If part of the product I've paid for is software, and the company can update it without customer consent at any time, then I can't rely on the product's features. Period.
I experienced this myself on the PS4 version of Terraria. I bought a hard-copy of the game. I mastered the controls, and loved them. Terraria was updated one day, and the controls were all changed, completely. Total rip-off. I liked the game I bought, but it was replaced without my consent.
My feeling is that this behavior should be illegal for purchased products.
The first time I encountered this was when Sony advertised Linux-compatibility for the PS3, which I bought expressly for that purpose. I was shocked when a judge upheld Sony's post-sale removal of that capability.
I’ve had so many issues with Apple devices losing compatibility with obscure features on apps after updating iOS, I wish I could go back occasionally to accomplish some task, and then upgrade again when finished.
The flexibility is valuable.
For example, on the newest iPad Pro, iMovie is unusable after iOS 15, completely jittery and unable to handle smooth user experiences for some reason.
Gaming consoles had higher tariffs than "general purpose computers", so Sony added the ability to boot into Linux and argued - successfully - that it was a general purpose computing device and thus in the lower tariff category.
I bought a couple Hue bulbs a while back and a (somewhat) recent update to the Hue app removed the ability to control them via by watch. Completely pointless feature removal. Part of the selling point is that level of control, and yet they just removed an entire feature I frequently used. That's simply straight up removing something that I've paid for, which I don't view as any different from theft.
Anec-data: I purchased a cooking device for my parents in December and it has a single button to turn it off. The only way to use it is with an app which requires a login to the company's service. The device even has local bluetooth capabilities. You may be wondering, "What is this device supposed to do?" and the obvious answer is: "It's supposed to boil water." The real answer seems to be, "it collects usage data about customers boiling water."
This is one of the few (unrooted) smart devices I actually appreciate. You can easily configure it for a specific task (steak? chicken? brussels?), get push notifications when it's done and even turn off it's warm setting remotely if needed.
And given that most of the thing is immersed in boiling hot water, it makes sense to not put controls on the device itself.
Yeah, my watch supports setting (and syncing) the time and timezones using bluetooth. But before you can do that, you must agree to the maker's ridiculous privacy policy which includes consenting to sending them all kinds of data that has fuck all to do with setting the time on a watch. Immediately uninstalled. So that feature is dead weight to me unless/until someone reverse engineers the watch.
Even with the 'value add' of the update, I no longer play the game. Why? Because I invested in learning and mastering the game as it was when I bought it. The forced update removed all value for me, and I'm the one who made the decision to buy it.
If the product is changed significantly after purchase without my consent, then I feel I should be able to revisit my decision to purchase it. Otherwise, it's a sort of bait-and-switch scheme.
Which can be a bad thing. The Minecraft I played first and the Minecraft I played recently are two different games, and I don't like how overpacked with stuff the new version is.
Most game expansions - paid or not - follow the philosophy of "more of the same", rather than stopping somewhere between that and "less is more". Depending on the game, that can make it tedious.
Which ones are those?
I tried several alternatives in terms of smart TV (Apple TV, Google/Android TV, Fire TV), and I could not find any platform that let me use all of the apps that I needed without resorting to casting from my phone. And in some cases there was a long process to follow in order to get the device to do what I needed[1], which involved activating developer mode, sideloading apps etc.
In the end, I bought a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo and built a HTPC, reusing old components that I removed from my gaming PC after upgrading it over the years. I installed Ubuntu on it and never looked back.
[1] For example not having the home screen being made of mostly ads, or having a simple web browser installed on the device
I went with Apple TV + Plex (along with D+/NFLX/Peacock/HBO Max/Hulu/AppleTV/Prime/Cable... but I still can't find everything I want)
I am curious, why is that undesirable for you? I'm assuming there's something more than lack of individual app support for casting.
> Yeah, I completely agree. Vehicle manufacturers can't just come and change out the steering wheel and dashboard in your vehicle, for example.
We also wouldn't get games like Goat Simulator who basically set a low expectation bar in exchange for low cost, best effort game play. I'm kind of ok with more "garbage" if we also get more weird/low budget games that wouldn't exist otherwise.
Things are way different now.
I have been appalled at the way people bend over and open their wallet since I was a preteen. Nordic and all the other rent seeking shits count on people blindly using their product they way they are told to. I'm surprised Nordic isn't suing their customers yet.
On the one hand you're purchasing hardware, which you expect to own and control.
On the other, there is software that runs on a subscription model which 'coincidentally' restricts the functionality of the hardware, because they want to stop people from bypassing the sub.
The hardware effectively becomes useless if the subscription service becomes unavailable or is taken down (e.g. if the company is acquired and the new company doesn't want to support that stuff any more). It might still function mechanically, but it now has a broken appendage through no fault of your own.
I just don't think I could justify a purchase like that nos unless I could square that circle. I'm not going to pay 2k for a Peloton bike that holds itself hostage unless I pay another 40 a month.
Welcome to the Right to Repair movement!
Of course, some tech bro will say that their spoon2.0 is specially engineered for the best soup flavor …
Exclusivity always existed at weird levels, here the issue would be more about having the option to freeze/protect a product's software state to get out of the update treadmill.
That's about any electric car manufactured after 2020.
For example, windows updating. There was an updating when professor gave the talk in class. Windows updating popped out. There is no way for professor to stop the updating. He missed the chance and windows already went into blue updating screen. So, We had a break, and professor went to his office to find another computer.
Another problem is that automatically updating almost always runs silently. When I played online game and the game went laggy, I always tabbed out to see what happened with resource monitor. It is easy to find out there is whatever updating using CPU or bandwidth.
I feel updating just like legally raping my device. Oh. It is OUR device.
I’ve often thought about starting a hardware company that provides all the source code, schematics, bill of materials with the sale of a product. This is a dream and a desire I have for the things that I do buy.
For example, I have several digital cinema film cameras that I do not plan to upgrade or sell. Unfortunately they are showing their age and have some fixable faults. I have spent the last two years to reverse engineering these cameras to identify the fault. If only I had a schematic.
I don’t expect the industry or politics to change any time soon. If only a hardware company could change the status quo by enabling their customers to be enabled to have full ownership and access.
> I’ve often thought about starting a hardware company that provides all the source code, schematics, bill of materials with the sale of a product. This is a dream and a desire I have for the things that I do buy.
And on top of everything else, customers thought that they could watch whatever they wanted on their attached 32" LCD screen. Why fuck with wall-mounting a TV or a bouncy tablet when they sell a treadmill with the screen built-in?
- here
- John Deer self-fix stories
- Apple store stories (and Android/Google variations)
- Several flavors of techs at places like best buy quivering in their boots at an Apple fix. Techs keep blabbering on about Apple repair policy and what they cannot do. I finally had to tell the guy: Start telling me what you can do, or I'll talk to somebody else. All I asked for was if they have a screw driver to take the bottom plate off, which I later got off Amazon.
- General issues of privacy
We gotta get back to customer satisfaction. Eventually --- not as quick as we might prefer --- customers will realize they have the stronger position and use it. Indeed, if I plunk down money for an object, my assessment counts. I do not accept some paper pusher a large-corp-America gainsaying that.
I think this is a problem which should have a mostly technical solution: If most software was updated as today and users could rollback at will, most problems would be solved. That's a better way than making updates illegal.
Of course the incentives are totally out of whack, since bundling the updates is cheaper and many UX "improvements" exist to make the company more money, at the expense of the user.
Once users are conditioned or forced to auto-update why wouldn't a profit maximizing company make changes to increase its bottom line, regardless of how it helps or hurts users?
Not great for security though…
No refunds, no apologies, just a game I'd paid 50 dollars for suddenly didn't work any more. Ultimately, still value for money given how many hours I'd ploughed into it before they broke it, but yeah, I think twice now about that kind of purchase.
That is why I call those devices 'dumb' devices (reminds me of a SciFi book where the AI helpers are called "artifically stupids"). Smart devices are local, no auto-updates, working with no issue in the event of an outage.
I have many smart devices, all that would stop working in the event of an internet outage, would be the voice interface.
"Dumb devices" is already an actual term, already used to refer to non-smart devices, so you are confusing anyone that has not learnt your custom vocabulary.
What about your other devices?
Overreacting aside, control schemes can be customized again in 1.4.
This is much more a question of relying on "off-label" feature / bugs in a product, which will always be an issue. The problem here is that the advertised experience was "you can only use our content" and that should have been enough to scare off potential buyers from considering it as an option.
Apparently the algorithm is very simple according to Reddit https://old.reddit.com/r/nordictrack/comments/ozkp8v/privile...
>long responseCode = new Random((long) Integer.parseInt(iFitCode)).nextInt(999999);
It's not a perfect workaround, as it resets on the next boot, but I've seen that people are installing apps such as Taskbar which float overtop the iFit app and start on boot, allowing you to still launch your apps like Netflix etc even without God Mode enabled.
It's only a matter of time before Nordic decides to block this method as well. We should also be looking into how to block updates to these devices.
Maaaybe.
The public statement from them sounds like it was legal whining about liability issues, and if that's actually true (which, well) then if it has to be sufficiently intentional on your part that may be sufficient for them to leave well alone.
Certainly worth preparing for that not being the case though.
snark aside, I'm a bicycle guy and I really like that we have an ecosystem of bluetooth trainers and apps that all work pretty well with each other. Simulating hilly courses is actually really useful and has made me a better rider, so it's not like I'm advocating being a total luddite. While I prefer to ride outdoors in the sun, my area in Iowa is extremely flat and the only difficulty comes from the wind, and I find the new toys are a lot more fun than a dumb trainer with a sufferfest DVD. I don't really know much about the treadmill scene but I hope you guys have access to similar stuff.
I actually don't get the point of getting a 4000 treadmill rather than one that's half the price and an ipad
But really, my understanding is that these fancier treadmills map incline/speed/whatever data to the video file to make it “more realistic”. I think there may even be a sort of MMO/live ghost feature?
Personally I think I’d rather just have music I like and work out at a pace that’s comfortable for me, but to each their own I suppose.
A treadmill to me is just so boring and doesn't feel right compared to actually moving.
Walking outside when it is 10 degrees out with an audio book is still a better experience to me than a treadmill.
My smart rower consists of a C2 Model D sitting in front of an old-school panasonic plasma TV in a spare/theater room. Both components are over 10 years old by now and neither show the slightest signs of giving up the ghost. That TV doesn't even know how to talk to the internet, and I lost the USB cable for the PM4, so everything is effectively off-grid.
If you're into running on a treadmill, this looks like a very sweet setup. It has a huge touch screen that's just in the right spot, you can easily reach it while running, and it has gimmicks like automatic adjustment of inclination.
It's not cheap, but it looks like really nice hardware. I totally understand why some people would want something like that, especially if you can install generic Android apps on it!
The accessory part is also pretty neat though. I use a low end exercise bike that came with a snap-on plastic tablet holder. It works pretty well but it got me thinking about hacking the thing. I was finally able to mount a scanner radio, a ham radio, exercise bands, and my phone along with the tablet. Then my kids decided to take it off my hands for a while...I think Dad looked a little too motivated.
Thanks for the idea. I might get some kind of tablet so I can watch things without moving my (cheap) stationary bike in front of the living room TV.
My current WFH setup includes a Manfrotto 244N magic arm attached with a RAM mount to a Rokform RAM ball that very securely attaches to my Rokform iPhone case. It's clamped to my desk with a Manfrotto 035 SuperClamp. The RAM adapter is P/N RAP-B-366U and the double swivel on the RAM side is a RAP-B-201U . The Rokform part is "Universal Ball Adapter Phone Mount" SKU: 337101
RAM also makes a great iPad "X-Grip" holder, along with tons of different mounts for different situations, especially vehicles and things like exercise bikes (e.g. look for stuff like a "RAM® Double U-Bolt Ball Base for 1" - 1.25" Rails" or indeed their actual handlebar mounts). These are sturdy, pro-level mounts, not the cheap disposable junk from no-name brands on Amazon.
For my Zwift stationary bike setup that I use my old road bike on, I just use a $15 Niteize Handleband to attach my phone plus a Vornado 783DC made-in-USA DC brushless fan to keep the sweat levels low.
Another couple brands worth checking out would be Joby's stuff (I have an old GorillaPod DSLR that holds my webcam these days) and "The Joy Factory" who make pro-level iPad clamps / stands.
The real reason they don't want people using other apps or watching third party videos is because anyone doing that is not spending money on iFit. Or, at least, not as much as they could be. NordicTrack likely discounted these treadmills to squeeze out competitors with the intention of making their money back by locking customers into iFit.
If a few users hack their treadmills, that's not going to hurt NordicTrack's bottom line. If most users are doing it because it's as easy as tapping the screen 10 times, then there's a problem. So, NordicTrack has made it harder to gain admin access. Not impossible. Just harder. More people will go back to spending money on iFit, the determined few will roll up their sleeves, and the business model will be restored.
The problem is that this business model is a bait and switch. When people pay for a treadmill they don't expect to be locked into further monthly payments to unlock its features. It's inherently dishonest, and the victim, aside from users, is the competitor who produces an honest product that's paid for entirely up front and is, hence, more expensive and less competitive.
If it's the former, then they should keep god mode for treadmill service operations inaccessible but also allow loading apps like Netflix and Hulu. I'd wager that streaming apps are what most of the people using god mode want.
For example suppose the UI of a treadmill has a "Last 5 workout programs used" section on the front page of the UI to allow the user to select with one tap a recent program. An update replace that with a "recents..." button which takes you to a new screen that shows the last 10 programs used.
Is no longer providing one tap access to the most recent 5 programs removal of functionality? Or is the feature just that it has a way to recall recent programs so as long as there still is a way to do that, even if more convoluted, it does not count as a feature removal?
How about functionality that was not in the device when it was purchased but was added by an update? If the law does apply to that, then in effect the manufacturer will be locked into only ever adding functionality. After a few updates the UI is probably going to be a total mess.
If the law only applies to features present at purchase, then manufactures will just ship bare bones devices that only implement what is necessary to make the claims on the box and in their advertisements not false. Then the first update will add a ton of stuff to make it more than bare bones.
After a few messes the UI teams will figure out that you have to advertise and implement features in a way that doesn't interfere with user's habit. E.g. has a start screen where you may pin "last 5 workout programs", "recents...", any menu item, and a button to access other functions at top right.
However, we still need to tackle the subscription issue, I.e. That manufacturers can hide behind "you didn't renew the subscription for this printer/treadmill so now we brick it". Any ideas?
Like most of things in life, the answer is very rarely a new myopic and ill-conceived law added to the thick stack of existing incomprehensible legislation.
It doesn't. It means that functionality cannot be changed in a degrading way, but upgrading and non-conflicting security updates are still allowed.
For a customer, money upfront and money over time is the same (adjusting for the interest rate). They don't need just a dead brick, whatever it costs in production. When your saas stops having a feature, you stop paying. This is no different, except that I'd vote for a law which amortized the upfront cost to the real usage time. E.g. I bought a treadmill with 2-year warranty for $4000 and it stopped doing a claimed feature after a year (iow, became broken from my perspective). I either receive a service which returns the feature, or get $2000 back + 20% fine for inconvenience.
To my knowledge the first high-profile instance of this was when Sony updated the PS3 to remove Linux support, which resulted in a successful class-action in the US. [0]
The way class action is done in the US it only makes sense for the law firms.
I have stacks of class action letters and in almost every case I get exactly zero...
Consumers who don't want products to have features disappear. The main thing class action suites accomplish is punishing the offender so that potential offenders in the future think twice.
I was pleasantly surprised when I got around $250 CAD from a Lenovo class action suit. I bought one of their consumer laptops that had a piece of crapware on it. It was big news when it happened. Otherwise, I normally get maybe $20 for the class actions that I sign up for.
>I don't have much sympathy for the people abusing the system
I disagree with the premise that it's unethical to use a product I purchase and own from a for-profit company for a use that turned out not to be profitable for it. Note that it wasn't much of a hack; Sony sold consoles with the option to install another operating system from its menu [0].
Since the move was so unprofitable to it, Sony should not have offered the option to users in the first place. But since it happened, executives at Sony then just decided that it made business sense for Sony to disable the option in a firmware update.
I just don't understand the framing where it's as if Sony did a favor for its customers who then "took advantage," when Sony just miscalculated a business policy to serve its own self-interest.
[0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/sony-settles-over-insta...
Sony's removal of OtherOS wasn't just deceptive and an abuse of customers' trust, it was conspiracy to commit customs and tax fraud.
Also, while I bought my PS3 to learn parallel programming, I found that it wasn't that great for it. The CBE was really unintuitive, there was only framebuffer access to the GPU-RSX chipset, and with just 256MB RAM, $600 would have been better put towards a dual core CPU and any discrete GPU if you wanted a functional Linux computer.
> The block on privilege mode was automatically installed because we believe it enhances security and safety while using fitness equipment that has multiple moving parts,
Looked at Peloton, but it's about twice as much as an erg up front, has running costs each month, and what seemed to be many more points of failure (which includes the electronics). The Concept2[0] is a tank that should last me a very long time. Space is an issue (I had to shove my dining table to the side), but the workout is amazing and I have a lot of faith in the machine to last. Plus it has a pretty straightforward bluetooth connection if I want to get data out and multiple USB and ethernet ports on the very simple monitor it came with.
[0] https://www.roguefitness.com/black-concept-2-rowerg-rower-pm...
[0] https://www.concept2.com/service/software/software-developme...
It's amazing to me just how (relatively) cheap the Concept2 is. Solid, well made, and reliable.
When unpacking it and setting it up, there were multiple notices everywhere: On the packaging, as a separate note in the packaging, in the manual, on the treadmill itself. Those notes all said that the treadmill is "locked" and you need "online activation" to unlock it.
I was getting very nervous, since I thought I bought something that does not need online activation.
However I think it was also Wirecutter that mentioned that you can just press the iFit button for longer than 15 seconds--or was it 30 seconds?--and it's "unlocked". I did that once and it worked ever since, never needed to do anything online, or connect it via Bluetooth, WiFi or anything else.
Reminds me of the Rigol DS1054Z 50 MHz oscilloscope, that you can trivially 'hack' into the more expensive DS1074Z 75 MHz or DS11074Z 100 MHz scope. Rigol hasn't disabled this hack, even though they can easily do it. They likely loose money if they do so, since customers move to other scopes.
Also, some Tesla updates make the experience worse instead of better (V11 update is terrible, inconsistent UI and much more menu diving). I should have disabled auto-updates, and read the forums before doing the update next time.
It is almost inconceivable that they would know enough to use good cryptography but not know that they needed long keys, so a lot of people believe they intended for it to be easy to hack.
One theory I've heard that makes sense is that this is for price discrimination. Your hobbyist user, buying a scope to figure out what is going wrong when they try to talk to their humidity sensor with their Arduino, is not going to pay an extra couple hundred dollars to get the protocol decoding add-on. Paying $400 for the basic scope is already near their limit. So let them have all the features--it makes the Rigol scope more attractive to those users without really costing Rigol anything.
So why not just include all the features without requiring keys to enable them?
Because people using the scope for business will pay more for them. That's because if they use a keygen program to enable them and use the scope to design or test some product, and later something goes wrong with that product and someone gets hurt and they find themselves being sued, they don't want to have to deal with how a plaintiff's attorney would try to spin that in front of jury.
Sure, it would probably not be hard for the defense to respond and explain that the scope behaves exactly the same regardless of whether the key was purchased from Rigol or came from a third party keygen program, so you might think no harm would be done by plaintiff bringing this up.
However, civil trials have time limits on how much total time each side gets to present their case and to rebut the other side's case. If defense has to take time to educate the jury on the whole Rigol key system and how keygen programs are safe, that's time they don't have for other things.
I've seen that kind of thing happen. I was a witness for a plaintiff in a suit. Early on, defense was able to find something totally minor but that looked bad if you didn't know the details of state tax and corporations bureaucracy [2]. It took them 2 minutes to use that to make us look dishonest. It took much longer the next day to explain all the details to counter that. For the rest of the trial, we were short on time and had to drop some things.
Later, when I was on the stand defense asked some questions about a particular piece of software the plaintiffs developed. They asked detailed technical questions and I answered them. Then they said "play the video of tzs's deposition from <date several months earlier>". On that video I was asked the same questions I had just been asked in court, and answered that I had not worked on that software and didn't know the answers. Defense then said "no further questions" and walked away.
I expected our lawyers to then ask about this, so we could explain why I apparently was either lying my ass off in the deposition or lying my ass off a few moments ago, but they didn't. They later told me they were short on time, and decided that having the jury think I was a liar was less of a problem than dropping the other stuff they would have to drop to deal with that.
So why the apparent discrepancy between my deposition and my later in court testimony? The deposition was 100% correct. I had not worked and that software and didn't have any deep technical knowledge of how it worked.
Later however, I was designated as the person on our side who would be answering all technical questions about our software. This would cover all our software that might come up in the case, not just what I had worked on. So I spent a considerable amount of time after that deposition studying the source for such software, and by the time of the trial I was able to answer deep technical questions concerning it. (Which defendant was fully aware of, by the way, since between my first deposition and the trial, there was a deposition where I appeared in the role of expert on all our software).
[1] Besides doubling the bandwidth, there are keys for expanding the amount of memory, adding advanced trigger options, adding protocol decoding for various useful protocols like I2C and RS-232, and I think some other features that I'm forgetting.
[2] Briefly, when you paid your taxes you got a receipt from the state revenue department. You were supposed to file a copy of that receipt with the state corporations office. Someone failed to do that. If one then queried the corporations office we were listed as having not paid our taxes.
1. You must allow full root privileges for Electronic devices to the owners
2. You may not circumvent owners rights through leasing or other means.
3. You may not create barriers to device owners using their devices how they see fit.
If it was just about the money, they should have e.g. have pop-up ads cover the screen only for non-subscribers, such that people aren't inclined to buy the device, not subscribe to the ifit content, and watch youtube instructors or whatever.
The safety argument isn't so much an argument as it is a trigger word to elicit a response in people.
I actually walked down to the basement to test this - even when closing the iFit app while in God Mode, the physical controls on the treadmill including speed, incline, the stop button and the magnetic safety key, continue to work as designed. If you close the app then you can't see your current speed, but you can still stop the machine.
That being said, I haven't dug into how the iFit app sends commands or retrieve data from the treadmill's controller. It seems possible that a "rogue" app could somehow interfere with this communication or send its own set of commands to throw you off the machine, but feels very unlikely. Plus, the tablet on my treadmill is running Android 7. I'd be much more afraid of remote exploits on the embedded browser on this ancient OS than someone with physical access loading a malicious app.
Customers currently have zero recourse, because they are paying for the hardware, but the software allows the hardware functionality to be changed or removed at whim without any financial risk to the company. Credit card chargebacks may work sometimes, but only if the purchase was recent: 'smart' hardware vendors often ruin their products more than 90 days after purchase.
I don't get why companies think this kind of blanket statements are useful, when they're immediately made null by their actions.
> However, because of its equipment’s moving parts, the spokesperson says, it believes that restricting access to its operating system is important for safety.
This is such obvious BS, when the real kicker is that after you already shelled $4k, they really really want you to rack out that sweet sweet monthly subscription money and don't want any competitors on a screen that, it turns out, they can control.
Greedy manufacturers wanting to get into that monthly recurring revenue model.
After installation, it had a lock screen asking me to subscribe to start using the treadmill!
Can you imagine?
I paid for the treadmill, and you're telling me I can't even walk on it without paying you again?
So what did my $650 pay for?!?
If I can't use a device's most basic function without paying an additional subscription, then can Amazon label the button "Buy Now"?
What exactly did I "Buy" if it's a paperweight without an additional subscription?
Nowhere did the product page say that having a subscription is a pre-req to use this device: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0193V3DJ6
Thankfully, the company Amazon hired to setup the treadmill found the trick to bypass that screen.
But now, after hearing about this update, I'm afraid they will lock my treadmill again.
I just use my treadmill to walk on it.
I don't need any apps.
Left to their own devices, these companies will find a way to charge us to breathe.
So happy I'm not looking to any human governments to fix this nonsense.
As a total aside, I bought a treadmill last year and turned it into a walking desk as part of my WFH setup. I wasn't sure how much I would use it, but holy cow I love it!
> TO GET AROUND THIS SCAM, hold down the iFit logo on the treadmill for 30 seconds and your treadmill will work.
Admittedly, it sucks if you need to do this every time. But it's Amazon, so return?
[0] 8pts/1 comment
[1] 15pts/1 comment
[2] 5pts/0 comments
Had this been just some kind of open secret “hack” then buyers really should expect this.
Remember: when you buy a gadget with a screen and associated “services” like video subscriptions you aren’t just buying a lump of tech. Your price is set after careful weighing of how much customers will consume the subscription services. If the add on service is provided by a third party it’s even worse: your products’ ability to deliver something other than their service is probably a breach of contract.
My guess: the treadmill makers didn’t mind people watching Netflix on their gadget. Their partners on content though has given them deals on the premise that everyone who didn’t buy a subscription should have a feeling that they wasted $4k on an empty screen. So when they hear a number of users are watching Netflix, they get angry. Treadmill makers must block the god mode.
The sad thing here is obviously that the idea of making a good open product without strings attached or subscriptions seems like an impossibility these days.
Apparently there's a demand for well designed hardware that runs generic software.
On the box, it mentioned "one-year iFit membership included (then says wifi and registration required for ifit)"
I didn't want to use iFit, I just wanted to use the treadmill.
However -
You can't use the treadmill without connecting it to wifi, except for "manual mode". ZERO workouts. This involves dark patterns for setting up your treadmill and avoiding a wifi connection. then you can select manual mode - which can ONLY set the speed or incline manually.
Oh yeah, this treadmill has an embedded camera and microphone.
The description is a dark pattern, the UI is a dark pattern. pro-form has a horrible reputation from my direct experience.
so I use it in manual mode. I don't use the 10.1" touchscreen except to start it moving.
I suggest folks who want a treadmill just go to somewhere like Dick's and look at the treadmills and buy one after checking out the UI in person.
It's disappointing, too, because we're quite satisfied with our NT rowing machine, which was purchased right before the "big screen" models, and we would otherwise recommend it. But now you can't buy the one with the cheap LCD display like we have and just bring your own screen, you have to get proprietary screen models now. So I don't recommend their rowing machines anymore, either.
After much research, we bought a treadmill from Horizon fitness[0]. We've been nothing but happy with it, which is their top-of-the-line 7.8. It has BT for music to play over the built-in speakers, and it works fine with Zwift and even the iFit subscription that NordicTrack pushes (it just won't auto-control the treadmill speed/incline, which is a-okay by me). BT streams your data to Zwift, et. al., including speed/incline/HR. It has a built-in stand for your tablet, though anyone on HN ought to be able to rig some cheap 27" 4k monitor in there somehow (we use a wall-mount for the rowing machine that swivels for general purpose use). The spouse and I have used it with Zwift, iFit, and Apple Fitness+, though Zwift is the only one that cares about data from the BT stream. As running goes I used to be fast, but now I'm just old and still faster than most, and it does everything I need for dark, rainy PNW days. I use it for tempo and intervals on occasion as well, and the one-button presets for interval/recovery are nice so when I'm gasping for breath I just need to be able to push the recovery button.
Anyway, no association whatsoever with Horizon, just a very satisfied customer.
Hardware vendor lock-in subscriptions may seem to the corporate world like a big win on paper, but how many customers are they losing who are willing to pay for a very premium product that they get full control over? (looking at you peloton)
The only thing in my house that gets access to the internet are my computers and phone. Nothing else. If I turn it on and it complains about no internet - it gets returned as defective.
I have a car charger (Juice Box) that have a smart app to control it. Nope not for me. Last thing I want is a hacked device fucking with my car's charging.
We see it everywhere with printers, coffee makers, phones, laptops, treadmills and even cars now. Everyone knows why this is being done, simply making money on a $99 coffeemaker is not good enough anymore, we have to make that $99 plus we have to make money in perpetuity because the customer now has to subscribe to our "managed experience".
Now I understand this on some level with cheaper stuff like printers, that printer doesn't cost $20, it costs that because the company assumes you will buy the pods from them. But with a treadmill that goes for thousands it's a completely different ball game.
Were going to get to the point where one day you will hop in your car and start driving into the countryside. At a certain point your car will just shut off because "Ford has decided that this route in unsafe for your vehicle, for the best experience, please drive back to the city, on your way back, consider enabling cup holders for an improved coffee drinking experience".
The glimmer of hope on the horizon are companies like Framework and Pinephone. These companies realize that consumers are not happy with this shit and market themselves as the antithesis of these practices. I really hope these types of companies take off in the future.
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Legally - prohibit selling physical goods that contain digital locks unless the owner is given a key. Period.
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That's all you have to do. If I own the device, I get the keys for the physical locks, and the keys for the digital locks.
I'm completely ok with manufacturers locking down computers for security, in much the same way that I appreciate that cars have door/ignition locks.
But if I own it - I get all the keys. I may never use them, but they are mine, as part of ownership.
makes me happy. Hope a lot of people can leave behind those low paid high effort jobs thanks to this 2 shitty years
I didn’t connect it to WiFi (even after unlocking) primarily because I worry about it being another data collection tool (WiFi, bt) and it has a camera/mic on it.
It doesn't provide root access or anything, just the ability to sideload apps and a few other things.
That said, I think that if we want right-to-repair/tinker I think we also have to make reasonable concessions as well. E.g. No liability for the manufacturer due to running older or non OEM versions of software/firmware. No expectation of ongoing support or updates on those older branches. Of course liability should still exist for issues that were not caused by this alternate software even if you're running it.
Are they trying to do some kind of advertising on the screen? Are just going through run of the mill security updates and there's bad communication between the customers and NordicTrack not understanding each other because of a layer of dumb bureaucracy between marketing/developers?
Cheaper and actually gives you what you want. Might force the vendor to allow for more customization, given a lot of people stop buying their premium range.
https://amazon.com/Arkon-TAB086-12-Tablet-Galaxy-Retail/dp/B...
Like buying a TV and mounting it on the wall in front of the treadmill? Do these people not have access to 2x4s? Why does your TV screen need to be integrated into your exercise equipment?
I think an ideal solution could be the manufacturer officially supports accessing the "privilege mode" with some sort of "release of liability". Customer must agree to this the first time they access, forfeiting warranty and ability to sue. Much like when people decide to unlock phone bootloader and root.
And to make all manufacturers willing to provide privilege mode to their products, I think either 1) the court makes clear statement of supporting this legally, or 2) having a supreme court precedence established for this, is required, otherwise some manufacturers would still fear the potential legal risk.
What happens if, when you're upgrading your new right-to-repair laptop, you leave some wires sticking out of the battery and fry yourself, and then sue the laptop maker?
Indeed, what happens when you fry yourself repairing the ur-right-to-repair device, the light fixture with a removable lightbulb?
You can invent any scenario for any machine or device that the user can repair, but it should be fairly straightforward to add language that says "if you modify the device's behavior in such a way that it harms you, that's not our fault."
To the HN community at large: how do we start clawing it back?
lol what a straight up fucking lie.
See, the issue is decades old. But somehow people keep forgetting.
That said, I still hate treadmills and prefer to run outside, but there’s a huge difference between a cheap one and a good one.
Upon using the above link, I ended up on a paywall. I hit F12 and check the creation date of all the cookies and confirm they had all been created the 19th (today, and incidentally had just woken up and turned on the computer). I refresh the website, still paywall.
I delete all cookies manually for that page, hit refresh and can read the whole article. I don't understand how this is possible.
Outside is so much better than all of those. I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill. If I have to be inside it's weight lifting.
- When my kids were younger, I was always nearby during a workout.
- I can comfortably work out regardless of the season, weather, or time of day.
- I can easily take a bathroom break mid-workout.
- I can do much longer workouts without getting bored, because I can watch movies or play video games during the workout. (E.g., using an exercise bike + my own computer.) This works around motivational / persistence issues I used to have.
- I can end a workout on short notice. Contrast to a long-distance run or bikeride, where I may be far from home when something comes up.
Then you need to make an effort, because it's really not hard to understand if one has even just a bit of life experience as an adult. But it sounds like an excuse to brag about the harsh weather one runs in, and those damned kids and their video games or something. Here, I'll one-up you: I regularly ran in snow and sub-zero (Fahrenheit, bitches) temperatures when I lived in Indiana. I now live in the much milder Pacific Northwest, and I own a treadmill. 'cuz you know what? Sometimes outside isn't better than any of those, and I just need to get some miles in.
If it's an option for the exercise you want and your health and safety, sure. It's not always an option and there are some exercises (like rowing) that are't practical to do every day unless you live on or near a body of water, and even then. If the lake freezes over, good luck rowing!
> I will 100% run in single digit temperatures with snow on the ground before I touch a treadmill.
Good for you, do you want a cookie or something?
But some of these exercise machines actually come with an impressive 32inch HD screen and loud speakers built-in which you can hear over the running noise. If you stop paying hundreds of dollars per year for an iFit subscription, the only thing this giant display does is show you the time and distance on a white background.
And perhaps you'd say, "don't buy a machine with a built-in screen", I'd say the article points out people actually decided to purchase these models _specifically_ because help articles and other resources showed how to get into the Android interface. Sideloading apps was practically sold as a feature.
Looking down at the NordicTrack screen doesn't seem ergonomic or comfortable. I don't get this article.
Edit: From 2 points to 0. And probably going to go negative LOL.