The smart vacuum cleaner was remotely bricked for not collecting data.
Having someone use a remote kill command for an item you bought for reasons other than imminent threats to safety ought to be illegal. This shouldn’t be treated differently from a car salesman bricking your windshield after you drive off the lot.
In germany there’s the “Computer sabotage” crime.
Is it still sabotage if the only thing they have sold is a license to use their product not the product itself. That is still their property.
I’m no law expert, but as far as i know, there were already similiar cases. Reasoning (german law): Software required to run the product is not “licensed to use” but part of the product, which was bought, belongs the user and not the company. Remotely making the device unusable would indeed violate that term.
At least in EU the manufacturer can’t revoke licenses on sold physical products with no cause (can’t expire before EOL either) and can’t remove advertised functionality. If any feature is conditional or temporary it has to be disclosed before sale.
Hopefully, such terms would violate the above law and not hold up against it.
yes. and no its not their property.
The issue you’ll run into is that the data runs through their servers, and you ages to let them kill it off. Should that be legal? I honestly don’t know. But they shouldn’t force you to use their servers to begin with, which would make the entire issue moot.
You could just setup a dedicated VLAN without Internet access to prevent this. Right?
Maybe in some cases. My robot stores it’s smart map on the cloud, which means of you cut off the internet it loses a lot of features.
No, because that’s what he did
In case you have a robot vacuum and want to run it cloudless you can check Valetudo.
It’s been running my vacuum the last 4 years and I couldn’t find any downsides (There are several extra functions if you like to tinker around with home assistant and the likes)
If you have any doubts or need assistance with installing it, I would be happy to give you a hand :-)
Unfortunately this doesn’t support Roomba.
I am running my Roomba fully offline via HomeAssistant now. I can’t access the cleaning maps, but the rest works well (granted, all it could ever do is “start” and “return home” in the first place).
Funnily enough, the robot is continually panicking about the time now, it literally pings an NTP server every 10s (which is blocked by my router)
Fuck Roombas! I returned mine after 3 days due to several very painful knocks on my feet. Those fuckers are feet killers!
Absolutely love Valetudo! I just got some stickers to put on mine.
Conversely, instead of blocking the data transfer, have it send false data. Maybe a few drop table inserts.
I do this when a job makes me install productivity tracking software. Surprisingly easy to gin up fake screenshots and JSON of your activities and inject it into the program. All it does is upload the records from a user folder every X minutes
Spam them so hard they’ll blacklist your device
behavioral surplus is the most important thing for corporations in 21st century. Simple as that. They basically collect people’s personal data, where they go, their routines and stuff, and render them and use them for efficient advertising. Google is the founder of this system.
I never thought I’d ever have to say this, but are we so fundamentally lazy that using an acoustic vacuum is just being entirely unreasonable?
My god people. Loosen up your schedules.
acoustic vacuum
Not a native speaker, is this even a word?
Never heard it before. Maybe they’re trying to make a metaphor, like an acoustic guitar = basic, electric guitar = smart. Maybe mistranslation.
probably tongue in cheek. Like a “boneless” couch. It’s just a memory foam couch, but people call em boneless
Acoustic as in- unplugged.
Ah, I get ya. I was close!
My last vacuum was probably an “acoustic vacuum”, it was ear-shatteringly loud. /j
It’s a joke. Like vacuum unplugged?
If you’re opposed to modern conveniences, get a broom.
Brooms are technology too, they were just invented thousands of years ago. They need to just switch to dirt floors like God intended. Oh wait, floors are technology too.
Yeah, everyone has to choose what “modern” means to them I guess, but I think people who are happy to use smartphones and computers but draw the line at robot vacuums are kind of silly. There’s a difference between the original post’s (very reasonable) desire to have a disconnected robot vacuum that can’t collect data, and the further level of derision that seems to come up anytime anyone wants to use any kind of convenience or time-saving device.
Okay buddy. Cool story. Enjoy automation freeing up all that time to spend staring at a screen and smugly missing the point.
I’m anti-cloud connected devices, too, but the right answer is getting one that’s local or disconnected. Guess they were too dumb to figure that out, and making fun of people who make the compromise on it maintained their ego.
Reliance on automation will never end well. Just saying. This should have been expected.
Good luck on your journey to live a tech free, pre-industrial life. Sounds unpleasant.
And good luck to you on your journey to avoid the concept of nuanced discussion in every conversation you have.
Sounds pleasanter.
The thing is… I like vacuuming my home when I’m away from home, and that’s a lot harder to do manually…
It’s such a game changer, it’s damn near mandatory for pet owners.
frees up time to do other errands, barring your home isnt a mess and you have to do it manaully anyways.
