I’ll start: printers.
I bought an HP in March 2020 when my job went remote and HP bricked it remotely after only 100 pages because I wouldn’t sign up for their subscription program. Ended up trashing a perfectly good printer.
Luckily my library’s close by and I can print there remotely.
Any car made after 2020…
Home speakers, the “smart” kind
Robot vacuums, I’ve always hated how they were all cloud-connected, but now they have cameras too.
Yeah I know about Valetudo.
Good news, there’s an open source vacuum project called Oomwoo, which allows you to build one yourself with off the shelf parts and a 3D printer
https://makerspet.com/blog/building-an-open-source-robot-vacuum-meet-oomwoo/
This is vapor wear.
Maybe it will be something sometime, but the post is just about an idea.
Have you seen any mowers that do that? Our back yard is mostly dead, but having it go out once a week would be so cool. I’m a little intimidated by the thought of putting this together, but also want to do it.
Edit: Looks like the vacuum is sold out.
A quick search for open source robot mowers pointed me to this: https://openmower.de/
As for Oomwoo, they’re still working on assembly instructions, so I wouldn’t immediately jump in unless you’re fine with a lot of tinkering. Also, it looks like right now they’re only considering parts kits, not fully assembled bots, and that seems to be a future add.
I personally still think it’s cool and will be keeping an eye on it
They always had cameras to detect walls and obstacles.
Lol no. The first roomba just bumped around until it ran out of power, and hopefully it’d have covered the whole floor. After that came the Lidar robots, which mapped rooms and actually thought about where they went. No cameras there.
You don’t have to get one with cameras though. I send my floorplan to china. But its worth it.
The ones without cameras are fewer and fewer, especially since using cameras is cheaper than lidar
as far as I can tell. everything. its like any time there is a new purchase I have to scrounge around to see if there is a dumb option.
Android phones. I mean, Google has been an advertising company the entire time (2008 to now) that Android has existed, but the enshittification has gotten worse and worse. I still like Android, though. I’m an Apple guy, but I haven’t forgotten wiping Android phones and flashing them with custom firmware, and getting the “AOSP-like” CyanogenMod, or the bone-stock “Google Play Edition” Android on an Android phone meant to slam 5 ads in your face every second. It was always a losing battle, but it was fun.
I still want a newer Android phone. I have a Galaxy S10. It’s still a good phone, but it should be the next phone I replace, before replacing my iPhone 16 Pro Max (which should last another 7-9 years).
As for printers, HP is always a losing bet. They suck. Their lasers aren’t bad at work, but they’re not great either. It’s always something with HP. I’ve heard Brother lasers are cheap enough and rock solid. I don’t really need a printer though. If I did, I’d get that one Brother laserjet everyone’s talking about. Just web search “that one brother printer” and look for the review that just says “stop worrying about printers and get that one brother printer.” Follow their link to Amazon to get the part number, and shop around.
Dude I hope my 16 Pro Max lasts that long. I only got it after breaking my 13 Pro Max. I’d never cracked screen in my 15 years of smartphone ownership. That blue variant was gorgeous and it would have lasted another 3 years easily.
I’m sure you and I were on the same XDA forums back in the day. I still have my old LG G3 with Lineage OS on it. I’ll always miss that era of Android. Wacky new features all the time on ROM, only for Google to integrate them in the main OS down the line.
We’d have been on the same XDA forums if we had the same device. Otherwise we may not have met. I never owned an LG phone, though I was considering the LG G5. I also liked the one with the second screen, the grandfather of every “notched” phone (its second screen was “attached” to the main screen and to the right of the camera). V something? LG had some good ideas.
I had a Galaxy S3, and an HTC One M8. I do not recall what I went by on XDA. I use a new name every year or two. It’s entirely possible we crossed paths one way or another. I’ve been online a long time.
I cracked my 16PM screen the other day. Fortunately it was just the screen protector. I love how spoiled we are now. Wet wipe, dry wipe, dust sticker. Then this plastic applicator that holds the screen protector by these pins perfectly centred on the phone screen, and you pull this tab while pressing down and it applies perfectly every time. My old screen protector was up there almost 2 years, since I bought the 16PM in November '24. This is the second one, I have one more in the box.
I’ve cracked a few screen protectors but never screens.
Oh man I always wanted an HTC one M8, such a badass phone back in the day.
I was mainly on XDA for the HTC Incredible and then eventually the HTC Resound. It wasn’t until after I got a Pixel phone that I stopped flashing ROMs.
After seeing some comments on this thread about GraphineOS it has my interest piqued. It would be hard to leave Apple now that I am thoroughly entrenched in the ecosystem though. There really isn’t anything else like it. I remember I yearned for Google to get their ecosystem act together for years, but alas they kill more products than they keep.
Where are you seeing ads in Android? I have a pixel and I’ve never had ads shoved in my face. Well, not by Google. The producers or providers of apps, sure, but that’s not on Google is it?
They started adding ads all over that Google news feed when you swipe right from your homescreen last year, the one that’s built into the Pixel launcher.
Ohhh. I’ve never, ever used that except when I accidentally fatfinger my way to it. I forget it exists.
Thankfully, this shit isn’t a part of Android itself (yet) and can easily be purged into oblivion with couple simple clicks.
What is unusable now is Google Play, and you kinda have to use it, or face inconvenience. But recently I am increasingly discovering that finding an apk on a separate website and installing it directly is faster and less offensive than using this eyecancer.
almost everything.
They are sneaking creepnology into all kinds of things it has no business being.
I’d go back to a Bakelite phone on a fucking land line if I could. As it stands I mostly try to buy older shit, cause not only is it typically better made, its just simple and basic with no extra pointless points of failure.
Cars, phones
windows. and any software related (github) to windows.
I’m now 100% all linux all the time.
I got an Epson printer to replace the HP that stopped doing email/app service because HP seemed it too old. The Epson just takes ink from a bottle which is really cheap to refil. The Epson has a tiny screen (which makes sense when you realize Epson is just a sub brand of Seiko). I fully expect the app to stop working some day.
HP printer, cars, appliances.
Dryer drum seals broke and bushings worn. I just bought parts and spent the time fixing it, to avoid the IOT new ones. Probably coat me 30% of getting a new one
Car: we were due for a new one, but we found a 2004 car in mint shape so we downgraded purposely. I wanted to be able to have easy repairs and no phone-home garbage of a new car, and never any SaaS nonsense.
For the Printer: the drugstore guy alerted me to the HP ink nonsense, so I went with a Canon.
Car: we were due for a new one, but we found a 2004 car in mint shape so we downgraded purposely. I wanted to be able to have easy repairs and no phone-home garbage of a new car, and never any SaaS nonsense.
If you’re in the US, there are some somewhat newer ones that only have 3G cell radios, so can’t talk to the cell network any more. That said, I have no idea what data they transfer when being serviced.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g39301678/3g-internet-sunset-cars/
I’ve been slowly doing more and more car repair. I just hope they don’t stop producing replacement parts to force you into buying new cars.
Eventually we’ll all either be riding bicycles or constantly repairing homemade vehicles like they do in Cuba.
It seems like the way things are going. We are also gonna need those cooling shirts with ice packs in them to prevent heat exhaustion.
I was thinking of this this morning, so looked up electric motor kits to retro fit cars. https://ev-evolution.eu/solution/ev-kit/
I’m so bummed out that this wasn’t around yet when I accidentally ruined my Honda Element’s motor.
But then again, it seems even these wouldn’t wanna push that frame around very much yet. :p
Pretty much anything that doesn’t run on foss. Game consoles in particular. When they all started requiring a subscription for basic online functionality, I moved all my gaming to PC and now also those retro bootleg handhelds. Love my Retroid Pocket 5.
I didn’t know game consoles were requiring subs now. Wild.
I’m mostly a PC gamer, though I do have a Gen1 Switch.
They don’t require subs. They have advantages if you get them but they don’t require them. I have multiple game systems that I don’t have subscriptions to and they all work just fine.
“Advantages” like being able to play a multiplayer game. Well where I’m from, the ability to play the multiplayer game is implied in the purchase of the multiplayer game.
I can play quite a few multi player games without a sub. I was playing pool blitz and destiny 2 just last night with no subscription.
I understand the autistic need to split hairs in an attempt to find the absolute truth, but in this case it has you defending some outrageously odious practices. You very well know that most games require the sub to play multiplayer, across all console systems.
So yes, you are correct. A few select games let you play multiplayer without the sub. Overall though, the vibe of the subscription is not “optional benefits”, but rather what should be core functionality. Many many many more multiplayer games require it rather than not.
Dude. How many computer games also require a sub to play. Seriously this is an idiotic argument against console games.
A fraction of a single percentage point. It’s literally just some MMOs, not even most of them. Have you never had a PC?
You’re taking a lot of offense at this. I love console games. I’m in no way arguing against them, but you’re taking my very specific critique, as an affront to all console games. Which explains why you are so passionately lying about the current state of how their multiplayer is mostly paywalled.
I’m sorry if you have no choice but to deal with it. You shouldn’t have to pay to play, or be resigned to find the good side in the fact that you are being left out by the paywall.
TVs. I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I want to set up a Linux based streaming box and have my actual TV completely offline.
I have a TCL/Roku that I’m not inclined to replace yet. I got tired of the “smart” thing fast. Most successful solution to take it offline without being nagged was to change the wifi password and tape over the flashing status light. Disconnecting wifi by settings either forces or dark-patterns you into reconnecting.
Honestly TVs were the original “insidious technology”. I always hated advertising and the constant brainwashing. After going off to study and watching movies and shows on a PC for a few years, coming back home and seeing a TV run in the background is so fucking grotesque. And that was before they added extra ads lol.
Televisions.
I will not have any “smart TV” that has access to the Internet, spewing ads and harvesting data in my house. I currently have two older dumb models and when they ultimately fail, I will switch to projectors. Chromecast and a Raspberry Pi server can handle everything I want, without ads
I’ve got a typical Samsung, software-bloated smart TV, only I’ve never connected it to the internet so it’s effectively just a dumb TV. With modern smart TVs, the price is effectively subsidized by advertisers that expect to turn you into a recurring revenue stream. That’s why dumb TVs typically cost more (if you can find them anymore).
In my view, advertisers paid for part of my TV, which I happily connected to a mini PC that is ad-blocked to the fullest extent, and all of the shows/movies I watch come from my arr stack and Plex.
Only downside is the TV still has a ~10 second nag popup at the bottom telling me to connect to the internet every time I turn it on. In my book, that’s still less annoying than a TV powering on to a system menu instead of an input source.
This is the way
This is why I lean more toward pc monitors. TV speakers tend to suck anyway, so I like using basic wired pc speakers with them anyway.
I hadn’t thought about projectors!
I have a dumb TV and two smart TV’s, which never get connected to the web. One of those smart TVs is a second computer monitor.
I may need to get a projector though. That’s a great idea.
Projectors put out a lot of heat depending on what you’re looking for.
Cars.
Most any vehicle made after 2006 will have one or more of these three issues:
- Lack of repairability. Not just computerization, but auth to the point where changing your brake pads and rotors can make your vehicle refuse to move until those brakes and rotors are authorized over the Internet by the vehicle manufacturer. And the software to do so costs $1M to buy, needs a $6k/mo subscription, and can only be bought by authorized dealers, locking out independent repair shops.
- Privacy. Almost all vehicles after 2006 and any before that with OnStar records everything the vehicle does and sends that up to the mothership to be repackaged and sold to data brokers. Then your insurance gets a copy and jacks up what you pay because you braked hard and sped slightly over the limit a few times. Modern cars will also record everything that happens inside and around the vehicle, to the point where when you buy the car you have to sign a waiver that states they have permission to record anyone doing anything inside the vehicle, up to and including having sex in the back seat.
- DRM. When you buy a vehicle with all the bells and whistles, but many of those bells and whistles are shut down until you pay $$$/mo to have them turned back on. Sorry, but if the vehicle came with it, I will gleefully crack that software until I can use that feature. I paid for it when I bought the vehicle, so I have every right to use it without paying a cent extra.
Ive got a 2017 car and a 2018 car, one of them is even electric and basically none of what you say is true until ~2020 model year. That’s about the time th subscription model came out for extras on some european cars.
basically none of what you say is true until ~2020 model year.
Ahem. You were saying?
OnStar had cellular modems in vehicles for the last 30 years. They were not “real time” like post-2006, when 3G connectivity started to be installed, but they did dial up the mothership to upload usage data and accept instructions like whole-vehicle immobilizations in the case of theft.
Ignorance is not a good look for you.
Pretty much nothing that you just said is true. What car can’t you change the brake pads on without going to that brands official repair shop?
As for the data one, how exactly is all this data being transmitted?
The “DRM” one is true to a small extent though, and that’s crap when they do that.
Pretty much nothing that you just said is true. What car can’t you change the brake pads on without going to that brands official repair shop?
Hyundai. In terms of the major/historical brands, it has started with Hyundai, and other brands are also getting in on the act.
Plus, Tesla has been doing it for years, now. A Tesla will go into “limp home mode” with almost any kind of unauthorized repair you do to it.
As for the data one, how exactly is all this data being transmitted?
Since OnStar was first released, in the late 80s, it has gone over cellular modems. It’s how anyone with OnStar in their vehicle could have it remotely disabled from the very first OnStar vehicle onward. And pretty much every vehicle manufactured after 2006 has a cell phone SIM or eSIM installed so as to provide real-time data stream to the mothership, and by 2014 this even included consumer access to the Internet via 4G LTE services.
Ignorance is how you’ve gotten egg on your face. You might want to do some fundamental research next time.
Hyundai does not do that lol.
OnStar isn’t in every car.
You can repair basically nothing on a Tesla because it’s got basically nothing you can physically repair.
Pretty much no cars come with a sim or eSIM that is constantly sending data back.
Later model cars with internet connections or telematics antennas are likely sending info about whatever they can, whenever they can, but such things can be disabled easily enough.
Which manufacturers offer free Internet connections in their cars?
Its free for them when its sending your info to them.
Which manufacturers do this and in which models?
All of them after about 2020. Are you sealioning or do you live under a rock?
https://www.acg.aaa.com/connect/blogs/5c/auto/how-vehicle-data-is-collected-and-used
Collecting data is one thing. Wirelessly transmitting it to the manufacturer is another.
Which manufacturers have built in 3/4/5G connections for free that transmit data back to them?
This data is all kept on the vehicle unless you then use an app on your phone to send it back to them or a third party, or your car is in an accident and they get the data to investigate.
So again - which manufacturers and which models have built in wireless connections that transmit data back?
They exagurate, but I expect all these features come to pass eventually. Between the EUs driver monitoring mandate and BMWs subscription to use your heated seat coils. Its only a matter of time before the new bug is actually a bug.
2006 is the era when cars became complicated enough you needed more than basic wiring to repair them, for a car guy, that around where Ive seen them talk of the latest they would buy.
I would also say 2017 is also around a good time for non-car people who are good with tech. This is around the time when the cars computer would manage the radio, inputs and a backup camera. If you wanted GPS on the screen, your phone would have to handle it, the car would have no sim card.
Anything made after the plague, they are not far off for the level of tech and privacy concerns, just not all of these fratures are in a vehicle fresh from the dealers lot yet.
I stopped using a smart watch I used to use all the time because Samsung started requiring location services to be on to use it. Immediately made me drop it and I stopped buying anything Samsung after that. Not only would I never be okay with having that on all the time, it’s fucking insane to start making that a requirement for a device that never required that out of the box.
As a bonus one, I’ll never buy anything Playstation ever again for obvious reasons.
Look into asteroid os or look for gadgetbride support
The PS5 is my last Sony device. I’ve even considered selling it because I don’t want to give them any revenue from future digital purchases.
They suck and they’re actively ruining physical media gaming.
About 12 years ago I bought a Samsung tablet that had an IR blaster function so I could control my TV and audio equipment. It was a primary reason I chose that model. Less than a year after purchase Samsung discontinued their app and remotely disabled the tablet’s IR blaster.
It was less than $5 for a replacement app that could be configured to get it working again, but the fact Samsung thought it was just fine to remotely remove a feature that was one of the primary reasons for my purchase was not something I’ve forgiven.
Since then I’ve bought lots of consumer electronic products but have not (and probably never will) consider another Samsung product.
What the fuck! That’s egregious, that’s so anti consumer it’s basically malicious
This should be made illegal
What a disgusting practice… as if I needed more reasons to hate Shamsdung ugh I cant wait to ditch my phone
For some reason this user keeps telling people you can put graphene OS on Samsung devices, but that’s not accurate, graphene only runs on pixels
You replied to my comment with this. Are you referring to me? If so you’re mistaken.
That sort of crap is why I specifically buy older Samsung hardware like that tablet. I love a Samsung Galaxy S10e for my phone, because I can flash Graphene onto it and not have to deal with their firmware. If that tablet had/has an IR blaster, it’s old enough to do the same thing and rip all that Samsung software off of it, flash it with a FOSS ROM, and enjoy your hardware.
I never understood why they got rid of that. I always thought it was a cool feature that they could have really leaned into. I had a tablet with it and I never used it much because I don’t watch TV, but it felt like something that could have been super useful to someone who did watch TV a lot (and I also had fun setting it up for my family TV and then casually sitting in the background adjusting the volume, changing the channel, and tweaking other settings and watching the chaos that ensued while I oh so innocently appeared to be oblivious and busy playing games on my tablet)
If I remember right it’s because they outsourced that feature to a third party called peel
It started as a dumb remote (which was everyone wanted) but they had some monetization ideas like full TV schedules and “suggested” (aka: sponsored) content.
The same for Xiaomi. A simple ir remote app in the mi 5, but no, in the next updates they had to bloat it until it imploded and nobody used it anymore so they could say “see? Nobody uses it, we can save the $0.05 ir LED”
The Samsung IR app also was used for their streaming service. They could have easily updated the app to allow it to run without connecting to their servers once they killed the service, but it was easier to tell their customers to pound sand.
