Smart appliances being abandoned by manufacturers

I have a Denon hifi, where the internet radio service was suddenly stopped; a message appeared on the screen, basically blackmailing me into paying for a subscription for the service I thought would always be included with the hifi.
www.diynot.com

Safety and remote switching of supplies.

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www.diynot.com www.diynot.com

It would be nice if products came with guaranteed long term support, but that is not always sustainable for a business.
Alternatively, my hope would be, that if services are unexpectedly cut, then there is a network of very clever people out there, that may be able to open source solutions.
...we will have to wait and see if the 'Right to Repair' movement in the US, brings us any benefits.
 
I got Energenie TRV heads, said it would work with Nest, the got Nest and did not work as they should, phoned and told Nest has withdrawn support.

They still work, but not as I had expected.
 
Imo a lot of the so called "smart" products are purely to sell items, everything is smart these days for the sake of it. Smart door locks for example are expensive and pointless for me, you have to get your phone out to unlock a door! My washing machine has a smart feature where through an app I can select a programme and start it, never used it cos it doesn't load the machine, add detergent and close the door. It's just there to jump on the smart bandwagon
 
Utter waste of cash imo on items such as washing machine, refrigeration etc. I get it with house heating but why do I need smart controls on my oven?
The subscription model is a rip off and support can be withdrawn at any time or if part of the business is spun off to a subsidiary etc.
Not for me!
 
Not for me, dish washer is smart but never used it. Its easier to switch it on when you close the door and Its just one more thing to go wrong.
 
I can't understand why people go for these 'smart' appliances. There's nothing 'smart' about them! You still have to load the dishwasher/oven/washing machine etc Then you have to whip out your phone to switch it on or set it to come on at a certain time. Why not just use the 'Delay' timer on the machine after you have loaded it? We have 2 robotic lawnmowers, (because my wife is disabled and can't push/control a petrol/electric driven one that I sometimes use). The first one we bought is settable to come out according to a program that you set on the machine at the start of the season. Works great and we can change the programme any time we want. The 'newer' version is app controlled and is a right faff to set up and control. Only goes on one phone, (my wifes because I'm no use with these things), but you can do some of the settings on the machine.
 
Our washing machine lives in a brick shed separate from the house so my wife likes the phone notification when it's finished but it's not reliant on smart features to function.

Proprietary software and services are the evil element of it, I've been setting up some home assistant monitoring and control of a few bits and have every confidence it should all keep going (hardware failures permitting) for a good long while as it's not reliant on external services and the software I'm using for control (Home Assistant) and some of the devices (Tasmota) is open source, I work in the computer networking/IT field though so it's not too tricky for me.
 
Wrt smart appliances I can see benefits for loading machines up and getting them to start at a certain time.

Mainly those load shifting to use cheaper rate tariffs being the main one.

A manufacturer shouldn’t close a service and start charging for it unless you have an alternative third party route to go down.
Although the argument will be you can still use the device just not the smart feature unless you pay X.

The issue for the customer is more that they can’t use a feature that the product was sold on as being available without them later being held to ransom.

Get this issue a lot nowadays days with alarm
Manufacturers introducing charges for cloud based apps. it’s not a lot of money, but it was free and lots of my customers kicked off having to pay after having it free for over 5 years.

With some of the alarms their party applications could be used and this may save money by having multiple devices going through one system, but the new system has hardware costs etc.
 
secureiam said:
Get this issue a lot nowadays days with alarm
Manufacturers introducing charges for cloud based apps. it’s not a lot of money, but it was free and lots of my customers kicked off having to pay after having it free for over 5 years.
Click to expand...
I think part of the problem comes down to expectations - we are so used to getting certain services for free, without seeing where those costs are recouped; be it through advertising, upgrade paths, or access to other services.
For instance, I bought a web connected Samsung security camera, about eight years ago - it has been used daily - the server costs to continuously stream this data, would probably cost more than the price I payed for the camera!
There are similar ongoing costs to keep legacy devices updated, secure and supported.
If the true costs of services were known to us from the start and manufacturers were open about support timelines, would we be happier to pay for a subscription service?
 
It makes sense to be upfront, a business has to make money or they are gone.

how long should something be supported, from say last manufactured to last sold. I see discontinued products being sold as new every day even by major distributors. Stock has to be sold and often a newer product is bought rather than the older product at the point an item is obsoleted.

I got a product once that was sold with a 5 year warranty for a customer to replace an old damaged unit, they discontinued the product weeks later, when the manufacturer was questioned about it, there was no alternative suitable product and it would mean at least replacing 2 expensive parts of the system if it failed.

Thank goodness not all manufacturers leave you high and dry, replacements of the above would have to be old stock or used.
 
My wife still performs as expected , if a little slower now , but not really a smart device , more dyslexic .
 
Only WEB here would be spider webs

dolly tub.jpg
 
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