This is why I like marine devices. By necessity, they have to operate offline. There’s no cellular service in the middle of the ocean. I have a Xantrex LiFePo BMS and a Victron solar charge controller on my boat, and neither requires a cloud account to use the app.
Most of the time it’s not the hardware that needs to be open-sourced (i.e. CAD, Gerber PCB files, etc.) It’s mostly just that the hardware should use standard, open protocols. It would be nice to have the full PCB design so you could rewire things if something breaks. But, most of the time, it’s good enough if the device uses standard HTTP or standard Bluetooth, rather than something proprietary.
This speaks directly to GoPro. Fuck them and their bullshit.
You can’t even properly use their hardware without using their crippled app. And if you aren’t paying for their subscription to use the app they force you to use, be prepared to be harassed endlessly about subscribing.
They even cripple new hardware with the inability to stabilize video unless you have their shitty app do it.
Could you imagine headphones that only play music through an app that requires a subscription? That’s the level of enshittification we’re going to start seeing.
It killed them. They went from THE camera for active life. They were synonymous with Hoovers in their field.
Then they got eaten alive because all they did was bullshit instead of making better cameras. Good riddance.
It killed them. They went from THE camera for active life.
I have the Hero 11 Black and their new “4k” mini one (both gifted). The mini is pretty much unusable for two reasons:
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Their built-in battery likes to die just from being “off” for a little while. Even though pretty much every GoPro seems to have a bad problem with phantom battery drain, you can’t replace this one, so you’re losing charge cycles without actually using the camera.
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You simply cannot use the videos out of the camera without running it through an image stabilization process (through their app, or using third-party software like Gyroflow (thank god, this is FOSS). It’s embarrassing that they’d even sell a camera without image stabilization. I have a $60 no-name gopro knockoff that produces better footage out of the camera.
If someone paid me to design a flawed product, I’d basically make a GoPro camera. Such a shame!
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I keep saying framework laptop guys should come out with Linux phone that runs postMarketOS or Mobian. It’s can’t be that crazy of an idea considering Pine64 and Purism could literally push out their own phones. Obviously given the state of things right now, sure maybe not going to happen… but I will keep preaching this.
DJI DRONES!
You can’t even avoid them because they are a monopoly. (There are “no-name” drones but these drones are very bad)
Even the 2nd place of the best drone manufacturers, Autel, their drones also has mandatory app-based internet activation.
Yeah. I once hiked 11 miles in the desert on a road trip to film a specific shot and when I unpacked my drone I found out that the app had updated overnight and needed me to log back in before I could fly again.
The nearest cell service was 30 miles away.
Edit: And the next drone I bought was a DJI, because nobody else comes close.
Glad that I wasn’t the only one. Happened twice - I don’t want to have to think about logging in to use a piece of shit I bought myself! Fuck DJI.
There are tons and tons of excellent drones running opensource betaflight so I challenge your claim that all ‘no-name’ drones are bad. The top racers and freestylers and world-record-speed-setters don’t fly DJI and I’m pretty sure the market for professional cinelifters is entirely out of DJI’s reach. It’s true that there aren’t really other drones in the same market segment with all the hand-holding and flight assist and outright auto-flying DJI is famous for but that’s a much more narrow window. For people who want that stuff your claim is true.
For people flying primarily with their own skill there is still a great opportunity to build from parts and compile from source.
I hope RISCV helps with the liberation of hardware firmware. It looks promising.
I have seen this done in a way that makes at least a bit of sense. My EUC (electric unicycle) came software locked to ensure that the motor didn’t engage if it somehow turned on during transit. Removing the lock required connecting it to the manufacturer’s app, but after that was done, I could use third party apps for everything else. Sure, there are other ways they could have done this, but this way ensures that the motor could not be engaged without human intervention.
Should just ship it with the battery disconnected
Or just install a switch on it. I guess that’s too high tech for startup bros to figure out how to do, though.
Even my electric lawn mower has a fusible link (it’s actually a mini circuit breaker) that is designed such that you can yank it out, as a child safety feature. No fusible link installed, no power to the motor.
For just about any other case, I would say thats a great solution, but EUCs are self-balancing devices. A switch would be a potential failure point, and experiencing a power loss at speed would likely result in serious injury.
Yeah, fair enough honestly
I got a Sonos speaker for Christmas a couple years ago.
As soon as I realized I needed an account for it to simply play music, I went to return it. The guy in the store told me that there were no speaker brands that did not require an account these days, and that I shouldn’t be so petty. He said “but you also have a Google account, right?”, “Why is a Sonos account such a problem?”.
I told him indeed, I already need a Google account for my phone to work, a Spotify account for listening to my music, and now a Sonos account for my speaker that plays that music , and I thought that was ridiculous.
My previous speaker was a Sony, and while that did have an app to configure it, it didn’t require setting up an account with any personal data, which I think is fucked up for a device whose main purpose is just to produce sound. I left the speaker in the store and got my money back.
I did some research and found Teufel devices, speakers from Germany that work fine with an app that doesn’t require an account. Now all my speakers and soundbars around the house are Teufel, and I’m very happy with them. I think also Yamaha has (or at least had) accountless speakers. So win/win - buying European and keeping my privacy a little more in check.
I did the same for my smart scale. I don’t want my weight in the cloud somewhere, or on the servers of some Chinese or U.S. company somewhere. An app on my phone can store daily weight and other health data just fine.
So when I wanted a smart scale, I also did some research. It turns out there’s an open source app called openscale that does exactly that: just store the data locally on my phone, and it supports a bunch of devices.
I got myself a Beurer scale (coincidentally also a German brand) because I read you can skip the whole account setup. Then used openscale to register my weigh ins. It works, I’m sure the cloud apps of larger brands have a nicer user interface, but they come at the cost of my privacy, which I simply refuse to sell out for a piece of hardware whose main purpose is to show me what I weigh.
I think people should be more conscious about their data. I don’t use apple pay or Google wallet, my bank already knows most of what I pay, where and when. Why would I want to share that with these big corporations? I will gladly trade in a little convenience for a lot of privacy.
God I love lemmy, tysm for posting genuinely
Teufel
It’s hilarious that you literally have to make a deal with the Devil for this.
My JBL soundbar has no app.
Your only option is configuring it with the Google Home appI have a scale that shows my weight.
And a speaker that plugs into my phone with the jack.
Nothing wrong with checking “oh I’m down since 3mo ago” w/o ever having copied numbers between screens :)
You don’t need Google account for your phone to work.
Peoples expectation for “working” is “has absolutely all features that you would have with google, no exceptions”. If even a single feature is missing, people will scream thats its unusable.
The problem starts when a government service or your bank requires an app that needs play services/ uses play integrity API.
In my experience microG runs all of those apps without issue.
On GrapheneOS in Austria I’ve yet to encounter this problem, fortunately. I can’t use Authy because they’re dipshits, but the government apps just show an (annoying) warning every time I use them.
I also can’t pay with my phone anymore because Google is a dipshit as well. Fuck Google. Only thing I need them for these days is YouTube.
I got the same camera. I did not want to side load an android app just to use it, but I legit thought “three tries only, this can’t be serious”. Sure enough if you exhaust the trials you cannot use the device. None of the reviews or vids I read and saw mentioned this, or glossed over it. I returned that bitch. Told DJI the reason was I cannot use the camera and I don’t have an iPhone and I also don’t want to side load an app on my android phone. They accepted thankfully.
I remember when I got a Kobo Glo ereader a decade ago, I was soo excited to have an ereader that wasn’t tied to Amazon.
So I booted it up, and it immediately wanted me to not only register, but to download a program on my computer, and do it from there.
I refused and got pissed.
I started googling and found a guide to hack it.
You had to manually modify the Sqlite database and create a user there.
After doing that, it just worked.
The feeling of relief and accomplishment was fantastic!
This is why I bought a 12 year old Sony ereader, the only thing I really miss is a back(front?)light
I have a Kindle Paperwhite and I jailbroke it to install KO Reader.
The only difficult bit was getting a version of the Kindle software that was rootable. To do that you have to make sure it doesn’t get updates, which basically means not allowing it to go online. If you ever go online, no matter what else happens, it tries to update its firmware. I ended up letting the battery on mine drain and then tossed it in a drawer for a few months. Eventually it was out of date enough that I could root it.
I got lucky because there was a jailbreakable version relatively soon. It looks like the last SW version that could be fully jailbroken was back in January 2022.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Amazon had actual competitors and you could buy an e-reader that just ran open source software?
I found out about the new jailbreak, hours before Amazon pushed an update to fix it. Luckily my older Kindle was dead so I could JB that one. Pissed, because I prefer koreader and was looking forward to jailbreaking my new Kindle
You didn’t have time to throw the new one in a faraday cage or something?
That was a great feeling–taking something locked in, programmed, something that used intentionally deceptive description and design, and finding a way to make it your own. To, basically, break the deceptive design and make the device better by “breaking” it.
When I rooted my first Android phone I felt that way. It’s a shame how much of the computing power in phones is used for nothing but harvesting our data and profiting from our use of the computer.
There’s so much more we need to break now.
it’s very sad to me that I won’t be rooting my next phone because of play integrity API. At least ADB is here to stay… right?
i would let this man fix my broken app connected cockring
I wonder if he accepts those products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pwym1VUfl0
Depends on if you want to believe him or not 😋
Who else heard “gargle my balls” upon seeing that pic of Louis Rossman?
For those not familiar, check out his YT channel, his work with futo.org (https://wiki.futo.org/index.php/Introduction_to_a_Self_Managed_Life:_a_13_hour_%26_28_minute_presentation_by_FUTO_software), and his Consumer Action Taskforce wiki (https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Main_Page). Here is a person with an electronics repair business trying his hardest to make sure nobody ever needs his services.
Louis always leaves me confused. He gives a strong libertarian vibe but equally I seem to find myself in agreement with most of what he says, certainly on board with his crusade.
He’s got that typical Libertarian thing where he hates regulation and anything that might interfere with his business. And yet, he doesn’t realize his core complaint (hardware manufacturers making their gear impossible to repair) can only be solved with government regulation of those businesses.
I’m very similar, he has a good message, but the way he comes off is a complete turn off to me. Can’t stand the guy.
What you need is design with purpose. Why is there an app vs physical controls. Because everyone’s doing it, or to collect data to sell, or because it offers real value to the user?
If it doesn’t benefit users, don’t be surprised when you get flamed and lose sales.
we’ve gone to a house email account with a tablet that is hooked to it and all those accounts stay on that and it never moves. But even then all those things that need it are put on a list for getting rid of and if we NEED the smart tech of it we will start to look for other options.
