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from the planned^Wscheduled-obsolescence dept.
Sonos, the consumer electronics company known for audio streaming and "smart" speakers, has decided that the music controller device, the "CR100", has reached end of life. By which they mean they will be pushing a software upgrade that will kill it.
... the next Sonos update in early April will turn off the CR100 connection -- unless you decide you don't want any updates at all. (Make sure you set that up in advance -- if you accept the update, you can't undo it and go back to using the old controller.)
That means if you want to keep on using a device you're happy with, you have to give up all the new features on all your Sonos speakers.
The company says its primary concern is the age of the lithium ion batteries in the controllers; although in that case an official device recall would be better than an update that stops them working - and a battery replacement scheme would handle the problem just as well.
Although the controller is old (Sonos stopped selling the CR100 in 2009) it is still perfectly functional for many users. However, according to a forum posting explaining the options these users will have to choose between the CR100 and the functionality of the rest of their system:
... opting not to update means you will not receive any new features or future security patches for your entire system – not just the CR100. For example, being on an unsupported version means that you might lose connectivity to music services, as is already the case for Google Play Music on the CR100. It is necessary to configure your system in advance to avoid future updates. Any update applied to the firmware and/or to the app, even unintentionally, is irreversible.
Originally spotted on The EEV Blog Youtube channel.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @12:24PM (8 children)
This kind of horse-shit is why I am very leery of spending money for the latest technology.
If I do not understand it, or worse, having to agree to remain ignorant of how it works, I really question my sanity about actually spending money for the thing. Do I really need this thing? Are they flat downright telling me they have already planned to be a pain-in-the-ass, and want me to legally acknowledge?
I do not need any more problems. If I can't fix it, why do I even want it?
Its just another thing in my life sucking the life force right out of me. I need it as much as another mother-in-law.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Monday February 12 2018, @12:56PM (5 children)
Oh, incidentally, about those lithium batteries... I have gone to quite a bit of trouble to make sure everything I buy is built around "18650" lithium ion batteries... so that if I do have a problem, I can change it out. My laptop uses them, my power tools use them, and every flashlight I have uses them. ( Ultrafire WF-502B ). I also have power scissors and little powered screwdrivers powered by single 18650 cells. The main reason I chose that particular design was they were assembled with screws, which could be removed should I need to replace the cell.
I understand the importance of cell matching, so I will go ahead and buy laptop packs and Ryobi packs premade, with no plans to fix should they go out... but I know they are full of 18650, so when any of them malfunction, I open them up and have plenty of 18650 for other things.
I am looking for a shaver that uses them... also a good shortwave radio... the three-cell TECSUN is damned close... just wish these people would redesign the battery compartments so it will take three AAA cells in a holder, or an 18650 cell.
I simply can't see why these devices can't be made so that the case can be opened and the cells replaced. I can understand them not wanting liability, so I certainly do not expect instructions on how to do this ( as giving someone instructions probably creates a liability )... but its obvious to anyone who does electronic work what to do. Lithium batteries can be dangerous if mistreated, and that's probably a reason why manufacturers are being such a pain in the ass, but planned obsolescence is probably the main reason manufacturers seem to go out of their way to make high-priced junk.
I noted the battery in my cheapie BLU phone is replaceable. The expensive name-brand status-symbol phone does not. The battery thing was a big plus in my deciding which phone I was going to buy.
I keep seeing these battery powered thingies in the stores. I always have a WF-502 with me. I am always seeing if the thingie can use an 18650.
A "raid" on a battery recycling bin at WalMart several years ago has given me more 18650 cells than I will use in a lifetime. I had a bunch of NiCads I had brought in and asked the manager if I could take some of the laptop batteries, and he saw no problem with that, so in went those NiCads ( I flat do not like NiCads ), and out came the battery packs I knew would be filled with 18650.
AliExpress even has big battery holders already set up with charger/ balancers to make energy banks.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 12 2018, @02:25PM (2 children)
I resisted moving to those 18650's for quite awhile. When I finally got my first 2-cell flashlight that uses them, I decided to move EVERYTHING to them. No more rechargeable AA or AAA. My multimeters are the only things left - one uses AAA another uses a 9-volt, and I still don't know what the ampmeter has in it. I like having everything interchangeable. I don't like the first cheap 18650's that I got with the flashlights - I now have all Panasonic. The advantage of "standardizing" on one battery is just beautiful!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:59AM (1 child)
You ain't kiddin' about the beauty of having a standard container of electrical power. One size fits all, but some may take several to do the job.
I knew a few years ago when we had a power outage, and I needed a flashlight. I went to the "emergency" kit I had so carefully prepared a few years ago, and retrieved one of the three D-cell flashlights and batteries I had so carefully packed. None of the alkaline D cells were any good.
I had already torn apart an old laptop battery, and was wondering about the six little cylindrical cells I found in it... never had seen anything like them before, but they did have one number stamped on their labels... 18650 ... so I fed this number to Google to find out what it was. At that time, I did not know that was an industry - standard cell and lots of stuff had them in it. More excited, I went to AliExpress and typed the same number in, and it gave me lots of cells and things that used them. Wasn't all that expensive either. I had seen these "tactical" flashlights in the local electronics store selling in the neighborhood of $100, and considered them economically useless... but now seeing extremely similar flashlights selling for less than $10, I bought two dozen of them. And got all the chargers for them as well... you know, those handy USB in/USB out ones. Handiest things I have bought in a helluva long time. So I use a few, and have the rest in a drawer. Even the dollar store has those plug-in adapters to make USB power from cigarette lighter power. I knew right then I would never have another day of my life stymied by dead flashlights.
No sense even keeping flashlights in the earthquake kit any more. No more discovering $20 worth of Alkaline D cells floating in a pool of corrosion right when I needed them. I can always find some source of electricity to charge an 18650... car or solar panel if line power is out.
During the last power outage at night at work, I was johnny-on-the-spot with my drawer of flashlights... I had enough for everyone there. All the other "backup" lighting had failed, but every one of those WF-502's fired right up. Gotta keep the cells somewhere, so I bought extra flashlights just to hold the cells, as I know they are lithium, and should one ever get out of control, I wanted it doing so in a sturdy aluminum container, and storing the cells in a flashlight keeps them from shorting out should the container of cells get jostled "just so"... I have seen damn near every D cell I have ever had leak.... I have not seen an 18650 leak yet. Even my NiCd's would grow all sorts of corrosive fuzz around the top seal in a few years - and were always dead when I really needed 'em. The lithiums seem happy sitting around for years.
I also bought power banks that use multiple cells, so that: 1-I can easily keep them charged and 2- I have a place to store them, and 3- I have a source of substantial USB and 12V power to operate other things should the need arise. I even have thingies that actually can drain enough current out of these things to start a car - I bought two to start my diesel van. Just in case. Glow plugs need a lot of power before I even try to crank that big old IDI engine.
It is quite a relief to know just what my assets are and what options I have in the event an emergency arises. I flat do not want to be like those Hurricane Sandy people who had useless solar arrays because their grid-tie inverters would not power up until they had line power to sync to. If I know I can get 16V at 5 Amps from each solar panel, then I use variable input DC power converters to keep car batteries topped off, and use that.
Its all part of being prepared.
If we do have a natural disaster, I want to have something to trade... as everyone has their special thing they do better than anyone else.
Mine is making sure we can keep our stuff powered up, no matter what.
Even my soldering iron will work off my Ryobi power tool batteries or my van battery, and I can charge my Ryobi packs and my 18650 cells in the van. If you haven't been recently, go to Home Depot to see quite an impressive array of things that run on Ryobi power packs. Don't buy their damned cheap incandescent flashlight though. It puzzles me why they even made the damned thing. Highly inefficient, you don't get much light out of it at all! First thing I did with the one I got as a premium in a package discount was strip out the light bulb and put in a little USB power downconverter so I can pull USB power from a Ryobi pack. ( Some of those little "car chargers" are rated 12-24 volts, the Ryobi is around 18 Volt. A little work with epoxy and stiff plastic netted me a replacement "lens assembly" that had a USB jack in it, not a light bulb. And a pair of banana jacks that permit my soldering iron assembly direct access to the 18 volt battery rail.)
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:10PM
Yeah, my flashlights were marketed as "tactical flashlights". They have a stupid serrated end, that will probably cut a man's throat, if you were to put it to that use. To me, it's just stupid. I love the LED light. A typical 3 D-cell professional flashlight, like the cops carry, will kinda light up the side of a building, 50 to 75 yards away. This little flashlight that I carry in my hip pocket will actually light up the side of a building in the same conditions. Better yet, I can focus it on something on that building. The door, a window, a hole where a tree branch went through the roof or wall - whatever. Let the crazies salivate over that "tactical" bullshit - I have a working light that outshines anything I've ever owned, with the exception of auto headlights, or a searchlight.
When I bought my first one, I took it to work, and several people asked where I got it. I told them, "Ebay" but no one seems to be capable of searching Ebay for themselves. I ended up ordering six of the same lights, and sold them all to coworkers. I ordered another dozen, and sold five of those. The rest are cached in my vehicle, in my toolboxes, and in my desks.
LEDs are beautiful, is anyone really wants to know!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)
What? You don't want to re-purchase our product ever several years? Be a good little consumer nigger and buy what we tell you to buy. Look, they have blue LEDs! Niggs love blue LEDs!
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:08AM
Yep... troll.... but your message is loud and clear. We keep buying crap. So they keep making crap. And getting our money.
Not everyone out there is a Soylentil. Most of us have the technical acumen of knowing crap when we see it.
But there are an awful lot of people who are swayed by presentation more than substance. And those guys keep being taken to the cleaners... over and over and over. And they keep funding all this crap.
I have said it before, and I will say it again..... for some people, presentation is everything. Even shit will be received as a delicacy - if correctly presented.
And they end up with all the shit.
And our landfills overflow with shit.
While "businessmen" grin all the way to the bank with the funds given by people gullible enough to fall for their sales pitch.
If one thinks education is expensive, try ignorance. And I do not mean "university". I mean dig into things youself - ask questions - be curious as to how your stuff works. Don't delude yourself into thinking someone else is going to try to guarantee you a happy life. You are the captain of your ship, and if you don't know how your engine works, you are gonna be in for a helluva lotta trips to the cleaners.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Arik on Monday February 12 2018, @05:22PM
Yes, exactly.
And at this point they have every reason to think that the consumer is SO stupid, SO short-sighted, SO bloody brain-dead that they can get away with it.
Don't buy this shit people. Don't let people you care about buy this shit. These companies are enemies of humanity, do NOT feed them more money!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @09:49PM
I would be pretty happy with a mother in law that wanted to suck the life out of me.