[billylindeman]

LOL I built the first version of their android app back in the day. Can't speak to why they've been going after modders, but it's likely from a liability / legal standpoint. At the end of the day I still love their products and currently own an XR (may upgrade to a GT next spring!).

At least for the earlier versions all the info was published as standard BLE descriptors, so building a third party lightweight app for that is fairly straight forward. Not sure what they're doing these days, but if you wanted to investigate LightBlue is a great app for digging into BLE devices ;)

[Fogest]

Is it really liability? Because I really doubt that. People modify vehicles all the time and it causes unsafe driving that can lead to collisions. The car manufacturer doesn't get sued because somebody made a stupid change. Maybe it could be a super minor thing they use as an excuse to prevent modding, but I think the actual answer is what the other commenter mentioned. They don't want their own product competing with their newer products.

Someone won't buy their new product if they can just mod their existing product to get the same capabilities their new product gives.

See the thing is; I think a genuine company would encourage a modding community rather than discourage it. This example may not apply, but take a videogame like Minecraft. They didn't have modding support built into the game but people hacked the game and built in their own modding support on top of it. This then allowed a huge amount of people to be able to much more easily mod the game using a modding framework. The game is hugely moddable on both the client side and server side. It was so successful that there are many companies that employ multiple people to run their Minecraft servers and code minigames for them. The game likely wouldn't have taken off as much as it did without these modding capabilities that Mojang let go on.

I feel like more companies need to take this approach where they allow or even encourage modding. It brings more people to the platform. Especially in such a new market, making anti-consumer business decisions just seems like a good way to start your companies slow death.

[themacguffinman]

You don't have to be literally sued for this kind of thing to be a liability. Companies don't like this because even if they don't get sued, it becomes a PR liability when they get a reputation. When the average buyer sees that a product gets a lot of accidents, they're not going to put on their detective hat and spend much time getting to the bottom of "is this reputation truly deserved? was it the customer's fault?"

> People modify vehicles all the time and it causes unsafe driving that can lead to collisions.

Yeah, and car companies don't support these mods. Also, mods that cause unsafe driving are often literally illegal: not only will you be unsupported, the government will punish you for using these mods. Because it's really dangerous and modern Western society generally agrees that it's not okay to let people fuck themselves that easily even if it was their own choice. How dangerous are Minecraft mods?

[qwertox]

> it becomes a PR liability when they get a reputation

This would rather be positive for PR. The news will talk about it, about how dangerous this is, then they come out with the real story, where the customer did some modifications, that the product is 100% safe if it is left the way they sell it.

[mkl]

That "real story" update often doesn't seem to happen, or is far less visible than the original not-the-whole-story story.

[jlg23]

That only works for those who read all of the article, not just the headline. Even worse, the correction might be in another article...

[R0b0t1]

Safety and liability actually mean lack of revenue from data collection and service contracts. It's nothing to do with safety or liability.

[leeoniya]

> but it's likely from a liability / legal standpoint

sure. but also the same reason mfgs dont want their modded/refurbished/re-sold prev-gen products competing with their new products.

[newaccount74]

Which is stupid, since people who look for a cheap used option aren't going to buy a new product at full price anyway. They are going to buy a cheaper product from another company, and then you have lost them as a potential future customer.

People who buy your companies used products are much more likely to buy your companies new products at some point in the future.

[leeoniya]

Sonos is another one that never got the message, until the PR nightmare that ensued.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/30/21042871/sonos-recycle-m...

[darknavi]

Just last night I was trying to establish a connection via a BLE handshake and it seems like with the newer boards you have to exchange tokens you get from their web service. A bit of a PITA especially when they ban your IP from making requests because you spammed them too much.