I get that the people who buy this stuff might not know what needing an always-online service to function entails, but what were the designers thinking?
Designers were probably thinking "well this is stupid but it's what I'm paid to do and I didn't decide to have a fucking bed be always online". The execs that made the decision are probably thinking "why didn't the designers think of this problem and prevent it? We should fire some. "
Oh the innocence. Execs don't neglect that, they specifically ask for that. This bed doesn't work without a subscription so offline functionality would lose them money
The designers were thinking "we want to force users to a monthly subscription".
So against my preference, we bought one of these. Years ago and it wasn't so crazy expensive and the basic 'cloud' functionality was free. Over the course of the years of the initially decent warranty, the covers sprang leaks and so we got free upgrades carrying us all the way to a generation of the product where they replaced the crappy molded leak prone water mat with decent tubes that seem to be more resilient, all without needing to get in the subscription. As a consequence, I know about their evolution.
From the onset, they were hammered with "phone over the internet control is bogus, add a remote or buttons on the base or something", and they kept responding with vague "we are working a solution". Well, they ultimately did, they added earbud-style 'tap N number of times on the side to adjust things or dismiss alarms". Ok, super awkward and still no buttons, but at least it has local controls, right? Well, I go to try it and it just gives the long-buzz error indication. Turns out the app has to be used to activate the bed or schedule a start time before the local controls will let you control it. When they explicitly added a local control loop, they blocked it from working unless the cloud service said it was ok.
This is not "crappy developer stupidly doesn't know how to make local control work". This is "developer going out of their way to screw over a customer to force them to keep paying for every single month they want the product to keep working".
A shame, aversion to buttons aside, the hardware design is really quite good, quiet and effective and seemingly more leak resistant.
This is spot on. Note these asshats eventually caved and added local controls when customers kept saying how horrible it was to use the phone. The local controls are explicitly disabled unless the cloud service has recently approved the bed to allow the local controls to work. You have to use the phone to enable the local controls. The phone can't do anything locally except tell it how to connect to wifi. If you don't have the subscription or grandfathered in before the subscription, the local controls do nothing.
Well, unless you jailbreak your cover with FreeSleep.
Wow, I didn't know freesleep was a thing. I wrote the sleep pod off due to the subscription snd cloud reliance. Looks like someone is working on a Home Assistant integration too! This is definitely something I'm going to follow.
I'm conflicted though, as I really don't want to give money to a company with such a terrible business model, but they're the only ones who make this kind of bed.
I'd research Chilipad harder if I were in the market again. At very cursory glance it seems like less of an uphill battle. I could be wrong and they could be douchey, or their engineering somehow sucks, but maybe they are good too.
FreeSleep is what I would do if they try to force the subscription on me, but I probably wouldn't buy the product hoping that I can change their firmware against their will. I don't want to give money to a vendor I would just be antagonistic with.
If they announced they formally endorsed use of FreeSleep as an 'advanced alternative', ok, but that isn't going to happen.
Oh wow, that looks even better! When I was looking into this about a year or so ago all I could find was the BedJet and it used air instead of water. There was another company but it went out of business, this looks like it might be it?
Do you know if the Chillpad Dock Pro has sleep tracking like the Sleep 8? A big seller for me is that it automatically prevents overheating/being cold, and wakes you up at the right time. The website says this:
Automatic Temperature Adjustments for Optimal Sleep
Schedule automated temperature adjustments throughout the night to keep your bed at the perfect temperature for optimal sleep.
That sounds contradictory for it to be both automatic, but also scheduled.
If you don't own it or don't know don't worry, I'll research it more. I really appreciate you showing me these options!
I just saw that they’re bringing back local controls but I bet it’s going to time out if the service is down for more than X time to refresh your license.
But you know what isn't as easy or basic as that? Convincing Product Managers and others on up the chain that you should be able to take some time to code and test to fix an issue they don't give a fuck about because it doesn't affect their metrics.
I have a mattress i purchased for $100 of my buddy when he moved out the country. He ordered it online the year before for $400. I can just throw it on the ground and sleep on it no problem when i move. Not sure why a mattress would ever need an Internet connection other than to spy on you
Theoretically what they were offering can be useful. It both heats and cools, so you can leave the house temperature higher or lower to save on energy costs while staying comfy in bed. It has tilting feature which can be nice for reading or watching TV. Also, you'd hope that it would be a comfy bed in general for that price.
Of course this event shows the makers are fools and the concept of a subscription being needed, for an already overpriced bed, to do what a knob could do, is insane.
Or you can get a window unit if you want your bedroom cooler in the summer and a heated blanket for the winter for a fraction of the cost. And once again, neither of those options will spy on you or stop working just because Amazon shit the bed 1000 miles away from where you live. My parents have a high end mattress that tilts but it doesn't need an Internet connection, and cost half the price of this thing. IoT devices are a luxury tax on people too stupid for all their money.
then they will have to cope of buying a 2000$ "normal" mattress. its the same people that bought 1800$ smart fridge from samsung. last december deal we purchase a normal mattress for less than 120$
Eight Sleep confirmed that while AWS was down, the metrics collection system was still working using internal memory. This means the dead man’s switch is engaged, and any attempt to power it off would violate the terms of service, causing the bed’s very obvious human-sized mousetrap to have its safety disengaged.
When AWS went down, users lost access to the app that manages its water-cooled coils, leaving them stuck with whatever setting was last active.
That's ridiculous. The app should merely talk to the device over wifi, if available. The cloud should only be used to connect from outside the wifi network.
But even that makes little sense as it should take commands locally and any telemetry should be done after the commands are issued. This method basically says “if we ever miss out on telemetry data, it’s just not worth it to us to give you what you already paid for. “
i heard people got locked in, or out of thier house on thier smart"locks", and also ring cameras were affected because the ALARM SOUNDS WOULDNT TURN OFF.
It just so happens that overwhelming amount of them do what they should not do - create actual apps (webapps in reality). We could thank Google or frameworks for this, but ultimately their incompetence leads to situations like this. Webdevs thinking of everything as a platform for their stuff that should be working at all times. If they were actual devs they would build proper native apps, think more about how devices actually supposed to work, and rely on cloud less.
I get that many could be static pages, but you're comparing web vs desktop. And in that case, I prefer web most of the time. Why? It works the same everywhere, and I can probably access it just fine on my phone without having to get their mobile app, which probably has fewer features and more telemetry.
Web doesn't make sense for everything, but it's far better than desktop apps for relatively simple use cases. If the app isn't performance sensitive and doesn't need to store a ton of data, web is my preferred platform, especially since I'm a Linux user and would likely need to run the app through WINE instead.
Not desktop. Native. You can build native apps for smartphones and pretty much anything. Web comes into play when you decide you won't build native version of what you want. In some cases that is guided by thoughts like "I know web will fit this project. I know the platform and will remember to keep memory and internet usage low", but in most cases it's about "no idea what that startup is about, but I know some AngularJS and they said I can use AWS so that'll do".
Similar thing is happening now with Unreal Engine 5. The difference between devs and webdevs became very similar to the difference between coding and vibe coding.
and doesn't need to store a ton of data
I know by data you mean "data I care about as a dev" but that should also include data that is actually processed and saved on user's device. And webapps are notoriously bad at keeping their caches and data usage low.
There is no difference, webdev is someone who solves problems with web tech, mobile dev is someone who does mobile apps, embedded dev works with low level components, etc. It's all development, and often the two will mix.
For example, I worked at a startup using C for embedded stuff, Go for the server stuff, and web tech for the FE. Rust wasn't out yet, so C was the best option for interfacing with the board components (in this case a math module for our signal processing), Go was a good mix of performance and ease of training new devs, and a web FE was the lowest barrier to getting our customers using our product (basically a high end IOT device). We built a small native FE for certain simulations, and eventually moved it to a server with a web FE.
At my current role, we build a reporting and simulation app for a niche industry. We do everything from simple forms to 3D rendering to simulations that take hours to complete (most are 15-45min). Our customers use crappy laptops, so doing the processing locally isn't an option (they probably don't have enough RAM anyway), so we're going to need a server. Because of that, we decided to build it as a web app. We still have native components (some simulations use C++, another was Fortran until recently, etc), and they're maintained by Ph.Ds in our field because the hard part isn't the coding (our JS specialists could handle that, they've built a 3D app in the last few months with complex transformations and calculations due to business login needs), but knowing the math behind it all, hence the researchers.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap because they hired a dev team to build a static site, there are apps like the two I mentioned that do interesting things and happen to use web technologies.
I didn't say that. There are always well engineered apps and things. But few. Compared to that, a lot of mainstream desktop apps are now web apps for no good reason. The actual reason is webdevs not challenging themselves to become something else or at least better.
If I read your case correctly, it's basically "customers use crappy laptops -> we decided to make them use web browsers" which sounds insane to me because web content IS the reason why tons of otherwise unnecessary upgrades are done in recent 10 years or so. Office guys can't use Chrome with just 8 GB of RAM because it will affect their business performance.
Not that I don't believe your case doesn't contain other specifics that make web a right choice. And I don't need to know more of that. It's just how it sounded to me.
A smart bed that can't function without checking in with mother ship? That's the dumbest thing ever. You can always tell the businesses that skipped testing lol.
They're gathering something. Like a lot of "smart" stuff that's connected to AWS, there's just no reason to do it that way other than to take your data.
seen this complaining on r/mildlyinfuriating all the time, people complaining thier SMART appliances was not cooperating like thier old non-smart appliances.
People wondering why this was designed to need the cloud, it requires a subscription fee. Overpriced greedy product. Its actually a good idea (bed temp control), but too greedy
Smart thermostats are really important for managing heat pumps efficiently. Especially when they're multistage. I mean, not necessarily that they have to be always online, but they do benefit a lot from more smarts than the basic thermostats of the past.
How does the “smarts” help? All a thermostat needs to call for multistage would be is statistical analysis for heat/cool deltas and resist, which offline thermostats have been doing for a while.
All the “savings” my “smart” thermostat reports is because I have set-backs, which I had with my old model which also supported multistage heat pumps. The thermostat in question is mind-bogglingly stupid when it comes to handling time of use rates.
So, overall, not very impressed. Happily, I can manage it with Homeassistant.
. . . statistical analysis for heat/cool deltas and resist, which offline thermostats have been doing for a while.
Which is basically what I said. You can't do that with old fashioned thermostats. They don't necessarily have to be online.
I do think it helps with setting more complex schedules. The UI for doing this in an app is easier, unless you want a thermostat that's basically a small tablet.
Right, I know the language around this makes it a little difficult. Old thermostats don't necessarily have electronics more sophisticated than a relay and a bimetalic strip. But having a small computer in there doesn't necessarily mean it has to be online.
Dumb X <- offline/manual/no app (or none that works if you're not in your home network/no cloud
Smart X <- requires a increasingöy more costly monthly subscription, spies on you and shits itself on the thought of losing internet access. Usually yields worse results than Dumb X
Especially when they’re multistage. I mean, not necessarily that they have to be always online, but they do benefit a lot from more smarts than the basic thermostats of the past.
Smart thermostats are no better than $30 programmable thermostats, which don't randomly change temps and don't rely on servers.
I'm a sucker who bought one.
No, that's demonstrably untrue. The way smart thermostats can make better decisions about temperature management does lower energy usage even on traditional setups. They're essential on heat pumps in colder climates.
And this is why I only buy "smart" tech that can be used offline, and then put it on a separate vlan with extremely restricted access. Screw the cloud.
So in my case (I didn't want to, but not my choice, but at least it was cheap and without subscription at the time), it was about the water cooling/warming. It's really nice and essentially inaudible.
I think Chilipad is a brand that does it without the online bullshit, though I didn't get to try that.
None of this should ever require an internet connection, and it's abundantly clear that's an anti-consumer hostile forced behavior Eight Sleep did.
This is right up there with the Louvre security being connected to the internet and was hackable. Maybe some old fashioned alarms and guards would've been better.
It doesn't matter if you can disable it by cutting a wire, it's the same amount of security in this case.
There were of course alarms that you couldn't disable by cutting an obvious wire, just like there are smart alarms that you can't actually hack easily.
its like a smart fridge, or a smart electric toothbrush, something that requires an internet connection, usually it connects to an app on your phone to control certain features on said appliances, which people are too lazy to do themslves. when AWS went down, apps, or sites that uses aws went on the fritz.
The fix is investing in redundant internet at house from multiple providers. Satellite+fiber and achieve 99.99999% uptime so the bed won't Crash and allow you a good night of sleep.
Because it's unacceptable to send commands directly from the phone to the bed located in the same room, they need to transit between a dozen server farms to gather the delicious telemetry
The fix is investing in redundant internet at house from multiple providers. Satellite+fiber and achieve 99.99999% uptime so the bed won't Crash and allow you a good night of sleep.
Yeah, uh... That wouldn't have helped here since it wasn't a drop in the internet on the user's side that fucked shit up; it was whatever shit is going on with Amazon's servers that make up a huge chunk of the web's backbone.
The fix would be having your phone talk directly to the bed instead of having to do anything over the internet at all. Or just having a normal fucking bed that is dumb as shit.
105 Comments
dumbass@aussie.zone · 118 pts · 305d
Hahahah wtf is this world anymore, beds getting fucked up because an internet service broke, this is the stupidest timeline.
bigchungus@piefed.blahaj.zone · 42 pts · 305d
I get that the people who buy this stuff might not know what needing an always-online service to function entails, but what were the designers thinking?
meco03211@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 305d
Designers were probably thinking "well this is stupid but it's what I'm paid to do and I didn't decide to have a fucking bed be always online". The execs that made the decision are probably thinking "why didn't the designers think of this problem and prevent it? We should fire some. "
AbidanYre@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 305d
That assumes the execs didn't just contract out all the development and neglect to include an offline requirement.
The designers weren't going to get paid for the extra work so they didn't do it.
Anivia@feddit.org · 6 pts · 305d
Oh the innocence. Execs don't neglect that, they specifically ask for that. This bed doesn't work without a subscription so offline functionality would lose them money
jj4211@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 305d
The designers were thinking "we want to force users to a monthly subscription".
So against my preference, we bought one of these. Years ago and it wasn't so crazy expensive and the basic 'cloud' functionality was free. Over the course of the years of the initially decent warranty, the covers sprang leaks and so we got free upgrades carrying us all the way to a generation of the product where they replaced the crappy molded leak prone water mat with decent tubes that seem to be more resilient, all without needing to get in the subscription. As a consequence, I know about their evolution.
From the onset, they were hammered with "phone over the internet control is bogus, add a remote or buttons on the base or something", and they kept responding with vague "we are working a solution". Well, they ultimately did, they added earbud-style 'tap N number of times on the side to adjust things or dismiss alarms". Ok, super awkward and still no buttons, but at least it has local controls, right? Well, I go to try it and it just gives the long-buzz error indication. Turns out the app has to be used to activate the bed or schedule a start time before the local controls will let you control it. When they explicitly added a local control loop, they blocked it from working unless the cloud service said it was ok.
This is not "crappy developer stupidly doesn't know how to make local control work". This is "developer going out of their way to screw over a customer to force them to keep paying for every single month they want the product to keep working".
A shame, aversion to buttons aside, the hardware design is really quite good, quiet and effective and seemingly more leak resistant.
fxleak@lemmings.world · 5 pts · 305d
"We need to remind them who's in charge."
FreeBooteR69@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 305d
Here i am with my primitive bed with zero electronics.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 304d
These are the same people that elected trump AFTER seeing his stupidity for four fucking years.
dirthawker0@lemmy.world · 71 pts · 305d
I think coding a contingency for loss of internet connectivity has got to be as basic as preventing Little Bobby Tables from deleting your data.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 37 pts · 305d
But then you might be able to bypass the €25/mth subscription on your €3059 mattress cover.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 305d
This is spot on. Note these asshats eventually caved and added local controls when customers kept saying how horrible it was to use the phone. The local controls are explicitly disabled unless the cloud service has recently approved the bed to allow the local controls to work. You have to use the phone to enable the local controls. The phone can't do anything locally except tell it how to connect to wifi. If you don't have the subscription or grandfathered in before the subscription, the local controls do nothing.
Well, unless you jailbreak your cover with FreeSleep.
foggenbooty@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
Wow, I didn't know freesleep was a thing. I wrote the sleep pod off due to the subscription snd cloud reliance. Looks like someone is working on a Home Assistant integration too! This is definitely something I'm going to follow.
I'm conflicted though, as I really don't want to give money to a company with such a terrible business model, but they're the only ones who make this kind of bed.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
I'd research Chilipad harder if I were in the market again. At very cursory glance it seems like less of an uphill battle. I could be wrong and they could be douchey, or their engineering somehow sucks, but maybe they are good too.
FreeSleep is what I would do if they try to force the subscription on me, but I probably wouldn't buy the product hoping that I can change their firmware against their will. I don't want to give money to a vendor I would just be antagonistic with.
If they announced they formally endorsed use of FreeSleep as an 'advanced alternative', ok, but that isn't going to happen.
foggenbooty@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 305d
Oh wow, that looks even better! When I was looking into this about a year or so ago all I could find was the BedJet and it used air instead of water. There was another company but it went out of business, this looks like it might be it?
Do you know if the Chillpad Dock Pro has sleep tracking like the Sleep 8? A big seller for me is that it automatically prevents overheating/being cold, and wakes you up at the right time. The website says this:
That sounds contradictory for it to be both automatic, but also scheduled.
If you don't own it or don't know don't worry, I'll research it more. I really appreciate you showing me these options!
certified_expert@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 305d
hahahahahahahaha... this is so stupid!
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 305d
I just saw that they’re bringing back local controls but I bet it’s going to time out if the service is down for more than X time to refresh your license.
Sabata11792@ani.social · 16 pts · 305d
You have upset the shareholders.
Zink@programming.dev · 4 pts · 305d
You are correct!
But you know what isn't as easy or basic as that? Convincing Product Managers and others on up the chain that you should be able to take some time to code and test to fix an issue they don't give a fuck about because it doesn't affect their metrics.
dhork@lemmy.world · 70 pts · 305d
There's an offline mode after all. Unplug it!
ramble81@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 305d
And the air bladders have a leak that was usually dealt with by it being plugged in so it deflates and you’re left with a very flat and hard bed.
InnerScientist@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 305d
So? That doesn't sound as bad as full power heating.
BakerBagel@midwest.social · 2 pts · 305d
I have a mattress i purchased for $100 of my buddy when he moved out the country. He ordered it online the year before for $400. I can just throw it on the ground and sleep on it no problem when i move. Not sure why a mattress would ever need an Internet connection other than to spy on you
greybeard@feddit.online · 2 pts · 305d
Theoretically what they were offering can be useful. It both heats and cools, so you can leave the house temperature higher or lower to save on energy costs while staying comfy in bed. It has tilting feature which can be nice for reading or watching TV. Also, you'd hope that it would be a comfy bed in general for that price.
Of course this event shows the makers are fools and the concept of a subscription being needed, for an already overpriced bed, to do what a knob could do, is insane.
BakerBagel@midwest.social · 3 pts · 305d
Or you can get a window unit if you want your bedroom cooler in the summer and a heated blanket for the winter for a fraction of the cost. And once again, neither of those options will spy on you or stop working just because Amazon shit the bed 1000 miles away from where you live. My parents have a high end mattress that tilts but it doesn't need an Internet connection, and cost half the price of this thing. IoT devices are a luxury tax on people too stupid for all their money.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 305d
the people that would by a 2k bed would also buy a 1800 samsung fridge that comes WITH ADS.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 305d
then they will have to cope of buying a 2000$ "normal" mattress. its the same people that bought 1800$ smart fridge from samsung. last december deal we purchase a normal mattress for less than 120$
notarobot@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 305d
Eight Sleep confirmed that while AWS was down, the metrics collection system was still working using internal memory. This means the dead man’s switch is engaged, and any attempt to power it off would violate the terms of service, causing the bed’s very obvious human-sized mousetrap to have its safety disengaged.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 305d
it turns into a smei-bear trap for humans.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works · 48 pts · 305d
That's ridiculous. The app should merely talk to the device over wifi, if available. The cloud should only be used to connect from outside the wifi network.
Why is everything so crappy?
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 305d
But even that makes little sense as it should take commands locally and any telemetry should be done after the commands are issued. This method basically says “if we ever miss out on telemetry data, it’s just not worth it to us to give you what you already paid for. “
mlg@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 305d
IoT devs avoid MQTT and Multicast traffic like the plague.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 305d
eh perhaps to collect usage data and somehow benefit from it.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 305d
i heard people got locked in, or out of thier house on thier smart"locks", and also ring cameras were affected because the ALARM SOUNDS WOULDNT TURN OFF.
rdri@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 304d
Because we have webdevs and think of them as devs. They are not devs. They are mostly idiots.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 304d
What do you mean? Webdevs are devs, just within a specific platform. And like any dev, they can suck or be great.
rdri@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 304d
It just so happens that overwhelming amount of them do what they should not do - create actual apps (webapps in reality). We could thank Google or frameworks for this, but ultimately their incompetence leads to situations like this. Webdevs thinking of everything as a platform for their stuff that should be working at all times. If they were actual devs they would build proper native apps, think more about how devices actually supposed to work, and rely on cloud less.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 304d
What's wrong with webapps?
I get that many could be static pages, but you're comparing web vs desktop. And in that case, I prefer web most of the time. Why? It works the same everywhere, and I can probably access it just fine on my phone without having to get their mobile app, which probably has fewer features and more telemetry.
Web doesn't make sense for everything, but it's far better than desktop apps for relatively simple use cases. If the app isn't performance sensitive and doesn't need to store a ton of data, web is my preferred platform, especially since I'm a Linux user and would likely need to run the app through WINE instead.
rdri@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 304d
Not desktop. Native. You can build native apps for smartphones and pretty much anything. Web comes into play when you decide you won't build native version of what you want. In some cases that is guided by thoughts like "I know web will fit this project. I know the platform and will remember to keep memory and internet usage low", but in most cases it's about "no idea what that startup is about, but I know some AngularJS and they said I can use AWS so that'll do".
Similar thing is happening now with Unreal Engine 5. The difference between devs and webdevs became very similar to the difference between coding and vibe coding.
I know by data you mean "data I care about as a dev" but that should also include data that is actually processed and saved on user's device. And webapps are notoriously bad at keeping their caches and data usage low.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 303d
There is no difference, webdev is someone who solves problems with web tech, mobile dev is someone who does mobile apps, embedded dev works with low level components, etc. It's all development, and often the two will mix.
For example, I worked at a startup using C for embedded stuff, Go for the server stuff, and web tech for the FE. Rust wasn't out yet, so C was the best option for interfacing with the board components (in this case a math module for our signal processing), Go was a good mix of performance and ease of training new devs, and a web FE was the lowest barrier to getting our customers using our product (basically a high end IOT device). We built a small native FE for certain simulations, and eventually moved it to a server with a web FE.
At my current role, we build a reporting and simulation app for a niche industry. We do everything from simple forms to 3D rendering to simulations that take hours to complete (most are 15-45min). Our customers use crappy laptops, so doing the processing locally isn't an option (they probably don't have enough RAM anyway), so we're going to need a server. Because of that, we decided to build it as a web app. We still have native components (some simulations use C++, another was Fortran until recently, etc), and they're maintained by Ph.Ds in our field because the hard part isn't the coding (our JS specialists could handle that, they've built a 3D app in the last few months with complex transformations and calculations due to business login needs), but knowing the math behind it all, hence the researchers.
Not all web apps are overengineered crap because they hired a dev team to build a static site, there are apps like the two I mentioned that do interesting things and happen to use web technologies.
rdri@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
I didn't say that. There are always well engineered apps and things. But few. Compared to that, a lot of mainstream desktop apps are now web apps for no good reason. The actual reason is webdevs not challenging themselves to become something else or at least better.
If I read your case correctly, it's basically "customers use crappy laptops -> we decided to make them use web browsers" which sounds insane to me because web content IS the reason why tons of otherwise unnecessary upgrades are done in recent 10 years or so. Office guys can't use Chrome with just 8 GB of RAM because it will affect their business performance.
Not that I don't believe your case doesn't contain other specifics that make web a right choice. And I don't need to know more of that. It's just how it sounded to me.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 305d
You're asking for trouble if you bought a "smart" bed that requires an internet connection to function.
sleen@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 305d
ohshit604@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 305d
Baffling that “smart” products don’t just utilize the local network for their functionality.
Erasmus@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 305d
db2@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 305d
It will have to find power somewhere else.
InnerScientist@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 305d
They bought a $2000 bed with a 24/7 internet requirement, how smart do you think they are?
iAvicenna@lemmy.world · 27 pts · 305d
anyone who buys a mattress that can't work without being connected to the internet deserves this
ohlaph@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 305d
A smart bed that can't function without checking in with mother ship? That's the dumbest thing ever. You can always tell the businesses that skipped testing lol.
Squizzy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 304d
Its a feature, make the product unusable if its not used as they intend. Take the sim card out of your car and watch it go into limp mode.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 304d
I don't have a smart car though, I use a bike. No registration, no tax, barely any regulations and fewer that are actually enforced.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 304d
They crave your data! They made it so that it cannot function without your sweet sweet sleep number!
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 305d
Are they analyzing your sleep telemetry so they can send you ads for nasal strips and melatonin?!?
Rocketpoweredgorilla@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 305d
Accidentally spill water in your bed and the next thing you know you're getting adult diaper ads on every device you own for the rest of your life.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 15 pts · 305d
Less than 2 minutes of humping and Amazon sends you Viagra overnight.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 305d
They're gathering something. Like a lot of "smart" stuff that's connected to AWS, there's just no reason to do it that way other than to take your data.
User79185@discuss.tchncs.de · 16 pts · 304d
I'm sorry, but why the fuck those exist and WHO THE FUCK is buying them!?...
just_another_person@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 305d
Anybody buying internet connected furniture is a sucker.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 305d
seen this complaining on r/mildlyinfuriating all the time, people complaining thier SMART appliances was not cooperating like thier old non-smart appliances.
kokesh@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 305d
I think idiots buying this crap deserve this.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 305d
Much like Cybertruck owners trapped and burned to death. I guess they did nazi that coming.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 305d
same people would buy supreme branded items, or cybertruck.
VivianRixia@piefed.social · 10 pts · 305d
Finally a bed that kills bed bugs by itself. You are welcome.
kubica@fedia.io · 1 pts · 305d
"We are going to bill you extra for the downtime service."
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 304d
People wondering why this was designed to need the cloud, it requires a subscription fee. Overpriced greedy product. Its actually a good idea (bed temp control), but too greedy
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 302d
I feel weird because I've like never had a problem with bed temperature lol maybe pillows but even then that hasn't been a problem for me in years.
r00ty@kbin.life · 9 pts · 305d
So far I've mostly avoided the whole "things that don't need to be on the Internet" situation.
Non smart TV (well that period when they started adding smart features but they're all out of date now so not even connected to the Internet)
All kitchen stuff is just kitchen stuff. No Internet.
Car is still offline.
Only real exception is smart thermostat, and that's just because when the boiler was installed that's what they put in.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 305d
Smart thermostats are really important for managing heat pumps efficiently. Especially when they're multistage. I mean, not necessarily that they have to be always online, but they do benefit a lot from more smarts than the basic thermostats of the past.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 305d
How does the “smarts” help? All a thermostat needs to call for multistage would be is statistical analysis for heat/cool deltas and resist, which offline thermostats have been doing for a while.
All the “savings” my “smart” thermostat reports is because I have set-backs, which I had with my old model which also supported multistage heat pumps. The thermostat in question is mind-bogglingly stupid when it comes to handling time of use rates.
So, overall, not very impressed. Happily, I can manage it with Homeassistant.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 305d
Which is basically what I said. You can't do that with old fashioned thermostats. They don't necessarily have to be online.
I do think it helps with setting more complex schedules. The UI for doing this in an app is easier, unless you want a thermostat that's basically a small tablet.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 305d
Ah my definition of smart thermostat is one that is IoT. We’ve had the offline, scheduling and multistage compatible for decades.
Definitely agree on the UI experience. Apps are nicer.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 305d
Right, I know the language around this makes it a little difficult. Old thermostats don't necessarily have electronics more sophisticated than a relay and a bimetalic strip. But having a small computer in there doesn't necessarily mean it has to be online.
elvith@feddit.org · 1 pts · 305d
Just use the terms as every layman does:
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 305d
Why? It's leaving out a very important third option. We should not be beholden to the definitions set by people who have limited understanding.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 305d
Smart thermostats are no better than $30 programmable thermostats, which don't randomly change temps and don't rely on servers. I'm a sucker who bought one.
frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 305d
No, that's demonstrably untrue. The way smart thermostats can make better decisions about temperature management does lower energy usage even on traditional setups. They're essential on heat pumps in colder climates.
eodur@piefed.social · 8 pts · 305d
And this is why I only buy "smart" tech that can be used offline, and then put it on a separate vlan with extremely restricted access. Screw the cloud.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 305d
Agreed. If it doesn't work with Home Assistant or requires me to use an account to use it, I'm completely not buying it.
cley_faye@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 304d
You can feel the smart in these.
thatradomguy@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 305d
First time I'm hearing of a smart bed.... who tf is buying this crap? I still see Teslas out in the open and drives me mad to no end.
AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 305d
NGL if you have the money, a Watercooled bed is amazing.
Getting one that doesn't work through the internet though, good luck.
pHr34kY@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 305d
Bed goes up. AWS goes down.
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 305d
why the fuck would you get a smart bed
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 305d
to drink smart water in.
jj4211@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 305d
So in my case (I didn't want to, but not my choice, but at least it was cheap and without subscription at the time), it was about the water cooling/warming. It's really nice and essentially inaudible.
I think Chilipad is a brand that does it without the online bullshit, though I didn't get to try that.
None of this should ever require an internet connection, and it's abundantly clear that's an anti-consumer hostile forced behavior Eight Sleep did.
oftenawake@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 304d
tgcoldrockn@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 305d
and still the product is more intelligent than the buyer
blazeknave@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
Mr robot
nuko147@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 304d
Man, reality is way weirder than i thought..
letsgo2themall@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
haha, I paid $150 for my mattress and $200 for the frame. I slept like a baby during the outage. Bunch of "tech" suckers.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
This is right up there with the Louvre security being connected to the internet and was hackable. Maybe some old fashioned alarms and guards would've been better.
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 304d
Do you seriously think old alarms were unhackable?
Darkenfolk@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 304d
Not being able to do it from a distance would probably be a boon to security.
Nalivai@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 304d
It doesn't matter if you can disable it by cutting a wire, it's the same amount of security in this case.
There were of course alarms that you couldn't disable by cutting an obvious wire, just like there are smart alarms that you can't actually hack easily.
no_nothing@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 305d
good. I hope that whole industry fails. plug in anything is bullshit. give me old fashioned!!!
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 305d
Can't just unplug them?
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 304d
That would require thought. Something that anyone buying a "smart" device, lack.
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 305d
Stupid bed.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 305d
I wonder what kind of data about your location and bedtime activities are these beds collecting and selling?
Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 305d
Woe, the bed got an erection.
myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 305d
What is a smart bed? I mean it’s a bed. Are remotes too good for people?
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 305d
its like a smart fridge, or a smart electric toothbrush, something that requires an internet connection, usually it connects to an app on your phone to control certain features on said appliances, which people are too lazy to do themslves. when AWS went down, apps, or sites that uses aws went on the fritz.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 305d
The fix is investing in redundant internet at house from multiple providers. Satellite+fiber and achieve 99.99999% uptime so the bed won't Crash and allow you a good night of sleep.
Because it's unacceptable to send commands directly from the phone to the bed located in the same room, they need to transit between a dozen server farms to gather the delicious telemetry
Also: local=no subscription and that's so bad
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 4 pts · 305d
Yeah, uh... That wouldn't have helped here since it wasn't a drop in the internet on the user's side that fucked shit up; it was whatever shit is going on with Amazon's servers that make up a huge chunk of the web's backbone.
The fix would be having your phone talk directly to the bed instead of having to do anything over the internet at all. Or just having a normal fucking bed that is dumb as shit.
Wispy2891@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 304d
no but i mean that if the user internet is down, the same problems would came out
HK65@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 305d
Read the whole comment, it's sarcasm
aesthelete@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 305d
Lol