I firmly believe that manufacturers and sellers of ANY physical device that requires an extra app, account or internet connection to work or has some functions that require these should be legally obligated to state that CLEARLY on the packaging and in all the marketing materials they publish. There are big ugly warnings on cigarettes, I want something similar on shitty products that are metaphorically cancerous too...
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Enshittification
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I had to call support for new dishwasher because it wasn't in the manual. I posted the tips and model online since the manufacturer left them out of the user manual...
Boy do I feel lucky. I just bought a new dishwasher like 6 months ago, and apparently, I dodged a bullet. Whether or not it requires internet and an app to control was NOT a consideration when we were comparing models.
Difference is, I'm absolutely petty enough to have spent another 4 hours to remove it and return it.
That's not even petty, just good consumer sense on your part.
Dishwashers, fridges, laundry machines, vacuums and other basic home appliances are mostly mature technologies; their basic design & function solidified over 70 years ago and there's not much left to improve on now (other than efficiency).
This isn't an issue for consumers or private companies, but public companies need to deliver increasing profits (not just steady profits) year over year. One solution to this is planned obsolescence, but adding a bunch of unnecessary tech "features" kills two birds with one stone by allowing manufacturers to justify higher prices while also building in additional points of failure. It's also a means of harvesting consumer data which can then be sold for additional profit.
Good for shareholders, bad for everyone else.
Or my fridge!
I think the real issue is we don't have a good reliable way to have different gadgets talk to each other reliably. So they go the route that's easiest for most consumers and have them phone home and run instructions through their servers. Of course we don't need a dishwasher that is internet connected and those function could be on the display. However, it also is easy to internet connect them and offer changing functionality. The arrival of standards like matter off iot is hopefully going to improve this situation.
Bacnet profiles or homeassistant.
A Pi bacnet gateway or home assistant server could be barely more than the cost of these other IOT gateways,
If manufacturers started making home assistant native devices both would see way more adoption.
They won't, because revenue potential of capturing that UX is too juicy to give up, even in favor of having a good product.
Yes, but now that home assistant is matter certified, maybe we'll see more take up. Not to mention Sonos getting railed for messing up their app. Make it open and people can choose the app to use.
There is no need to connect appliances to the net, but there are benefits. Similarly, with a home network.
It's a pity we don't have existing regulations to require features to work without an account and to make removal of features a reason for a refund. Servers cost money but I don't need the manufacturer to have a server of it's open from the start.
I’m imagining trying to walk my parents through finding their dishwasher’s IP on the LAN and I realize why people take the easy route
Yep, it's a shame. And it's probably 20 years too late to change now.
A simple standardised interface onnroutersz like a home network html page that just links you through to the device. It's not a new concept. Old printers used to have it so you could print across the network.
Unfortunately, as it's only tech literate people accessing and changing their router settings, they remain obtuse and complex. If info to any persons house that's boomerz their wifi is ispname123 and the password is a sticker that they keep on a drawer.
My current router has a simple and advanced interface which I think is a step in the right direction.
Basic computing needs to be an elementary school class.
Kids will get binary logic. Tweens can understand registers and instructions. The idea of a parser or an interface would go a long way for teens.
One can only dream.
The best thing would be if they did not require cloud services to accomplish anything. I'd be happy if they would support a common standard for communication with an in-house server, thought.
