[sarchertech]

I bought a Miku baby monitor because it had the features I wanted but didn’t require a subscription. It was pretty expensive ($399).

Then Miku sold to another company (they either filed or were planning on filing for bankruptcy), and the first thing the new company did was send a letter demanding $10 a month to keep using most of the monitor’s features.

[geph2021]

Without knowing the particulars, that's an interesting example. The fact that Miku was going bankrupt suggests that they did not have a viable/sustainable business, and perhaps they could have been profitable with a different (i.e. subscription fees) business model. In either case, new company seems like they do not much value existing Miku customers, as demanding more money for a product that was bought/paid seems pretty outrageous.

[sarchertech]

They pushed out an over the air update the bricked nearly every device and had to swap them all out right before sending out a letter warning they were going to file.

The lesson that it drives home to me is that if a company can force updates to your device, it doesn’t matter what the terms of service are or how much you trust the company.

They can go bankrupt, sell off the assets, and some new vampire company can come along and remove your ability to use your product.

[anotherhue]

> if a company can force updates to your device

Worse, if your device requires remote services then they can control access to those. Stallman was right.

[anotherhue]

It was marketed directly based on 'no subscription fees', and had a heftier price to boot. So they're having their cake and eating it too.

[adrianpike]

Oh hey, fellow Miku friend. I was _furious_ when they first announced their bankruptcy plan. We supposedly paid a hefty premium for hardware that enables onboard breathing monitoring, and suddenly they're pretending they have to ship it to the cloud to do some magic? Nah, tear it down, and turns out we did pay extra for hardware.

Our Miku's use a Novelda (fka Xethru) UWB sensor SoC, specifically designed for human presence monitoring and, drumroll, breathing and heartbeat. Specifically they use an X4: https://novelda.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/x4_datasheet_...

I likely won't have time, what with the kids and all, but I'm going to give it the old college try to tear into this thing and craft some firmware so we can actually keep things from being a paperweight. It blows my mind this isn't just table stakes with IoT crap these days, but here we are.

[autoexec]

Your first mistake was buying a baby monitor where it was even possible for most of its features to be remotely disabled unless you paid a fee. If you give someone else control over your devices, and your data, they'll eventually take it.

[sarchertech]

There was no alternative for a baby monitor with the features I was looking for.

In general it’s getting harder and harder to avoid devices where this is possible. The obvious answer is regulation.