In short, the people who "purchased" these cameras do not own them.
Specifically, the owners of these cameras may own the hardware, but cannot use it because they do not own nor control the software that runs it.
Richard Stallman predicted this decades ago. Regardless of what you think of him, he was the first person to come up with the idea of free open-source software expressly to give users the ability to (quoting) "control the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the program, we call it a 'nonfree' or 'proprietary' program. The nonfree program controls the users, and the developer controls the program."[a]
Not that I disagree but in this case it seems to be mostly about "free" cloud storage ending:
> Starting April 1, the company would no longer support models that included no-fee seven-day rolling storage of video clips—a well-advertised selling point.
And cameras were still being able to be used with external storage
> Instead, Arlo device owners could upgrade to one of the company’s paid plans, starting at $13 a month or buy an add-on device to store videos.
Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage.
I mean if you thought you will pay flat fee and get online hosting till the end of time (and most likely didn't read the fine print that said it isn't infinite in time), that's on you
Eh, I disagree here. Like some responsibility is always on the consumer, but clear information is essential in good markets.
If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy).
> If I pay for a hard drive and get one TB of space, I get it til the end of time. If some other product says "1 TB of storage", with no other context, it'd be easy to confuse the two (especially for people who aren't tech-savvy).
If your physical object you bought that stores the data physically on the object , sure. But it was not that, it was cloud service
But people bought physical cameras. It's not unreasonable to think "I am buying this camera with one week of storage". If you don't know how technology works and it's not clearly explained, it's very easy to misconstrue that.
> Which is... exactly what you'd have to do with fully open source system anyway, buy a box to store it or pay someone for storage.
Wrong. I'd simply host the video on some device I have sitting around. Storing streamed video isn't hard to do and there are many ways to do it that take little effort. Being forced to pay money for something I already have capability to do is the problem. It's wasteful and makes me happy I did not buy Arlo's product.
Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!". We can complain about their shitty e-waste producing model but also acknowledge it is not product targeted to nerds building their own video monitoring infrastructure, OSS or not.
> Right but the selling point was never "... and you can just use your NAS to store it!".
This is actually the problem with these products, there's absolutely no fallback. I wonder how many people buy another Arlo when they get bit by the artificial end of life?
Hardware is completely proprietary and closed source. All camera communications go through a black box hub device which talks to Arlo’s services. There’s no public API for any part of the hardware or software chain.
In other words, unless you’re going to take the time to reverse engineer all of it, you’re completely at their mercy.
Even if you opt for local storage you’re still beholden to their black box hub because that’s the only thing the cameras will talk to, and their app because that’s the only thing that will talk to their hub. (HomeKit and other integration exists but it doesn’t provide the full functionality you get from the app, and still requires their hub.)
> They do own the camera. They just don't own the cloud service that makes the camera useful. Or even operable.
I don’t know the model, but the article makes it seem as if the cameras work perfectly well without it? I hate online-only products and think they are between scam and trap, but this seems more a case of false advertising than anything like that.
Well-ish depending on your use case. It still requires their app, hub, and cloud services to work even just for steaming. There’s no completely “local only” mode.
You can use local storage to save recordings by connecting flash storage to the hub, but it’s only really useful a backup. You can’t view it in the app (you have to sneaker-net the storage to a computer), and it can only save triggered recordings.
Basically if you don’t care about storing and saving recordings for future use and only plan to stream from the cameras, then it’ll continue to work (as long as Arlo’s web services work of course).
A lot of people advocate for traditional cameras gaining some sort of smart interface to facilitate sharing or some other such features.
What they don't understand is that traditional cameras work extremely well with their dedicated but seemingly outdated interfaces, and moreover, they prevent things like this from happening. Replaceable batteries, replaceable storage, and "primitive" but exceptionally functional firmware makes it so that you can still pick up an 8-year old camera like the Nikon D7200 and produce shots that have the same quality as today's cameras without worrying about it not being supported (because it's essentially a complete product).
"smart" televisions just means long boot times and... intrusion.
Why would smart cameras end up any different?
I will say the DSLRs understand the necessity of immediacy - turn it on and take a shot.
(well, there is the "turn it on" part)
Honestly I don't know why phone cameras haven't understood the immediacy thing. why not dedicate one button to ALWAYS take a picture, getting the shot even at the expense of accidental shots.
This is something Apple has put a lot of work into and iOS handles photography UX very well. Wake the screen and swipe left (no need to authenticate). Camera loads in about 1s on my 4 year old XS. No shutter lag so you get the picture you see in the viewfinder. Also, “Live Photo” is enabled by default which takes multiple photos before and after you press the shutter and combines it into a single entry in the UI. You can then go back at a later date and pick the best version, but your library isn’t cluttered. I hate this feature so I keep it turned off, but I can see how it would be useful to many people.
I frankly don't think apple has put enough work into it. I use it (swipe from locked screen) from time to time, but it sometimes (like gloves) swipe doesn't work and you miss the shot. You have to look and interact with the screen and that's a failure.
I guess most "i am elegant" tech companies just don't go for buttons. (apple, tesla, etc)
Oh yeah that's an interesting point. Could be a product of the environment. Product designers in Cupertino aren't having that issue, so it's probably "not a problem" in their eyes.
Not sure how better usability wrt to sharing from the camera would ensure that this kind of thing never happens.
I think cameras tend to work well over time because that's the expectation of the manufacturers and the purchasers, and photographers would rebel en masse otherwise.
If most consumers would be a little more prickly about these things and strongly punish these greedy companies, I don't think we'd see nearly as much of this. This kind of thing simply wouldn't fly in the 60s, but we've been conditioned to just accept it.
Well that and consumer protection is basically non-existent.
I still want to share photos easily from my camera though!
This problem will only be solved by legislation. If countries seek to reduce e-waste they need to force electronics makers to ensure a minimum length of support on the same conditions as existed on the date of sale - say 10 years.
The FCC could have a rule when you are releasing "Cloud Connected" hardware that would specify that you must provide an "EOL plan" for when you no longer wish to support the hardware. A good example would be Sonos, they would be within their right to end official support for a speaker, but they must provide some EOL support that will let these devices function in perpetuity (or at least until the hardware breaks down).
Cue vendors putting non-replaceable batteries that just happen to run out after 10 years, bricking device, and making effort to fix enough of a hassle most don't bother...
But yeah, would be nice. "No updates - give source code on OSS license + reasonably easy way to flash".
while this would be an effective defense, it isn't an effective legal policy
at the point that the support is ended, the company isn't making any more money on the product, so legal remedies like forbidding its importation or halting its manufacturing would be ineffective; even remedies like fines and injunctions to specific performance might be ineffective if the company no longer exists or no longer exports to your country, or if they've laid off the people who knew how to compile the firmware
so to have an enforceable law you need to require the release (or at least deposit) of the complete corresponding source code up front, not at some future time
Length of suppport is necessary. It is not sufficient to just hand the source over. As an example, I paid for TiVo lifetime programme guides. This was quite explicitly a lifetime service. They cut it off when they introduced an HD service. Making the sw open source would in no way mitigate that termination.
Perhaps. But the hardware isn't the issue here. The hardware works, but the company is no longer offering free software / storage. The customes need to switch to a paid plan.
While it makes a case for self-hosting your software that doesn't come for free either. Ideally, you get to control your own destiny, but not for free.
The lesson? Nothing is free. There's always cost / risk; hidden or otherwise.
how about software, or firmware, or any other digital component of a device must provide function as existed at time of sale for the physical lifetime of the product
It’s really hard for the average user to even tell what’s local and what’s not.
Perhaps some labeling similar to energy efficiency labeling could be regulated where anything that doesn’t allow for use without the remote service gets a big red “D”sticker, while things that are completely local gets a big green “A”?
Some of the best gear I have uses different cloud services but I won’t buy something that would be a paperweight should the cloud service disappear. The cloud service merely improves the product (e.g keeps video from surveillance cameras) but the cameras work without it, and you can set up your own recording if you want.
Transparency in terms and branding is a really good idea, but it's probably insufficient. In this scheme, devices marked "A" will effectively be restricted to people with the time to manage local infrastructure--recording cameras, for example, will eventually have disks fail, and at that point the repairs are likely beyond more than a subset of people. Probably a small one, at that.
Cloud stuff is here to stay. We deserve clarity in what does use cloud stuff, but we also need legislation that puts a proper fear into bad actors who make expansive promises (and, likely, stronger liability applied to shipping software that needs patching).
> In this scheme, devices marked "A" will effectively be restricted to people with the time to manage local infrastructure--recording cameras, for example
I think in terms of waste, the key is that devices are still functioning and valuable, even if they aren't as good to the original buyer as they once were. A different cloud service might pop up to replace the one that the smart doorbell maker canceled. Or the initial buyer can sell the smart doorbell to a customer that does have the patience to deal with local recording.
It'll always be hard to use tech for non-technical people, but at least avoiding the situation where thousands of functioning gadgets are bricked and thrown away should be possible to achive through regulation.
> Or the initial buyer can sell the smart doorbell to a customer that does have the patience to deal with local recording.
I think this would require a drastically different consumer mindset. Because I don't think there is a market for used doorbells.
> It'll always be hard to use tech for non-technical people
As much as I don't like the products, Nest and Ring are not hard to use for non-technical people. They remove the moving parts that may demand maintenance and may cause failures that are beyond a power cycle's reach to fix.
In that light, the best regulatory solution is probably to ensconce terms-at-purchase as indefinitely binding for SaaS-attached hardware. No price increases, no end-of-service so long as the company is still in business.
> at that point the repairs are likely beyond more than a subset of people.
Replacing a hard drive trivial, though. But in any case, if someone doesn't want to do such maintenance every decade or so, there are repair shops that will do it for them.
A hard drive under constant write load is unlikely to last a decade. And replacing them in some of these devices isn't trivial (even if the physical connector is straightforward, how many of them understand receiving a new drive that needs formatting, how do you get to the panel to do it, etcetera etcetera). In isolation, the smartest thing a hardware vendor could do is make this process difficult so you give up and buy a new one.
You could say "well, filter on reviews", but the review space has been drastically compromised with the rise of "influencer" types, too.
Interesting. The video system that I use is a cheap one (and doesn't require internet access, but optionally supports it -- I don't even have it on a network of any sort at all).
Replacing the hard drive in it couldn't be easier. You do have to remove four screws to get into the box, but once there, you just unplug the old one and plug in the new one. When you power it up, the box notices that the hard drive is new and asks you if you want it to be prepared for use (with requisite warnings about losing any data that may be on it). If you click "Yes," it does what it needs to do and starts using it.
Aside from opening the case, my grandmother could handle this without any problem at all.
I simply assumed that better systems than mine would be as easy, but perhaps I assumed too much.
> It’s really hard for the average user to even tell what’s local and what’s not.
Especially when there's no legal consequences for manufacturers publicly and unambiguously lying about it. Remember how Anker said that their Eufy product line stored all of your data locally, and then they didn't get punished when the truth came out?
I've been suckered to buy cloud-shit that I wasn't aware it was. When helping some family with a failed wifi/router, I got some newer Linksys router. Brought it over to them, and demands an online account with some app on the phone.
Looked online with my phone, and verified they went cloud only and no reasonable (non-ddwrt, etc) way to bypass it. I wrote "DEFECTIVE" in sharpie on the bottom of the router, packaged it right back up and took it back to the retailer for a refund.
I bought a non-Linksys/Cisco brand that didn't play stupid games. Changed the SSID, BSSID, and WPA2 config to be the old one, and finished the install in just a few minutes. It does its job and just works. Has been for like 4+ years.
Got burned with a Linksys/Cisco router, in, i wanna say 2011 or so, when they changed my username & password security setup back to factory default (no security) without my knowledge or permission. Tried to get their overseas tech support to help me, spent HOURS on this via phone & ridiculous chats that I archived, only to have them try to extort money from me to “extend” this needed feature on their junk that I owned — that’s when I knew it was intentional.
2nd example: Discovered during setup that my HP printer/scanner/fax/photocopier/photo printer came with expired ink cartridges; no instruction book, of course, so hours of research revealed these have chips on them that only let you do initial setup w/ original non-expired cartridges — not with new replacements.
Overseas HP tech sed on phone: just throw this printer away & go buy a new printer — to them this sophisticated machine/potential e-waste is just a disposable thing, like paper towels et. al., or a 20-lb paper weight. I persisted & did get it to work on my own, entirely self-taught, but have found each time I replace the expensive HP cartridges they “expire” much more quickly than did the previous batch. Plus this fancy machine only exists to extort you for ink with all its apps & crappy refills.
3rd example: My Dell laptop’s “lifetime PC support” as touted on QVC was denied to me, then when I threw a fit they grudgingly referred me to their new tech service provider (no more helpful than the first) BUT WAIT not actual lifetime of the PC itself but of Microsoft’s SUPPORT (updates & bug-fixes expiration time determines its death, to them) of this PC laptop.
4th example: My Dell laptop’s entire Wi-Fi capability/setting/existence seemingly being erased entirely several times by Windows 10 updates. The Wi-Fi setting completely vanished on all the main settings pages — chicken-or-egg dilemma where, I no longer had wired, Ethernet connection at home anymore after Cisco router fiasco to go online to download/fix it (I’d gone totally “cutting edge” all-wireless at home!) & libraries/coffee shops no longer had Ethernet either. I spent 2 hours working with one “lifetime support tech” who couldn’t hack my PC — since I had no Internet at all — & tried to walk me thru it via phone while offline, but to no avail; also spent many hours in a museum’s library using their Ethernet contacting Microsoft & others. I finally found a hotel in an adjacent county with a wired portal in their “Business Center” — so I crashed it posing as a hotel guest, where it took a lifetime tech with the 2nd tech support provider 4 HOURS to figure out how to restore the device driver W10 update had ham-handedly obliterated. But it was erased again next W10 update, I You-Tubed it from there on out, & learned the updates weren’t literally erasing the Wi-Fi — just turning off its device driver, or putting it to Default state, which would then remove Wi-Fi from the settings page (where it’s usually there next to Ethernet, VPN, etc.) I’m not a natural computer tech person, but in all I figured out at least 3 distinct ways to restore Wi-Fi in the bowels of my computer’s two different Settings fiefdoms as W10 kept erasing it — along with monkeying around with my preferences, my colors, my attempts to “schedule” the updates themselves so they wouldn’t just start updating & interrupt my work deadlines & lots of other needless meddling with my stuff that should have nothing to do with MS’ updates.
But see, that’s Microsoft saying: This is not YOUR computer, Dear Stupid Customer.
Remember the opening credits of that old TV show “The Outer Limits” ? Where it says: “We control the transmission.” (and other stuff) ?
So I became The Accidental Computer Tech.
But I only ever wanted to be a clueless, joyful user like I was in the early days with Macs & now with my iPhone.
4th example: I was so naive when I got my first home computer many years ago. It was several years in when I learned the updates support was ending on Tiger? And I now had to buy - Snow Leopard? Or was it Leopard? And eventually learned even those updates would end, as Apple considered that my beautiful $1,000 MacBook —,which I had planned to use forever! — was ready to be put out to pasture, ready for Hospice care, to be put on a raft & floated out to sea. OMG, many companies had put cookies on it that don’t expire till the year 9999 (4-digit limit, I guess, but will the Earth even be around that long?) Yet its “creator” disagreed, said do-not-resuscitate, pull that there plug!
Eventually it lost its Internet-surfing power — because of Them — but I still use it as an external hard drive (it has its own monitor, unlike other hard drives & thumb drives), as a way to access my original iTunes library (I like the user interface better than the version I copied over to the much-hated Dell PC) & as a CD player & disc burner. So it’s now like a disabled, much-loved favorite child.
But Mac really makes it hard, as a replacement battery & repair to the mousepad are not in any way cost-effective. So I don’t really OWN that device nor do I own any of the tablets, phones or Chromebook devices I’ve gotten since.
5th example: All those iPods I got, from the shuffles to the iPod Touch with color screen, are disposables, despite all the paraphernalia (WARDROBES of various colorful cases, screen protectors, designer earbuds etcetera). When the batteries all die, they’re gone. The first shuffle to go, I realized: This thing is no more than a souped-up thumb drive. 2 pods still work — but now we know they were just a fad, outpaced by their own Cousin iPhone.
All this is the reason I have never gotten home security tech & never gotten my animals microchipped. Don’t trust the technology will last, don’t want a subscription, don’t want no more disposable tech, don’t believe no Lifetime Anything.
I never buy equipment that requires connecting to a server somewhere to work. A couple of years ago, I bought a some surveillance cameras and a recorder unit to manage them.
Finding one that didn't require an internet connection was exceedingly difficult. It can be hard to even tell if they require an internet connection or now -- and it seems most of them do.
I did eventually find one, but if I need to do something like this again, I'll build it myself. It would be much faster and easier.
I prefer local storage as well, but the downside is the potential for data loss to theft. Non technical consumers may not realize that if the SIM is physically on the camera, and the camera gets stolen, they lose everything. Camera systems that store the video on a hub indoors are the best IMO.
I think "free" cloud services and addons should always include prominently visible end of service dates. As such buyers could reasonably estimate is the life time left for device good enough at the time of purchase.
With physical product this should be printed on the outside of the box in very prominent manner. And with digital, it should be visible in big enough typeface also.
Breaking this would result in possible damages or full refund to customer. And in bankruptcy certain amount should be hold to keep the services running.
The cloud era seems to exacerbate these kinds of issues. The only way to truly have "long term" service is to be a subscriber, not a "buy once" customer. If you're a part of their revenue next year, they're going to try to keep you. Otherwise, you're just one excuse away from being dropped.
The "right to repair" laws being developed might help here, but I don't know what this means for anything "connected to a service". If the service goes down, are there laws that say we need to be able to connected to something else? I'm not aware of much.
I mean, as an Arlo customer, I knew this was coming, but that's because I've worked in tech for over 20 years, and know none of these companies can operate a plan that looks ahead more than 2 years.
Ultimately technology is either subscribed, or "rented" for an undefined period of time. It's never "bought". It's gonna take some serious regulation to make that happen, and I'm not even sure how that will work.
This is basically every apple product ever. Get turned into paperweights despite being fully functional devices just because apple won't supply updates, won't open firmware or software up for users to apply updates. Can't claim your a ethical company when you do toxic unethical crap like that. Legit e-waste created for nothing but maintenance of a companies profit. Shit drives me up the wall. Should be legislated against. You can tell alot about people's ethics by how much they like to fix and reuse things or how much value they put on repairable items.
Business tactics that are this malicious towards society on so many levels should be legislated out of existence.
To put bluntly, anybody who buys hardware that is inexorably linked to some cloud-crap should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the loss of money as a learning experience.
I *only* buy hardware that can be controlled and/or managed locally. Sure, it means some 'cool' gadgets aren't available in my world. But it does mean that what I buy will be supported and will just work.
If that means you buy PoE cameras and get a video storage solution? Well, so be it. That's the cost of doing it yourself, BUT it also means you have your own destiny in your control.
Whereas if you buy cloudcrap, *when* the company decides to alter the deal, you're at their behest. Dont like that? Too fucking bad.
> To put bluntly, anybody who buys hardware that is inexorably linked to some cloud-crap should be ashamed of themselves and deserve the loss of money as a learning experience.
This isn't "blunt", this is just cruel. Nobody "deserves" to be the victim of false advertising or broken guarantees, particularly when they can reasonably lack the necessary contextual knowledge to analyze them beyond face value. Most people do not have the time or the aptitude (which is developed through more time) to become a system administrator of nontrivial local computing resources, but still derive significant value from being able to things like remotely viewable cameras.
The lady mentioned in the article, the one who owns a pet-boarding kennel a few minutes down the road from her house, has her life materially bettered by being able to access cameras remotely, and her life is not materially bettered by becoming a sysadmin to get that except for the fact that she is downstream of bad actors.
The solution to this is not "well, everyone should be a sysadmin". The solution is "make the consequences of being a bad actor so petrifying that companies avoid doing so."
Candidly, I echoed a lot of the sentiments of your post when I was younger, more self-absorbed, and more confident of my ability to attain sufficient expertise in all walks of life to never need help. My attitudes changed as I grew older and it became clearer that I was just as fallible as the next person, just on different axes. I hope you get the chance to attain perspective, too.
We are, as it happens, all in it together, and the attitude your post expresses is counterproductive.
For a while I ran DDWRT on my routers, and spent hours learning about FreeNAS and ZFS. And I ran out of patience for it after a few years. I had more important things to do, and people to spend time with. My routers got replaced with Eeros and my NAS got replaced with a Synology. And while I don’t love that the former got bought by Amazon, both are pain free, and I spend a lot less time on them.
Yup. Even as a power user there's only so much time in the day. I ran a UniFi network locally for a while, because I was generally frustrated with the state of things. I still have the USG at the top of my network but everything south of it has been replaced with Eeros for Wi-Fi, and they just work(tm). I don't have time to fight with that stuff. I have a life.
I still run a FreeNAS box (well, TrueNAS), because I have work-related needs that Synology can't really handle, but that's a conscious choice and I have the skills necessary both to do it and to know that I need to. Most people do not. And that's okay. They have skills I do not have. Modern society functions on division of labor.
Good for you. If you want to have some non-free software in your home, you should have that choice. Someday, I will be skilled enough to run DDWRT on all my routers. But Everyone should have that choice, and plenty of consumer hardware is hardcoded to always serve their manufacturer, and not their owner. I will never again purchase hardware that I cannot control.
> Someday, I will be skilled enough to run DDWRT on all my routers
You probably already are! It's very easy to run an open-source firmware on a router that you purchase for the purpose. Don't bother with DD-WRT because it supports hardware that can only be driven by binary blobs tied to ancient kernel versions.
Just get something compatible with OpenWrt. My favorite manufacturer of this stuff essentially ships with OpenWrt plus an extra web interfaces, so you can just access the upstream web interface at a different URI if you don't want to install the latest firmware.
The standard OpenWrt web UI is as good or better than what your average router comes with. It's not harder to use.
> Nobody "deserves" to be the victim of false advertising or broken guarantees, particularly when they can reasonably lack the necessary contextual knowledge to analyze them beyond face value. Most people do not have the time or the aptitude (which is developed through more time) to become a system administrator of nontrivial local computing resources, but still derive significant value from being able to things like remotely viewable cameras.
You're right - that the government *should* do their thing and stomp down on companies with death-penalty-level fines and jail for the C levels and BoD. But lets be 100% real. Only 1 singular bank executive went to jail during the 2008 banking fraud crisis, and that was in Iceland.
The governments will not act in our best interests. That's transparently evident that we're in it on our selves and each other. I wish it weren't the case, but wishing something so does not make it so.
> The lady mentioned in the article, the one who owns a pet-boarding kennel a few minutes down the road from her house, has her life materially bettered by being able to access cameras remotely, and her life is not materially bettered by becoming a sysadmin to get that except for the fact that she is downstream of bad actors.
No doubt. But I'm surprised that there hasn't been a company who sells a on-prem video solution. Oh wait, there is. A cursory search showed me this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08329JN9B for $560 with HDD. The cloud here is an optional thing.
This user decided to go with cloud-only crap for the convenience. And it's more convenient for the company to renegotiate the "deal". You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
> The solution to this is not "well, everyone should be a sysadmin". The solution is "make the consequences of being a bad actor so petrifying that companies avoid doing so."
Or you realize that our country is very much "Caveat Emptor", and defend yourself appropriately, knowing legal remedies are few and far between. And if they ever do get a legal remedy, I'm sure they'll get a $10 voucher to buy more of the Cloud-crap.
Hardware that isn't tied at the hip to someone else's computer is already available. It's just not as cheap.
> Candidly, I echoed a lot of the sentiments of your post when I was younger, more self-absorbed, and more confident of my ability to attain sufficient expertise in all walks of life to never need help. My attitudes changed as I grew older and it became clearer that I was just as fallible as the next person, just on different axes. I hope you get the chance to attain perspective, too.
What is this self-help garbage doing in the middle of criticizing cloud-locked hardware being at the behest of a company? You do know that there are plenty of options that aren't infected with cloud-crap that are also outside of "build NVR in your basement".
> We are, as it happens, all in it together, and the attitude your post expresses is counterproductive.
We are absolutely not "in it together". You're on HN - you see the inexorable tread towards more profit at all costs for companies. If that means squeezing customers more, so be it. But they are not our friends, nor do they see themselves as us.
The US government is effectively captured at this point. Any remedies that happen here will be long after the damage was done.
Basically what I'm trying to get at is that we need to be vigilant and not buy into these "easy cloud ecosystems". At best, they are long-term contract-mutable rentals, and should be recognized as such. To that end, I'll pay more to stay away from those devices. That's about as much as we can do.
This feels like a very tech-centric perspective. I agree with you, if you restrict this to the very IT-savvy group, but this shifts the blame away from companies’ bad design/behavior.
Most people have no understanding of the difference between a cloud-connected device and one that just uses WiFi or BLE locally to communicate with an app.
I’d say if you work for a company that produces this kind of crap IoT, shame on you, and that people in that position should strongly push for the ability to ship with offline-only firmware.
Wow.. the cognitive dissonance here is staggering.
Nowhere did I say "build it yourself". There's plenty of turnkey commercial/industrial solutions that are also plug-n-play. Most even have PoE already built in. The problem with them for end-users: you front-load the cost to initial build.
The real problem for users with cloud-crap is that it's exceptionally hard to assess risk with cloud crap.
As for me, my simplistic solution is that "cloud = unacceptable risk". But that somehow here has translated to "DIY garage build while etching my own silicon and boards", which totally minimizes what I'm actually saying.
I did not suggest that anyone should DIY their IoT hardware. My point is I don’t find utility in shaming users for buying cheap cloud-based products - the average user doesn’t care or know about the tech choices, they just want to be able to change their light colors, play multi-room audio, etc.
Yes, a subset of consumers will find local-based IoT products and vote with their wallets, and there are great companies serving that market (at a premium). However, the financial incentives push most companies to produce WiFi/internet connected crap. It’s clearly cheapest to build on a ESP-type WiFi platform and build a bad cloud app.
I think the only way you really stop this is with strong financial penalties via regulation. I’d want two pieces:
Fines for cloud exfiltration of analytics or WiFi data beyond the base functionality of an application. Funding for FCC or other organizations to actively investigate reports of this.
Fines when companies “remotely” brick IoT products that are EOL by shutting off a cloud API. Something of this type should push companies away from any sort of cloud-based infrastructure because they’d need to maintain it for much longer. (Admittedly not well-informed here and maybe this is in progress already?)
I understand your perspective is that we can’t trust the government to properly regulate that, and maybe true. But it’s also unrealistic to expect most users to be well-informed. Even if most adults made that choice you still have a huge market of college students buying cheap crap.
Just because a device isn't cloud-connected doesn't mean it isn't designed for planned obsolescence. For example, the ongoing cheapening of major appliances, or the DRM applied to printer cartridges and coffee pods.
This is a legislation problem IMO: companies need to be held to reasonable expectations when they sell a product. My ink cartridge shouldn't say it's "empty" when the page counter reaches 100 [and it's still actually full]. Neither should cloud devices go to the landfill because the company selling them decided that they don't want to support them anymore.
Companies foisting negative externalities on us (like more e-waste) in exchange for more profit are a blight and should be treated (and prevented) as such.
> because the company selling them decided that they don't want to support them anymore.
in IoT for consumer devices companies must ensure that a software is free of security issues. in some cases the support period of 3rd party dependencies is out of control of the vendor. and vendors usually don't control the upstream silicon and firmware. so if an SDK ships an outdated mbedtls and upstream refuses to patch their SDK also downstream will not be able to release a patch. and in that case the law says connectivity needs to be disabled for that appliance. the situation today is that vendors are only starting to realize that this is the future in which they operate. so while the appliance is still operable in a dumb-mode any smart-features will have to be reduced to the max time you can ensure support.
while this sounds like pretty normal and sane to most it absolutely isn't how IoT vendors in the past have operated. And i hope the minute RED directive kicks into gear by Aug 2024 consumers will start to sue them into oblivion if a vendor is for some reason unable to ship a security update.
> I only buy hardware that can be controlled and/or managed locally. Sure, it means some 'cool' gadgets aren't available in my world. But it does mean that what I buy will be supported and will just work.
You are part of a vocal minority.
The vast majority of people aren't tech savvy. That's why smartphones are the way they are nowadays.
How does the average person go about a non cloud connected router? They barely know what it is, let alone what it means to administrate it over the cloud software. How is this their fault for not being a IT professional capable of understanding a $75 purchase?
We're not talking about an average person in this instance. We're talking about a company using video surveillance in watching their business.
If it were individuals, I would have a bit more sympathy. But this is this company's livelihood being able to realtime watch remotely their core business.
So yeah, they can pony up $500 for a good NVR and PoE cams. That would have saved her sob story.
It’s not always clear you’re getting cloudcrap when you buy the product. Sure, you and I can do the research and see that it’s tied to a service that will eventually shut down, but do you expect 100% of people out there to understand this?
• Product BOM prices are more-or-less known by the public, product margin not as much
• Cloud prices are low
• Customers expect low product but high subscription prices
I wonder if consumer protection can make a separation like this work. The Playstation model (sponsoring the hardware assuming >100% ROI over the product's lifetime) is bad for small companies, and definitely bad for e-waste when they fail. But mobile phone contracts make it clear you can own the phone after the contract, and still need to pay service fees throughout the usage, and that's mostly considered fair; and could definitely be a lot worse in terms of e-waste.
There is probably a useful life of ~10 years on most types of consumer internet-connected hardware. I doubt these are 10 years old, but it would probably be in everybody’s interest to just say “we’ll support this connecting to the internet and requisite services for 10 years.” - Especially for hardware that could seriously infringe on a persons home privacy.
That's why it should be OSS, at the very least code released after vendor decides to stop supporting it. It's of little cost to the company (competitors seeing your 5 or 10 years code is non-issue really, tech went forward enough for that to not matter) but prevents at least some from going to landfill
When companies advertise free for life, take it with a grain of salt. If they can't force people into a paid subscription, then they'll simply stop making the device work.
Remember, if Google can cut off support, what makes you think others wouldn't? Remember Stadia?
Customers should agree to nothing less other than getting refunded for their camera setup.
While we wait for better legislation, all we can do is vote with our wallets. That's why I started the review site Unwanted Cloud to review how well devices work without "cloud" connectivity: https://unwanted.cloud/
Games, just as movies, have anything from dogs to the people who kicked in $2 on the Kickstarter in credits, there has to be more to this story than this or there is soon going to be a massacre of some "rogue" catering driver taking down Disney's blockbusters.
Disappointing the article didn't specify the marketing that was used to sell the cameras five years ago. Obviously planned obsolescence is bad, but I'd like to know how misleading they were when selling the product.
Idea: Prosecute such companies for obtaining money under false pretenses. If you only get the thingie which you "bought" for a limited time - that is clearly a rental, not a sale.
It’s tough because what if the company doesn’t want to maintain the software? Are they obligated to keep the software up to date despite the one-time-sale?
It’s a similar reason why much of the software moved to a subscription model, the recurring costs.
Alternatively, there should be some group of smart individuals who come up with some protocol for various devices where, if a manufacturer decides to EoL the sale (specifically saying not a rental), of a product, then they must switch to that protocol. But after their hands are clean.
This issue sucks on many levels, one of which is someone like myself, and many others here, want the convenience of say smart home products.
For instance, with Nest, due to their mothership and proprietary API’s, I have to settle for either an inferior product, or spend time setting up a home automation stack.
Which is great if it’s a hobby and/or enjoyable, but I just want the features without the hassle.
The real open source revolution will come when many of these privacy-first, host-your-own XYZ are truely turn key. I think we’re getting closer but just not their yet
No, they don't need to keep the software up to date, they just have to ensure that the device continues working. Almost everything that uses electricity has a bit of software. Most devices don't need any updates. At the very least they need to enable somebody else to keep the devices running, for example by open sourcing the infra needed to do so.
If the car has drm in it that refuses alternative third-party parts, then yes, the car was rented. This is why right to repair laws are needed. It fixes this missrepresentation.
Bad analogy. There's a difference between that, where the hypothetical car in question has malfunctioned, and a company being able to just decide that a feature that they offered across the board for free is suddenly being discontinued. Imagine that you have a Ford that comes with seat heaters. You've been able to use those seat heaters, at no additional charge, for several years. All of a sudden, Ford decides they want to make existing customers pay for something they've been using for years. The next time you go to the dealer for an unrelated reason, they silently install Ford's new update that restricts you from turning on the seat heaters without paying a monthly subscription to Ford. Even this analogy breaks down, as with the Arlo situation they have to provide server-side storage for the feature, whereas such a seat heater conundrum would not. However, this analogy is closer to the real situation than "manufacturer stops making parts three decades after discontinuation".
These stopping to work is actually one of the best outcomes you can have
As opposed to e.g. internet-connected security cameras being hacked so that anyone can watch your home or footage from internet-connected security cameras being shared by the service provider with just about anyone or footage from internet-connected security cameras being completely useless because of the cheap hardware used for them, creating a feeling of surveillance without any of the benefits
