[morsch]

What a coincidence, I just got an email announcing that Breville intend to orphan my Joule sous vide stick: the existing app will stop working, the new app is only available the US and Canada and in parts of Europe.

Live in another country? You're s.o.l., it wasn't officially sold there. You need a new account as well, hope you like the TOS.

All of this for a device whose core functionality -- setting a target temperature, getting the current temperature and checking for error states -- is both trivial and has no inherent need for internet connectivity.

I suppose I should be grateful they're still supporting a device that's like 10 years old. Caveat emptor (I got it as a gift).

https://community.chefsteps.com/discussion/78615/joule-sous-...

[red_admiral]

"With Breville+ Cooking, you’ll get: ... The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime."

What has gone wrong with humanity, that we need to advertise that as a feature if you download a new app?

[sigbottle]

On the one hand, every time I read an article like this I'm vindicated against astroturfed bots claiming that nothing ever happens and this isn't where we're headed.

On the other hand, I don't want to be vindicated.

[duskdozer]

It reads like a sarcastic post from 10 years ago ending in "Stallman was right"

[greenavocado]

It is essential to purchase and configure Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) compatible devices around the home whenever possible if you want a "smart home" that will last. Everything else is an Internet of Shit treadmill that lasts at most a few years before it falls off and is replaced by a new piece of e-waste.

[seany]

The caveat here is that it needs to be local. I have a few things that work with HA, but they basically highjack the apps cloud login tokens ..

[greenavocado]

That is terrifying

[Ekaros]

From get go I considered the whole design with no interface on device a bad idea... Apps can and will often go. Better to have also the local controls.

[compass_copium]

Don't want to remember how much money I spent on a Copengagen wheel for my wife when she was in school. At least some kind souls published a way to unbrick it.

[RajT88]

It's a plus from the manufacturer side - kitchen gadgets you keep more than 10 years.

With required smartphone app, it is almost assured to not work in 10 years, and you have to buy another one. Just another method of planned obsolesence.

[radicality]

That’s just sad ugh, just the other day I was using my pre-shitty-IoT era Sous Vide machine (Anova brand, I think it might have been chefsteps recommended too, got around 2014/2015), and I was thinking how glad I am that it has zero fancy connectivity - just a wheel to set the temperature and a start/stop button and simple led display. Still works great.

[nkrisc]

I have an Anova sous vide cooker that is also about 10 years old and has an app, but is fully functional without it.

When I bought it the app was free, but then later became a subscription addon. However they grandfathered all original owners into a free lifetime subscription. Pretty classy.

[WalterBright]

I've bought 4 internet radios over the last 25 years. They work for a few years, then are bricked because the remote server disappeared.

[EvanAnderson]

You rented the devices with a full up-front payment, but the manufacturer stuck you with the e-waste problem when they decided to be come an absentee landlord.

This needs to be fixed by regulation. If a device requires an online service to function it (a) needs to be clearly advertised as rental and not a purchase, and (b) the device manufacturer must take the devices back and deal with the e-waste if they discontinue the services or release the software stack (including complete and corresponding source code and build environment) to allow third-parties to host it.

[elwebmaster]

This! Absolutely needed regulation. Why is it that such a clearly beneficial and necessary piece of legislation is not making its way through the legislative bodies of the world while age checks somehow magically appeared universally?

[somat]

Needing an app for these things is stupid in the first place, but the real kick in the metaphorical nuts is that the needed app should be stored on the device. Want to use your phone to control the device load the program to do so off the device itself.

We really only have one tech stack where this actually works, the web. And I consider this to be either the great failure of the app ecosystem(why on earth do apps need a manual install step?) or amazement that the corporate overlords let the web slip through the gaps.

Is there a way to do web over bluetooth? or is that another missing piece?

[nkrisc]

For the one I have the app is completely optional. It doesn’t add any capability, it just lets you control it remotely. It will perform all its capabilities just fine without you ever taking your phone out.

For the subscription you also get additional content like recipes and such that I don’t care about. I wouldn’t pay for it.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>a device whose core functionality [...] is both trivial and has no inherent need for internet connectivity.

For a while I've given a hard pass to anything which requires an app for such functionality, knowing full well that eventually I'll be locked out of it (not to mention the privacy implications of such designs).

I encourage others to follow suit.

[userbinator]

This reads like satire:

The ability to cook with or without WiFi anywhere, anytime.

[ErroneousBosh]

If you're not cooking with WiFi, you need more key-down transmit power.

I'm currently full QRO on the 13cm band with something around 1600W EIRP CW, and will be for several minutes until the curry base defrosts.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

>WiFi

>1600W EIRP

Your local regulatory authority would like a word with you.

[ErroneousBosh]

I hold a licence that allows me to transmit on pretty much whatever frequency I like with as much power as I like, wherever I like.

Someone has to test the transmitter before you hand it off to the customer.

Also, I'm in the UK, where it's hard enough to get the regulatory authorities to do anything about people causing interferenced to licensed chunks of band. You can wipe out the whole of 2.4GHz if you like, you literally could not pay them to take an interest.

Edit: also you have probably done the same a couple of times today too.

[Infernal]

So I thought your initial comment was a (pretty good) joke about using a microwave oven, but now I’m not sure. Is this testing license you reference a continuation of the joke or a real thing?

[ErroneousBosh]

The testing licence is real but the comment was a joke about microwaving some sauce base :-)

[toxik]

And in a bold face font:

> You've always needed an account to operate your Joule Sous Vide with the Joule app. This is not a new requirement.

Absolute comedy.

[esquivalience]

I'd pay to cook with WiFi. Just imagine the signal strength!

[toast0]

Isn't that just a microwave oven, more or less?

[firtoz]

Just need to amplify it 10000 times

[RajT88]

So - I know folks who have mulled over attaching the emitter of a microwave oven to a parabolic 2.4ghz antenna (indeed, same spectrum).

It would be cool... For anyone who does not want children one day.

[userbinator]

Or 40dB. This is why those working with RF use dB --- power varies by orders of magnitude between the transmitter and receiver.

[duskdozer]

If you can cook with it, just imagine what it's doing to your brain! Forget about 5G...

[jgalt212]

Jack Donaghy would ride this pitch right up to the C Suite.

“Ambition is the willingness to kill the things you love and eat them to survive”

[OptionOfT]

Makes me glad I got the Anova one. They don't _need_ an app per-se, however they recently did do a rug-pull by making the app a subscription.

They grandfathered me in, of-course, but it still is absolutely disgusting.

It should be mandatory to build systems with local connections in mind. mDNS is a thing.