Your Slingbox Will Be A Useless Brick In A Few Years

from the you-don't-own-what-you-buy dept

Remember the Slingbox? It was a piece of hardware by Dish subsidiary Sling Media that let users beam TV content from your home cable box to anywhere else. Sling was public enemy number one among entrenched cable and broadcast industry gatekeepers, because its products (*gasp*) not only made life easier on consumers, but at one point integrated ad-skipping technology. Back in 2013 the broadcast and cable industry was so pissed at Sling, it managed to get a best-of-show CES award retracted by CNET and CBS simply because the industry didn't like the disruptive nature of the company's technologies. Ah, memories.

This week, Sling Media announced that all Slingboxes will effectively become useless paperweights in a few years. In a company announcement, it says the technology will no longer work at all as of November 9, 2022:

"Slingbox servers will be permanently taken offline 24 months after the discontinued announcement date (November 9, 2020), at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable.

Until then, most Slingbox models will continue to work normally, but the number of supported devices for viewing will steadily decrease as versions of the SlingPlayer apps become outdated and/or lose compatibility.

The shift isn't particularly surprising given that the streaming era has effectively made such technology irrelevant. Users can now obtain streams of numerous apps on any platform they like. And software like Plex similarly let users stream content from their home PC anywhere they have a reliable internet connection. Streaming from your home cable box isn't as popular because people are not only cutting the cord at a record pace, they're shifting to streaming platforms that are inherently more flexible. Evolution made Sling irrelevant. The company kind of explains this all to users, but not really:

Q: Why is Slingbox being discontinued?

A: We’ve had to make room for new innovative products so that we can continue to serve our customers in the best way possible.

Q: Will Slingbox be releasing any new products?

A: No.

At the same time, it's yet another example of how in the modern era, you simply don't really own the things you buy. Firmware updates can often eliminate functionality promised to you at launch, as we saw with the Sony PlayStation 3. And with everything now relying on internet-connectivity, companies can often give up on supporting devices entirely, often leaving users with very expensive paperweights as we saw after Google acquired Revolv, then bricked users' $300 smart home hub. Now it's the Slingbox's turn to head to that great gadget graveyard in the sky.

Filed Under: brick, end of life, ownership, slingbox, streaming, tv
Companies: sling media

Focals 'Smart' Glasses Become Dumb As A Brick After Google Acquisition

from the you-don't-own-what-you-buy dept

Time and time again we've highlighted how, in the modern era, you don't really own the hardware you buy. Music, ebooks, and videos can disappear on a dime without recourse, your game console can lose important features after a purchase, and a wide variety of "smart" tech can quickly become dumb as a rock in the face of company struggles, hacks, or acquisitions, leaving you with pricey paperweights where innovation once stood.

The latest case in point: Google acquired Waterloo, Ontario based North back in June. For several years, North had been selling AR capable "smart" glasses dubbed Focal. Generally well reviewed, Focal glasses started at $600, went dramatically up from there, and required you visit one of two North stores -- either in Brooklyn or Toronto -- to carefully measure your head using 11 3D modeling cameras. The glasses themselves integrated traditional prescription glasses with smart technology, letting you enjoy a heads up display and AR notifications directly from your phone.

But with the Google acquisition, North posted a statement to its website, stating the company was forced to make the "difficult decision" to wind down support for Focal as of the end of July, at which point the "smart" tech will become rather dumb:

The full blog post notes that not only will it be killing off all online functionality for its first generation of Focal glasses, but it's cancelling production of its second generation, Focal 2.0 product:

"Focals smart glasses and its services are being discontinued and will no longer be available after July 31st, 2020. You won’t be able to connect your glasses through the app or use any features, abilities, or experiments from your glasses...We will not be shipping Focals 2.0, but we hope you will continue the journey with us as we start this next chapter."

Fortunately, the company says it's giving an automatic refund to all Focals 1.0 customers, though we'll have to see how well that works out in practice as the company shifts the lion's share of its focus toward getting swallowed up by Google and spending wheelbarrows full of acquisition money. Still, whether it's your smart glasses or your smart pet food bowl, it's yet another example of how sticking with dumb tech is very often less hassle and the better option.

Filed Under: ar, brick, focals, ownership, smart technology
Companies: google, north

Sonos' Wasteful 'Recycle Mode' Bricks Perfectly Usable Tech

from the who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea dept

Sonos is taking heat this week for a wasteful "feature" in its "smart" speakers that isn't all that smart.

Last October, Sonos announced a new "Trade up" upgrade discount program that let you trade in older Sonos hardware for a 30% discount on new gear. But buried within the program was a bizarre caveat: to get the discount, users need to put their old hardware into "recycle mode," which effectively bricks the product preventing it from being used again. According to Sonos, once you apply online you'll get the discount immediately, but the speaker system you're trading in goes into a 21 day countdown mode before it's inevitably made useless:

"Recycle Mode is a state your device enters 21 days after recycling confirmation in the Sonos app. In Recycle Mode, all data is erased and the device is permanently deactivated so you can safely and securely dispose of it. Once a device is in Recycle Mode, it cannot be reactivated."

One Twitter user, who works at a hardware recycling center, offered a good thread highlighting the stupidity of the program that's well worth a read:

The fact that repurposing the hardware (or selling it to somebody else) never entered Sonos' executives brains suggests the program -- which is heavily hyped as being "environmentally friendly" -- wasn't particularly well thought out. Sonos, for its part, tries to tell The Verge that the company is worried about performance degradation with these older units:

"The reality is that these older products lack the processing power and memory to support modern Sonos experiences. Over time, technology will progress in ways these products are not able to accommodate. For some owners, these new features aren’t important. Accordingly, they may choose not to participate in the Trade Up program.

But for other owners, having modern Sonos devices capable of delivering these new experiences is important. So the Trade Up program is an affordable path for these owners to upgrade. For those that choose to trade-up to new products, we felt that the most responsible action was not to reintroduce them to new customers that may not have the context of them as 10+ year old products, and that also may not be able to deliver the Sonos experience they expected."

But that still feels like Sonos attempting to control the uncontrollable. Users who buy discounted older tech should know that this value equation comes at the cost of older, less efficient gear. And the decision to cripple perfectly functional kit (which Sonos quietly admits is reversible on a "customer by customer" basis, in contrast to what the Sonos website claims) only contributes to a culture that celebrates waste but often undermines repair and re-use.

Filed Under: brick, recycle mode, wasteful tech
Companies: sonos