Comment by koinedad 2 days ago
Not sure the full motivation behind this but this is very annoying for a parent with kids. Especially if you've lost your remote, or want to quickly find something and cast it to your Chromecast/Apple TV.
I'd prefer video streaming apps be required to support Casting/AirPlay.
Well, the consequence would be to cancel the subscription now?
All this app stuff is so annoying. I reverted back a while ago. Now when i want the radio on i just switch it on. With an actual switch. Same with my lights— an actual real switch! Theres no benefit to chaining all your behind someapp the needs updated installed, logged in passwords, managed, ooo you haven’t logged in for 90 days lets send you an email to update your password- bro i just want to increase my heating. Its all nonsense. Sooner people realise the better.
TODAY I got an email saying my $600 robot vacuum cleaner -- which only works via an app -- would no longer work with said app.
It has no physical buttons to manage schedules, just a "spot clean now" button.
I hand-wrung when I bought it -- knowing it was a risk requiring I trust them -- aand I was bitten.
Awesome.
Welcome to the future.
Nobody on HN wants to hear this, but REG-U-LA-TION. The glorious free market is consistently failing to solve the growing problem of cloud-tethered and app-tethered products being nerfed by their manufacturers after the point of sale.
I think those who believe regulation is universally the devil forget the era where products were received DOA and customers had no recourse while companies simply called it profit.
Sorry, but it's CUS-TO-MERS. They buy stuff that can only be controlled via an app talking to the cloud. They buy stuff that cannot be repaired. They buy stuff that openly lies about its specs, for an "unbelievably good price". The customers go for the cheapest, all else be damned.
Education in general, and about critical thinking in particular, could help.
You may want to check if your robot is supported by Valetudo: https://valetudo.cloud/
Reading through that site, it seems like instead of locking yourself into a corporations app, you're locking it into his instead. He doesn't seem to want to run an open source community, he's building an app for himself and publishing it for people who have exactly the same use case as him.
True, but you don't need to install updates once you have the software installed, and it's probably better not to. The software on the robot doesn't need the app to control, either - it exposes an API that either the app or custom software can talk to, sans cloud servers.
ooo thanks for the link, buuut it appears NEATO Robotics vacuums aren't supported ... yet.
I had hoped Home Assistant might be able to handle it but it appears their integration just sends the data to NEATO, which no no longer works.
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/neato/
Blarg.
No, I’d say the App Store,
I consider it a device perk. I bought the iPhone and Apple TV largely because of airplay so if they remove that functionality it will move me to use other streaming services that support it or I’ll just buy movies again and stop paying streaming altogether.
Its a selling point for Apple and Google devices.
Buy into their ecosystem and things "just work". Except when they don't.
Its a cross cutting requirement that adds value for the platform.
> this is very annoying for a parent with kids
But the parents without kids, will they at least continue to be leafs? (Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry...)
> Not sure the full motivation behind this
This feature was one of the main reasons how Netflix movies/shows could be captured/uploaded to piracy sites in full quality as soon as they were released. People recorded the video output and uploaded them. This is to remove that path. Kinda obvious if you ask.
I’ve helped several elderly neighbors get setup with casting to their TVs as well. Just a debacle that’s going to frustrate a bunch of people for no good reason. Really wish the teams that implement ‘features’ like this were forced to deal with the consequences. At least in the olden days, they’d get feedback in the form of calls and complaints to their help line but now it’s just “Too bad, app changed, deal with it.”