature. Intended to make the phone useless to a thief. It doesn't work very well, thieves manage to get around it somehow (not so much with Apple's version) so it ends up annoying the users more than it does deter thieves. Apple is really really difficult about getting these unlocked. The carriers can't do it, you have to show them proof of purchase and have an enterprise support contract. With Google the carriers can just do it usually. I managed a fleet of mobiles at work for a while, this is how I know. It often happened that colleagues returned a phone without unlocking it.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      It is a very good thing that Apple is tough about it, given the high value of the devices, and how people carry them around in public. I very much want my devices to be useless to thieves.
      - powersnail 2y ago
        I want to know whether this actually deters thieves. Anecdotally, from what I heard, it seems that phone stealing is very much still a thing in areas with active pickpocketing.
- sillysaurusx 2y ago
  I mean, is Bosch the bad guy here or the salesperson? It sounds like they either lied or were incompetent. I guess maybe both are bad. Yesterday I tried to configure a friend’s wifi router after the speed was suspiciously slow. It forced me to ask them for their Spectrum login info (the same info they use to pay the bills, not the wifi info) which nobody remembered and I gave up. Apparently this is required according to https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/s/3sLnHuWgEF https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/s/3sLnHuWgEF So if we’re badmouthing companies that lock physical functionality behind a cloud, add Spectrum. Not that you’ll have much choice if they’re the only provider, but still. The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. What if you have someone house sitting? You really need to download the Bosch app to their phone just to use the same dishwashing routine that you usually do? Blah. Any alternatives to Bosch that don’t do this?
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Cable company "Customer Premises Equipment" normally has provisioning capabilities built in, so that they can be controlled/reconfigured/reset from the upstream provider. You could probably call Spectrum and they can reset for you. The reason they do all of this is exactly because of the scenario you ran into: people are always forgetting their logins -- and back when modems/routers didn't have remote provisioning, they spent a lot of time and money sending technicians out to physically reset people's equipment.
  - monksy 2y ago
    Mesh routers are requiring an app to configure them now. TPLink and Ubiquiti is a big violator of this. (Ubiquiti you can run a docker container as a controller... but still..)
    - rblatz 2y ago
      Ubiquiti is software defined networking, so it needs software to configure it.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      How is Ubiquiti a violator of this? You can run their Java software on anything or buy a cloud key. I use an old HP thin client. There’s a good app and a well maintained webpage. If you enjoy pain, most gear has a cli. I can’t think of a better way to offer the functionality in a way that works for so many customer segments.
- onewheeltom 2y ago
  My relatively new Bosch dishwasher has real buttons and an LED display. No wifi required
  - edoceo 2y ago
    Could you post a model number or something?
  - dorfsmay 2y ago
    I have button and LEDs, and it works fine without wifi for "basic functions", but for "advanced functions" like washer deep cleaning I would need to use their website.
  - zargon 2y ago
    Looks like we got lucky. My unit is a couple years old and has physical buttons, a display, and no wifi. It's been discontinued. Looking at Bosch's site now, there are no models without wifi. The cheap ones (mine was in the "300 series") now lack a display, have touch buttons and require wifi.
  - tchalla 2y ago
    You could have really helped everyone here by simply posting the model number in your original message itself.
    - account42 2y ago
      That would require gp to either know the model off-hand or be in a place where he can look it up which you don't know to be the case.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    Same, my mum got a new Bosch Series 4 last year and it doesn't have wifi at all. Everything is on the control panel.
  - smileybarry 2y ago
    I just bought one and yes, mine also comes with WiFi but it's 100% optional: all features are available in menus or physical buttons too. (Including the infamous rinse cycle the blog post mentions) It's a European model ("SMV4HAX48E", I'm in EMEA) so it might differ by markets.
colechristensen 2y ago
Most retailers just have a standard return policy, it's a good idea to choose where you purchase a major appliance where you know the return policy. For Costco it's 90 days for a major appliance, you don't have to justify yourself as to why. Some stores have terrible return policies, some have good enough policies.
- sethammons 2y ago
  I've seen snap together flooring, the kind that does not require nails, returned to Costco full of nails. I thought that was incredibly wrong but they took it back
- kube-system 2y ago
  Yeah, good return policies make things easy, for sure. But retailers with bad policies still have to fulfill their legal requirements even if their policy conflicts.
fortran77 2y ago
Usually contracts say that the entire contract is contained within the four corners of the document and anything the salesman tells you isn’t a contract.
- MereInterest 2y ago
  If the contract doesn’t correspond to what the salesperson said, wouldn’t the company still be on the hook for false advertising and/or fraud?
- account42 2y ago
  Contracts do not supersede consumer protection laws.
- kube-system 2y ago
  If there was a written contract, it might say that. I haven't always been asked to sign a written contract for appliances at retail. But even if it did, those types of contracts can not disclaim away any liability for the salesperson accurately representing the product. Verbal contracts are legally contracts whether or not the seller wants to be held liable for them.
fluidcruft 2y ago
He asked for no wifi, was sold a no wifi dishwasher and then later changed his mind and wanted wifi after installing it. Where's the misrepresentation?
- kube-system 2y ago
  No, the person above was led to believe that all of the dishwasher's features could be used offline, but that was not the case.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

dorfsmay 2y ago

Bought from a dealership. I don't think he lied, I think he just didn't know about "advanced functions". I never got the "no need for wifi" in written form.