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from the internet-of-things-that-shouldn't-need-internet dept.
Peloton Outage Prevents Customers From Using $2,500 Exercise Bikes:
Peloton hasn't been having a great run lately. While business boomed during the pandemic, things have taken a sour turn of late on a bizarre host of fronts.
[...] adding insult to injury, connectivity issues this week prevented Peloton bike and treadmill owners from being able to use their $2000-$5000 luxury exercise equipment for several hours Tuesday morning. The official Peloton Twitter account tried to downplay the scope of the issues:
We are currently investigating an issue with Peloton services. This may impact your ability to take classes or access pages on the web.
We apologize for any impact this may have on your workout and appreciate your patience. Please check https://t.co/Dxcht2tQB0 for updates.
— Peloton (@onepeloton) February 22, 2022
[...] For much of Tuesday morning the pricey equipment simply wouldn't work. While the company's app still worked (For some people), Bike, Bike+, and Peloton Tread owners not only couldn't ride in live classes, they couldn't participate in recorded classes because there's no way to download a class to local storage (despite the devices being glorified Android tablets). The outage (which occurred at the same time as a major Slack outage) was ultimately resolved after several hours, but not before owners got another notable reminder that dumb tech can often be the smarter option.
Perhaps one day in the future, scientists will invent a way to make exercise machines that do not require internet access. Such a fantastic invention would be locked up behind patents.
See also:
Peloton Admits It's in Hot Water With DOJ, DHS, and SEC Over Its Treadmill Mess
Peloton treadmill owners will be able to run again without a subscription
Peloton disabled a free running feature on its treadmills, forcing owners to pay up
Peloton disabled a free feature on its $4,000 Tread+, forcing owners to pay a $39 monthly fee to use the machine
Peloton faces backlash after disabling free running feature on its $4,000 treadmills
Music Publishers Say Peloton Stole Even More Music, Ask for $300 Million
Peloton's Countersuit Against Music Publishers Over Song Copyrights Just Got Thrown Out
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday February 25 2022, @03:41PM (2 children)
I have a couple of business model ideas that could be patented. (Now that business methods can be patented.)
1. An internet connected pet feeder. You control the settings via an app on your phone. The cloud contacts the pet feeder with a message to dispense a certain amount of food. What could possibly go wrong? [soylentnews.org]
2. An internet connected electric blanket. You control the settings via an app on your phone. You set a dial from 1 to 10 that will affect the duty cycle of the electric blanket. The cloud sends a message to the blanket to turn on or off the heating element. An important modification, worthy of its own separate patent, is to have a dual control blanket so that two people on opposite sides of the bed can have their own setting for how much heat they want. The person in the middle of the bed has no control. The best thing is that you can control your blanket from the living room without having to actually make the long walk to the bedroom to turn it on an hour before bedtime. Another patent could be for a feature to enable setting a schedule in the cloud that knows when each of the three people's bedtime is.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 25 2022, @03:57PM (1 child)
Three people in one bed? What kind of weirdo are you? :-))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 26 2022, @09:38AM
Snow? Thus the need for electric blankets. Canada can be cold, recently.