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Smart devices are turning out to be a poor investment (www.androidpolice.com)

submitted 7 months ago by dantheclamman@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago (9 children)

This person prioritized buying the new hotness over researching longevity, and they got burned.

Amazon and Google's products are not where I would invest my money if I was concerned about long term support. Both of those companies have a solid track record of killing stuff off.

Buy that stuff if you want, but don't be surprised if something gets killed off in 3-5 years.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 months ago (7 children)

The problem is that non-smart stuff (or at least stuff that doesn't require a cloud connection) is hard to come by. For example:

cars - (nearly?) every EV and most other new cars connect to the cloud for no good reason
TVs - can't find a "dumb" TV in the 50"+ category; I'm still looking...
refrigerators - "dumb" fridges still exist, but there's not a lot of variety; we wanted a French door fridge, but couldn't find one without the smart crap with the ice maker in the freezer section (an ice maker in the fridge is just asking for problems); we had to get a side by side
lightbulbs - at Home Depot, I could only find the crappy store brand or their smart bulbs, nothing in between

And so on. It's increasingly difficult to find decent, long lasting stuff. Almost everything is going to be incredibly insecure in 3-5 years once software support stops, and then it'll be irresponsible to keep it any longer.

At this point, I don't think you can really blame the consumers, manufacturers seem intent on driving this "smart home" nonsense. Sure, have a tier for that product, but also sell a version without it.

[–] space@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

The cost of the parts necessary for the network connectivity is nothing in comparison to the money all that data brings. That's probably why it's happening everywhere.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Also planned obsolescence.

Your smart device is out of support and no longer receiving security updates. Buy the new version to get new features and improved security!

Or if the smart device circuit board breaks, charge so much for replacement parts that the customer just buys a new device.

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