5 ms·

It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.

by gstar 2y ago

Liquix 2y ago
so if the company has established they're willing to go that far to lock customers into their ecosystem and milk for $$$... it's not inconceivable that they also engineered (or chose not to fix) the cheap flash + chatty logging hardware failure for the same purpose.
- yuye 2y ago
  Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty expires. I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned obsolescence, especially considering their "technology keeps moving forward" bullshit.
  - zeroflow 2y ago
    I'm offering you a different viewpoint: They made the analysis, how long the flash will live and saw, that it will make it out of the warranty period. Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change. I've seen this myself before. One process step before release of the control module was a write cycle analysis to make sure the unit will live for at least 10 years (i think) before the guaranteed write cycles of the flash memory were consumed.
    - yuye 2y ago
      >Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change. Opting out of a more durable solution when you know the device will break right after warranty is still planned obsolescence.
    - muppetman 2y ago
      Isn't that kinda the definition of planned obselence? You plan so that past you point you have to care, it could well die/become useless?
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        Planned obsolescence is when you purposefully design it to fail as soon as possible (but past any warranty period), to force repeat purchase.
    - audunw 2y ago
      You're both missing one of the more likely explanation.. that nobody gave much thought about how long the device would last. "It's solid state electronics, it'll probably outlast the warranty anyway".. I can imagine an aircon company puts a lot of effort into analyzing the air-conditioning unit itself to make sure it lasts at least as long as the warranty, with good margin. But I can totally see them winging it on an external control device, which was perhaps even a project they outsourced anyway. I don't think actual malicious planned obsolescence is as prevalent as many believe. A device breaking right after warranty is not a good strategy to get repeat customers. It's also a huge risk if you miscalculated and you suddenly get a lot of warranty cases. You want a lot of margin there. I've been involved in the design of a thing myself, where something the manufacturer hadn't clearly communicated - and we just barely caught - could have made the device die just around a typical warranty period for such a device. When we found out, of course we worked on this problem to make sure it didn't die prematurely.
      - yuye 2y ago
        Advantage Air doesn't produce ACs. They produce smart home solutions, including AC controllers. They're not winging it on an external control device, they're cheaping out on their main product. Also, their claim is that they're not outsourcing. If you check their website, it claims everything is designed and manufactured in Australia. Nevertheless, I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt if it were not for: 1. The only option being a full system replacement. 2. Communication protocol being encrypted. 3. App being locked down to certain hard-coded models. None of these give me any hope that this is a well-meaning company that just has some issues. Also, I think a company that sells a product most customers would only buy once or twice in their lives is not a company that expects many repeat customers.
        michaelt 2y ago
        > Also, their claim is that they're not outsourcing. If you check their website, it claims everything is designed and manufactured in Australia. Looking at pictures like [1] and [2] I suppose it's possible they're making their own generic android tablet control panel, designed and manufactured in Australia and they just happened to add a camera, side-mounted USB charging connector, a headphone socket, microsd card slot, and a battery charge level indicator, loads of space for a battery that isn't present, a connector named VBAT and also a chinese-language bootloader but accidentally forgot to include the power and data connector they need, poking out the back of the device so they had someone bodge it on afterwards by hand with a soldering iron but IMHO it's more likely they mean "manufactured in Australia from components sourced internationally" and one of those components is a generic android tablet. [1] https://www.myplacenz.co.nz/are-you-making-the-most-of-your-myplace-touchscreen/ https://www.myplacenz.co.nz/are-you-making-the-most-of-your-... [2] https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-tablet-diy-repair/insidetablet.jpeg https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-ta...
    - WhyNotHugo 2y ago
      In other words, _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._ This device should not need to write to storage. It has to save settings when the user manually changes them, which can't be more than a few kilobytes per year. Any other writes are likely an oversight on the developer's part.
  - nikau 2y ago
    I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they failed outside the warranty period.
    - foobarian 2y ago
      Everybody forgets the noatime thing at least once in their career
- raxxorraxor 2y ago
  I would switch brands instantly. This is a company that has no customer orientation and I have never seen a company recover from that (they might have financial success, but they will never create good products again). They probably will sell you expensive crap. This time the device was fixable, but the manufacturer worked against the user on that.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    So, you'd rather spend $12k+ to replace the entire system just to spite the manufacturer over making a minor patch to support a new tablet yourself?
    - voyagerfan5761 2y ago
      Shouldn't have to replace the aircon/heat-pump components, only the controller hardware. OP indicated that a new control system would be about $1700 (I assume AUD), or 14-17% of their 10k-12k estimate for the whole build. Unless this scummy manufacturer also works with the aircon makers to lock those to their controllers. (That would be a great lawsuit to watch.)
datavirtue 2y ago
Companies don't encrypt anything unless required. Except for code and databases...they encrypt and obfuscate those to keep people running back to them. Source: my customers
cameldrv 2y ago
The biggest maker of garage door openers in the U.S. has done the same thing. For a button that goes on the wall to open the door, now it sends an encrypted code instead of just shorting two wires so that you have to use their button instead of a regular doorbell button like people have been doing for decades.
- spikej 2y ago
  Which company, and which product did you see this with?
  - coupdejarnac 2y ago
    Chamberlain devices do this. Genie devices do not.
    - 1-more 2y ago
      Genie is nice; you can add Homekit with any of Meross's garage door doodads for $50ish
  - cameldrv 2y ago
    Chamberlain and Liftmaster do this. They’re both owned by Chamberlain group and I believe they are the two most popular brands. It’s caused tons of headache for people doing home automation stuff, especially since Chamberlain has cut off API access to home assistant. Then the home assistant people figure they’ll just rig a raspberry pi or something to short two wires, but then they hit this encryption nonsense.
    - rogerrogerr 2y ago
      Heh, bet you can just short the contacts the button usually closes. Really hard to DRM a button.
    - spikej 2y ago
      That's nuts! For what it's worth, I bought this for my old chamberlain. https://gotailwind.com https://gotailwind.com I was looking into replacing the old unit with a new one with myq but then read about all the problems and decided to give this a shot. 3 years in and it's been a good decision.

It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.

by gstar 2y ago

It 100% is designed so that you have to use their hardware.

so if the company has established they're willing to go that far to lock customers into their ecosystem and milk for $$$... it's not inconceivable that they also engineered (or chose not to fix) the cheap flash + chatty logging hardware failure for the same purpose.

yuye 2y ago
Seems those tablets die not long after the warranty expires. I'm willing to bet money on that it's planned obsolescence, especially considering their "technology keeps moving forward" bullshit.
- zeroflow 2y ago
  I'm offering you a different viewpoint: They made the analysis, how long the flash will live and saw, that it will make it out of the warranty period. Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change. I've seen this myself before. One process step before release of the control module was a write cycle analysis to make sure the unit will live for at least 10 years (i think) before the guaranteed write cycles of the flash memory were consumed.
  - yuye 2y ago
    >Thus they did not opt for more durable and expensive flash and/or software change. Opting out of a more durable solution when you know the device will break right after warranty is still planned obsolescence.
  - muppetman 2y ago
    Isn't that kinda the definition of planned obselence? You plan so that past you point you have to care, it could well die/become useless?
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Planned obsolescence is when you purposefully design it to fail as soon as possible (but past any warranty period), to force repeat purchase.
  - audunw 2y ago
    You're both missing one of the more likely explanation.. that nobody gave much thought about how long the device would last. "It's solid state electronics, it'll probably outlast the warranty anyway".. I can imagine an aircon company puts a lot of effort into analyzing the air-conditioning unit itself to make sure it lasts at least as long as the warranty, with good margin. But I can totally see them winging it on an external control device, which was perhaps even a project they outsourced anyway. I don't think actual malicious planned obsolescence is as prevalent as many believe. A device breaking right after warranty is not a good strategy to get repeat customers. It's also a huge risk if you miscalculated and you suddenly get a lot of warranty cases. You want a lot of margin there. I've been involved in the design of a thing myself, where something the manufacturer hadn't clearly communicated - and we just barely caught - could have made the device die just around a typical warranty period for such a device. When we found out, of course we worked on this problem to make sure it didn't die prematurely.
    - yuye 2y ago
      Advantage Air doesn't produce ACs. They produce smart home solutions, including AC controllers. They're not winging it on an external control device, they're cheaping out on their main product. Also, their claim is that they're not outsourcing. If you check their website, it claims everything is designed and manufactured in Australia. Nevertheless, I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt if it were not for: 1. The only option being a full system replacement. 2. Communication protocol being encrypted. 3. App being locked down to certain hard-coded models. None of these give me any hope that this is a well-meaning company that just has some issues. Also, I think a company that sells a product most customers would only buy once or twice in their lives is not a company that expects many repeat customers.
      - michaelt 2y ago
        > Also, their claim is that they're not outsourcing. If you check their website, it claims everything is designed and manufactured in Australia. Looking at pictures like [1] and [2] I suppose it's possible they're making their own generic android tablet control panel, designed and manufactured in Australia and they just happened to add a camera, side-mounted USB charging connector, a headphone socket, microsd card slot, and a battery charge level indicator, loads of space for a battery that isn't present, a connector named VBAT and also a chinese-language bootloader but accidentally forgot to include the power and data connector they need, poking out the back of the device so they had someone bodge it on afterwards by hand with a soldering iron but IMHO it's more likely they mean "manufactured in Australia from components sourced internationally" and one of those components is a generic android tablet. [1] https://www.myplacenz.co.nz/are-you-making-the-most-of-your-myplace-touchscreen/ https://www.myplacenz.co.nz/are-you-making-the-most-of-your-... [2] https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-tablet-diy-repair/insidetablet.jpeg https://blog.hopefullyuseful.com/blog/advantage-air-ezone-ta...
  - WhyNotHugo 2y ago
    In other words, _Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity._ This device should not need to write to storage. It has to save settings when the user manually changes them, which can't be more than a few kilobytes per year. Any other writes are likely an oversight on the developer's part.
- nikau 2y ago
  I'd guess they just didn't think of flash wear, like Tesla did in the early model s , and they got lucky they failed outside the warranty period.
  - foobarian 2y ago
    Everybody forgets the noatime thing at least once in their career
raxxorraxor 2y ago
I would switch brands instantly. This is a company that has no customer orientation and I have never seen a company recover from that (they might have financial success, but they will never create good products again). They probably will sell you expensive crap. This time the device was fixable, but the manufacturer worked against the user on that.
- tracker1 2y ago
  So, you'd rather spend $12k+ to replace the entire system just to spite the manufacturer over making a minor patch to support a new tablet yourself?
  - voyagerfan5761 2y ago
    Shouldn't have to replace the aircon/heat-pump components, only the controller hardware. OP indicated that a new control system would be about $1700 (I assume AUD), or 14-17% of their 10k-12k estimate for the whole build. Unless this scummy manufacturer also works with the aircon makers to lock those to their controllers. (That would be a great lawsuit to watch.)

datavirtue 2y ago

Companies don't encrypt anything unless required. Except for code and databases...they encrypt and obfuscate those to keep people running back to them. Source: my customers

cameldrv 2y ago

The biggest maker of garage door openers in the U.S. has done the same thing. For a button that goes on the wall to open the door, now it sends an encrypted code instead of just shorting two wires so that you have to use their button instead of a regular doorbell button like people have been doing for decades.

spikej 2y ago
Which company, and which product did you see this with?
- coupdejarnac 2y ago
  Chamberlain devices do this. Genie devices do not.
  - 1-more 2y ago
    Genie is nice; you can add Homekit with any of Meross's garage door doodads for $50ish
- cameldrv 2y ago
  Chamberlain and Liftmaster do this. They’re both owned by Chamberlain group and I believe they are the two most popular brands. It’s caused tons of headache for people doing home automation stuff, especially since Chamberlain has cut off API access to home assistant. Then the home assistant people figure they’ll just rig a raspberry pi or something to short two wires, but then they hit this encryption nonsense.
  - rogerrogerr 2y ago
    Heh, bet you can just short the contacts the button usually closes. Really hard to DRM a button.
  - spikej 2y ago
    That's nuts! For what it's worth, I bought this for my old chamberlain. https://gotailwind.com https://gotailwind.com I was looking into replacing the old unit with a new one with myq but then read about all the problems and decided to give this a shot. 3 years in and it's been a good decision.