This is a very real issue for even expensive items. If you buy a car today, doesn't it have some sw component that requires phoning home to work properly. What if that company goes bust? Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side? Both Tesla and byd seem like challenging purchases with all that's going on
I'm thinking that removing the smarts from "smart" devices may become a lucrative cottage industry in the next 25 years, as devices become orphaned and useless when their manufacturers disappear or go out of business. Bonus service: Pre-dumbing a smart device to increase its usefulness prior to purchase. Store sells a "Smart Dishwasher" for $400? I'll unlock it and un-app it and sell it to you for $500 instead.
Products are often cheap enough that the labor costs are too high compared to getting a new unit. It would generally work for appliances that are built into a house or hard to transport because then the relative cost would be offset by the cost of labor to remove and install a replacement.
For example, people generally wouldn’t do this for a TV when they can get a decent replacement for $300 new.
I'd beware the legal system in that case. A lot of product liability claims could be (spuriously or not) redirected on whoever last touched the firmware.
For a real world example Subaru, when 3G shut down, their wireless modems started massively draining the battery even for people with no subscription. As it tried over and over again to connect to the 3G network to check if you even had a subscription.
The manufacturer had (has) no good solution to this. They just change something to dealer mode and hope your battery never completely drains and resets it.
> Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side?
the company has something over the consumer, unlike the products of old. This is what i dislike about new age products that are so internet enabled.
It started with game consoles, but it won't end with cars.
I just want a self-contained piece of equipment that can work in perpetuity. Look at those old milling and lathe machines - some are as old as 30 yrs, and works brilliantly.
It's played out countless times already, so often that the fact consumers are still not protected is now negligence and not simple innovation getting ahead of law.
It was predicted early on in the first IoT booms, earlier still in software, and I have to imagine even before computers were a thing, bespoke components rather than commodity items in particular parts of machines likely had the same effect.
Screw that these days. I drive a 2014 French compact POS rather than my old 2018 Model S now. It actually works properly and over its entire lifetime, including fuel, it'll cost less than the depreciation of the Model S while I owned it.
As long as India and China have a good stance with each other there will probably be no problems. But if that ever changes, who can tell if services won't be "disrupted" by "accident" and take longer than expected to be fully functional again (if ever).
Same goes for Tesla. Same goes for every brand, but some are probably more likely than other to be used as a kind of "weapon" in a trade war or sth. alike.
People don't care, they buy smart lights, smart HVAC, smart thermostats, smart coffee machines, smart juice pressers, &c. It's all going to end up in a landmine before 10 years. The vast majority of things we can buy are made to fail quickly or are irreparable, usually both
We're multiplying points of failure and increasing the repairability complexity 100 fold, for a tiny bit of convenience, sometimes, maybe
Maybe I've been listening to too much YKS but I can't imagine buying a bike that required me to use an app and company's cloud to control basic functionality like that
I couldn't imagine buying a dishwasher that did the same... but somehow that happened.
There's no indication that functionality is hidden behind an app. You find that out after you get the thing home, set it up, and start using it (a lot of the time).
This is one of few places where I’d like to sprinkle a little more government overreach in just the right way - to prevent manufacturers from walling clearly essential behaviour behind an app. That’s far too gray of a line for governments to handle, but I can dream.
I really appreciate you, in particular, posting that here, because if Jeff Geerling can end up with an appliance with unwanted cloud/app dependencies, it's not a customer skill issue - it's a lack of candor from the manufacturers issue.
And oftentimes, download the user manual. If at all possible, I download the manual before making any purchase decision. It can answer questions such as: What’s included in the box? What cables/accessories will I need? Will the specs be fit for purpose?
User manuals are unbiased and usually a very accurate way to figure out lots of things about a product, especially something complicated and/or expensive, before purchase.
Unfortunately I have seen companies who are paywalling or purchase-walling manual downloads.
They hide this fact several times - while others advertise proudly, and idioticly -, true, but that is why I read the user manual before considering the purchase. Several of home appliances I browsed failed at this step.
Overcomplication works for masses, unluckily, they want to be thorougly amazed like in a circus at every cycle of washing dishes or what, and real engineers are a dying breed. Children put together shiny crap nowadays. While the motto should be: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Don't be ridiculous. They won't collude against you. They clearly will have a turf war instead with each claiming that the TOS you signed by opening the packaging (the TOS being, of course, on the inside of said packaging) gives them exclusive rights to your entire being.
We have a shredder at work with a touchscreen. It is a shedder, basically just a motor and some rotating blades. But every time i use it i have to wait 30 seconds for the touchscreen to wake up. Totally useless.
This is why I avoid anything that advertises as having an app. Whether it's adding huge latency to a volume change, using it for advertising or removing functionality entirely; the manufacturer simply has too much ownership over a product you've supposedly bought.
I was hoping this was about the Copenhagen Wheel. I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".
I'm sure there are startups that won't screw over their users even if they don't make it. Don't trust/buy any hardware that requires a cell phone app to use though.
Yeah, if the first thing they show in a promo video is using an app, I'm already rolling my eyes. If they instead just show the product working, and then "one more thing" the demo with app control, maybe I'll get my eyes to face forward the entire demo. It seems like the "but on a computer" just went to "but it has an app" mental picture.
I've been eyeing a Pikaboost 2 conversion kit for a while now, but I share your skepticism. For me it's more of a distrust of first gen products than it is startups. Even apple messes up 1st gen.
I live up a hill, and all my destinations are at sea level, so I just want enough E-bike to get home at the end of the day.
> I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".
This does not even require an app. Simply lock down all hardware and make it economically unviable by charging 100+ euro for a 5 second "software update", which you need to do if you ever unplug the battery for > 10 seconds. See the thousands of Accell bikes (mostly Sparta branded) on dumps. You can get them going again but that's only for diehard hobbyists and requires custom hardware.
They are not selling the hardware. They are taking your money in exchange for the privilege of utilizing the hardware they created to use a service they built so their customers can obtain data about your usage of the device and whatever it connects to.
I fear that small companies without VC are the only ones interested in making a thing they sell that doesn’t require some ongoing commitment from buyers. And those companies run the risk of folding overnight. It’s fine for the customers since their hardware continues to function, but it’s not an attractive business model.
> so their customers can obtain data about your usage
I can't prove it, but I suspect selling data is a very minor consideration in the appification of everything.
Aside from there actually being people who like that kind of thing (and them apparently being more common than people who like physical forms of self-flagellation), the main benefit of appifying everything is the opportunity to sell you "value-add services", aka sell you a subscription for the hardware you already bought.
It's been the business model for over 100+ years with bikes. It's not an attractive VC buisness models as it cannot needlessly extract wealth beyond the product sale. It is double dipping as you fully pay for the bike, and people fall for it somehow.
VCs mandate that every possible avenue of rent seeking be exploited in order to maximize the amount and frequency of transactions. You're not getting hardware funded; the VC will steal your idea and pawn it off on some other party capable of exploiting the potential for your product as a service. Because if you don't, someone else will, and they'll have more money to outcompete your product, because enshittification is how FAANG got to be trillion dollar companies.
A person existing is sufficient to make these people assume they are entitled to something for it.
The phrase rent-seeking is such a funny one to me. Like, if rent-seeking is bad that should apply across the board. I.e. being a landlord, literally seeking rent from tenants.
Yet I fear the issue most people on here have with “rent seeking” is the harm it does to a theoretical idea of free market capitalism - rather than the tangible harm of extracting wealth from someone’s need for a place to live.
Another problem is that when turning, the light doesn't follow the handlebar, so it "stays behind" the curve. It's bright/wide enough and I only drive in the city so neither problems are a huge deal though.
That is actually less of an issue as you might think, if the light is designed properly. As you will have to look at the corner before you ever shine the light directly towards it. This is not much different from motorcycles.
Since this is a vanmoof (first edition probably) I think they followed the design of "old fashioned" bikes which also lack the turnability features as the light is attached to the frame part of the central steering bar and not the insert which turns with the steering wheel.
I can't state how convenient hub dynamos are, no noise, no maintenance, unlikely to be robbed without stealing the whole bike, it just works, perfect for a city bike.
I get why people like them, but they make way less sense when you work out the capacity of an equivalent weight (not to mention cost) of lithium cells.
It's easy to get to about 90Wh, which will run a dynamo-powered light for 30 hours on max (most dynamos seem to be rated 3W).
There are definitely cases where it makes sense, and not having to keep batteries charged is nice, it's just easy to miss how good batteries are these days.
It depends both on the lights and the dynamo. Incandescent lights used substantial chunks of your pedaling power. LED lights need maybe 5W or so. Hub dynamos are pretty efficient. For an untrained person your average power output is around 100W. That means powering the light would be around 5% of your power if you’re using an efficient hub dynamo. That’s in the ballpark of “bad chain maintenance costs more energy”
Not the topic of most comments, but instead of a 22 ohm resistor that burns up the majority of the battery power to protect the LED from overcurrent, a switching power supply would allow the light to run more than twice as long for the same available battery energy.
And I agree with other comments that linking products to their manufacturers is deplorable -- you don't own a modern product, it owns you.
Oh that's a great point/addition, thanks! The voltage already seems to be good. Everything seemed to work without even the resistor, just added the smaller resistor I had just in case and because I understand an LED in series with a power supply is a very bad idea, even if "it works" (wanted to be on the safe side). So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?
> So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?
First, in a regulated power supply, you control the current by (a) monitoring current, and (b) adjusting voltage.
Second, a switching power supply can easily be designed to regulate load current, which is what you want for an LED load, because the voltage across the LED changes with both current and temperature. The point of a switching design is that very little power is dissipated by anything except the load.
In your present circuit, the 22 ohm resistor is dissipating at least half the available power, all to protect the LED from overcurrent. I should add that, in any LED driving circuit, a way must be provided to limit the LED's current, or it may experience thermal runaway and failure. A switching power supply is an ideal way to do this, but only if it senses current in the load, not voltage.
Apropos, I designed switching power supplies for the NASA Space Shuttle. They were about 90% efficient, in spite of the fact that they had to deliver widely varying voltages and currents.
It is an early edition Vanmoof, it has a single button on the handlebar that was for the Bell, no button for the lights. I could find little info about this model, it was only later versions that were a lot more popular.
If anyone is looking to do the opposite (i.e., make a dumb bike smart) check out the QZ app (qzfitness.com). Made by a solo dev who is amazing at support despite the tiny price and lack of subscription. I have no affiliation, just thought anyone reading the original post might be curious about the opposite...
Thanks, this felt fine though. I added a small resistor to limit the current, but even without it (direct battery) the light worked fine. I didn't think I'd need a boost converter here.
If government were 'for the people' it would be required that appliances etc work regardless of communicating with the parent company.
Eg, it is probably already illegal to use the term 'purchase' for this sort of thing - as it actually seems like some sort of 'service contract' with terms for both parties to agree to. That items that need to 'call back to base' are allowed to be sold with no repercussions, tells you who the legal/governmental systems are serving.
This is a real issue with most vehicles these days. I have a pal with a Triumph Street Twin which gave the message in the console and they couldn't figure out what was causing it. The bike would go into limp mode indicating as though there is something wrong with the engine.
They tried for months to diagnose why the message was coming up and they couldn't figure it out.
It would be great to have a motorcycle with as little electronic magic as possible to allow it to be repaired easily
That companies would follow such absolute shit practices to the people who trusted them with their money for actual physical products is grotesque. It should even be treated as a type of fraud, downright. Fuck these "smart device" manufacturers that can't seem to help themselves against fucking the thing you bought right over with bullshit fashionable tech trends that barely work.
That they do all this for the sake of extracting every possible penny out of you through data via forced app interaction only makes it more disgusting and parasitic. It used to b e that purely digital social media/ad-type companies mostly did this, now the very visible nonsense fashion is to cram as much extractive app-based shit into every possible physical product under the sun.
I can't wait to see a mass consumer revolt against such garbage, putting these companies sales firmly down the toilet. To those of you who fund, found or promote such things in your ventures and pitches, simply: Fuck. You..
Well, companies like shimano do the same thing. I have an ebike with shimano components with power outputs for lights. Even though the bike dashboard has buttons and you can navigate to settings, you need an app to connect to the bike and enable the lights. (to be clear, this is a one-time thing)
But the fact that media ad-type companies can still get away with shenanigans is the crazy part. The hype machine just seems like it will always be faster/more powerful than those pointing out the lunacy. After all, the emperor's clothes look fantastic.
This is victim blaming. Being aware of everything will paralyze you to inaction because you can't read a 20 page TOS just to view a website or buy a hairdryer. Like so many things in our society right now, this is a trust thing. Functioning societies have a level of trust that allows greater return than the maximum minimum. If I trusted companies more I would buy more things. But I don't so I avoid things like new cars and 'smart' TVs. That trust is generally built up with strong institutions and things like 'consumer protections'. Right now however people believe in ideas like 'buyer beware' and 'it is the buyer's fault for getting scammed' and it just leads to a weak economy filled with junk that people hate but have no other option.
- Oh sorry, my friend bought it 2nd or 3rd hand after another individual had an accident and I understood they were not in Japan (some repair parts were 3rd party), but I searched and it seems you are right! I'll correct it.
- We tried a few times to recover the account but had some trouble with CS and the particular account, so ended up giving on that. It didn't help that he visits the country from time to time and we'd need to migrate the account each time.
I've owned a lot of VanMoofs. You absolutely do not need to use the app to interact with the lights, they are automatic. If the bike is misconfigured, it takes about 30 seconds to reset its preferences with a physical button accessible from the exterior, since the SX2.
> "since the SX2" + "Your friend may have bought a broken VanMoof"
The explanation is that it's one of the first generation ones. Originally there was a single push button outside on the handle, for the Bell, and a single charging micro-USB.
Also that must have been in the sweetspot of couple of month between the release of the bike and the bankruptcy, who else would want to transport a "dead" bike that far?
> something more problematic of this smart bike is that it also requires an app to unlock.
It doesn't, assuming you have the PIN to the bicycle.
> from what I read they used many (low quality) custom parts for this bike which aren't available anymore.
I've worked on my two VanMoofs a bunch to keep them running and they're okay quality parts in my opinion. Additionally, they sold about 200k bicycles so there's plenty of second hand, and even new, parts out there.
Since we were swapping it from owner every few months initially, when the App still worked, we left it unlocked and with a normal chain lock. Luckily for us, since now the app doesn't work anymore.
This is a very real issue for even expensive items. If you buy a car today, doesn't it have some sw component that requires phoning home to work properly. What if that company goes bust? Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side? Both Tesla and byd seem like challenging purchases with all that's going on
I'm thinking that removing the smarts from "smart" devices may become a lucrative cottage industry in the next 25 years, as devices become orphaned and useless when their manufacturers disappear or go out of business. Bonus service: Pre-dumbing a smart device to increase its usefulness prior to purchase. Store sells a "Smart Dishwasher" for $400? I'll unlock it and un-app it and sell it to you for $500 instead.
Products are often cheap enough that the labor costs are too high compared to getting a new unit. It would generally work for appliances that are built into a house or hard to transport because then the relative cost would be offset by the cost of labor to remove and install a replacement.
For example, people generally wouldn’t do this for a TV when they can get a decent replacement for $300 new.
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The problem is it may require both replacement computing hardware and software. At that point, you may just want to make competing washing machines.
its likely to be illegal for cars for safety reasons. Manufacturers will use legal roadblocks on other devices.
I'd beware the legal system in that case. A lot of product liability claims could be (spuriously or not) redirected on whoever last touched the firmware.
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For a real world example Subaru, when 3G shut down, their wireless modems started massively draining the battery even for people with no subscription. As it tried over and over again to connect to the 3G network to check if you even had a subscription.
The manufacturer had (has) no good solution to this. They just change something to dealer mode and hope your battery never completely drains and resets it.
Wasn't the fix for this pulling the fuse to the wireless modem?
> Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side?
the company has something over the consumer, unlike the products of old. This is what i dislike about new age products that are so internet enabled.
It started with game consoles, but it won't end with cars.
I just want a self-contained piece of equipment that can work in perpetuity. Look at those old milling and lathe machines - some are as old as 30 yrs, and works brilliantly.
Many are much older than that.
It's played out countless times already, so often that the fact consumers are still not protected is now negligence and not simple innovation getting ahead of law.
It was predicted early on in the first IoT booms, earlier still in software, and I have to imagine even before computers were a thing, bespoke components rather than commodity items in particular parts of machines likely had the same effect.
Screw that these days. I drive a 2014 French compact POS rather than my old 2018 Model S now. It actually works properly and over its entire lifetime, including fuel, it'll cost less than the depreciation of the Model S while I owned it.
Can you please elaborate why BYD purchase could be a challenge? Do they call home and potentially get bricked if the home doesn't respond?
I'm considering buying one, being in India, so would appreciate an explanation.
As long as India and China have a good stance with each other there will probably be no problems. But if that ever changes, who can tell if services won't be "disrupted" by "accident" and take longer than expected to be fully functional again (if ever).
Same goes for Tesla. Same goes for every brand, but some are probably more likely than other to be used as a kind of "weapon" in a trade war or sth. alike.
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People don't care, they buy smart lights, smart HVAC, smart thermostats, smart coffee machines, smart juice pressers, &c. It's all going to end up in a landmine before 10 years. The vast majority of things we can buy are made to fail quickly or are irreparable, usually both
We're multiplying points of failure and increasing the repairability complexity 100 fold, for a tiny bit of convenience, sometimes, maybe
> a landmine
I hope this is a typo or this is a terrifying prediction.
And it's creeping into more and more of our stuff
Maybe I've been listening to too much YKS but I can't imagine buying a bike that required me to use an app and company's cloud to control basic functionality like that
I couldn't imagine buying a dishwasher that did the same... but somehow that happened.
There's no indication that functionality is hidden behind an app. You find that out after you get the thing home, set it up, and start using it (a lot of the time).
Bosch I presume?
This is one of few places where I’d like to sprinkle a little more government overreach in just the right way - to prevent manufacturers from walling clearly essential behaviour behind an app. That’s far too gray of a line for governments to handle, but I can dream.
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I really appreciate you, in particular, posting that here, because if Jeff Geerling can end up with an appliance with unwanted cloud/app dependencies, it's not a customer skill issue - it's a lack of candor from the manufacturers issue.
What possible advantage is there to controlling my dishwasher through an app? Why would anyone buy this on purpose?
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That is what online reviews are for.
And oftentimes, download the user manual. If at all possible, I download the manual before making any purchase decision. It can answer questions such as: What’s included in the box? What cables/accessories will I need? Will the specs be fit for purpose?
User manuals are unbiased and usually a very accurate way to figure out lots of things about a product, especially something complicated and/or expensive, before purchase.
Unfortunately I have seen companies who are paywalling or purchase-walling manual downloads.
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I loved (and hated... because 'enshitification') that video. Thanks!
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They hide this fact several times - while others advertise proudly, and idioticly -, true, but that is why I read the user manual before considering the purchase. Several of home appliances I browsed failed at this step.
Overcomplication works for masses, unluckily, they want to be thorougly amazed like in a circus at every cycle of washing dishes or what, and real engineers are a dying breed. Children put together shiny crap nowadays. While the motto should be: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
My clothes dryer has this stupid touch screen interface and keeps reminding me that it can be controlled by an app.
I'm all: "So? I Don't want my phone colluding with the dryer and the garage door opener to overthrow me."
Don't be ridiculous. They won't collude against you. They clearly will have a turf war instead with each claiming that the TOS you signed by opening the packaging (the TOS being, of course, on the inside of said packaging) gives them exclusive rights to your entire being.
We have a shredder at work with a touchscreen. It is a shedder, basically just a motor and some rotating blades. But every time i use it i have to wait 30 seconds for the touchscreen to wake up. Totally useless.
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I think I’ve told Gmail.com that 10k times in a row.
They will try again tomorrow though.
The dryer could tell the garage door to open, to reduce humidity.
Right? At some point we crossed a line where turning on a bike light became a "cloud event." Like… why does my transportation need a login screen?
YKS?
Probably the "Your Kickstarter Sucks" podcast. [0]
[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-kickstarter-sucks...
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Is it possible the app wasn't advertised as required, but shown as a feature?
This is why I avoid anything that advertises as having an app. Whether it's adding huge latency to a volume change, using it for advertising or removing functionality entirely; the manufacturer simply has too much ownership over a product you've supposedly bought.
I was hoping this was about the Copenhagen Wheel. I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".
I thought I'd read about unbricking it. https://www.reddit.com/r/ebikes/comments/1bis770/diehard_cop... links to a private FB group that I haven't joined, but implies maybe it hasn't been solved yet. https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Key-for-the-Copenhagen... makes me think at least one piece of the puzzle has been.
I'm sure there are startups that won't screw over their users even if they don't make it. Don't trust/buy any hardware that requires a cell phone app to use though.
If the CEO is an MBA then just don't even give them a chance.
Yeah, if the first thing they show in a promo video is using an app, I'm already rolling my eyes. If they instead just show the product working, and then "one more thing" the demo with app control, maybe I'll get my eyes to face forward the entire demo. It seems like the "but on a computer" just went to "but it has an app" mental picture.
They are unbrickable, I just got home from a rode using mine. It is super tragic that such a great piece of hardware was so mismanaged
I've been eyeing a Pikaboost 2 conversion kit for a while now, but I share your skepticism. For me it's more of a distrust of first gen products than it is startups. Even apple messes up 1st gen.
I live up a hill, and all my destinations are at sea level, so I just want enough E-bike to get home at the end of the day.
> I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".
This does not even require an app. Simply lock down all hardware and make it economically unviable by charging 100+ euro for a 5 second "software update", which you need to do if you ever unplug the battery for > 10 seconds. See the thousands of Accell bikes (mostly Sparta branded) on dumps. You can get them going again but that's only for diehard hobbyists and requires custom hardware.
I detest this trend of needing an app for every piece of hardware.
Just put the damn interface on the hardware. You are after all selling the hardware, not the app.
They are not selling the hardware. They are taking your money in exchange for the privilege of utilizing the hardware they created to use a service they built so their customers can obtain data about your usage of the device and whatever it connects to.
I fear that small companies without VC are the only ones interested in making a thing they sell that doesn’t require some ongoing commitment from buyers. And those companies run the risk of folding overnight. It’s fine for the customers since their hardware continues to function, but it’s not an attractive business model.
> so their customers can obtain data about your usage
I can't prove it, but I suspect selling data is a very minor consideration in the appification of everything.
Aside from there actually being people who like that kind of thing (and them apparently being more common than people who like physical forms of self-flagellation), the main benefit of appifying everything is the opportunity to sell you "value-add services", aka sell you a subscription for the hardware you already bought.
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> but it’s not an attractive business model
It's been the business model for over 100+ years with bikes. It's not an attractive VC buisness models as it cannot needlessly extract wealth beyond the product sale. It is double dipping as you fully pay for the bike, and people fall for it somehow.
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Do a Dell. Sell the laptop. Sell support. This is a win win for customer and business.
VCs mandate that every possible avenue of rent seeking be exploited in order to maximize the amount and frequency of transactions. You're not getting hardware funded; the VC will steal your idea and pawn it off on some other party capable of exploiting the potential for your product as a service. Because if you don't, someone else will, and they'll have more money to outcompete your product, because enshittification is how FAANG got to be trillion dollar companies.
A person existing is sufficient to make these people assume they are entitled to something for it.
The phrase rent-seeking is such a funny one to me. Like, if rent-seeking is bad that should apply across the board. I.e. being a landlord, literally seeking rent from tenants.
Yet I fear the issue most people on here have with “rent seeking” is the harm it does to a theoretical idea of free market capitalism - rather than the tangible harm of extracting wealth from someone’s need for a place to live.
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But how do we know people use the light on the bike if the bike isn't IoT? Bikes need Google Analytics.
The light placement (so the mudguard casts shadows) would drive me insane
Another problem is that when turning, the light doesn't follow the handlebar, so it "stays behind" the curve. It's bright/wide enough and I only drive in the city so neither problems are a huge deal though.
That is actually less of an issue as you might think, if the light is designed properly. As you will have to look at the corner before you ever shine the light directly towards it. This is not much different from motorcycles.
Since this is a vanmoof (first edition probably) I think they followed the design of "old fashioned" bikes which also lack the turnability features as the light is attached to the frame part of the central steering bar and not the insert which turns with the steering wheel.
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I consider that an advantage because the light stays nice and steady while I weave around bumps in the road.
> You can also charge this light with USB-C instead of the original micro-USB.
A dynamo would be the next upgrade
I can't state how convenient hub dynamos are, no noise, no maintenance, unlikely to be robbed without stealing the whole bike, it just works, perfect for a city bike.
I get why people like them, but they make way less sense when you work out the capacity of an equivalent weight (not to mention cost) of lithium cells.
It's easy to get to about 90Wh, which will run a dynamo-powered light for 30 hours on max (most dynamos seem to be rated 3W).
There are definitely cases where it makes sense, and not having to keep batteries charged is nice, it's just easy to miss how good batteries are these days.
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If you like hub dynamos, give hub gears a try. My electric bike has nexus 7 hub gears. It's fantastic. There's essentially no maintenance.
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How are they for drag when you're not using the light?
My only misgiving is: Which bike to put it on?
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How much energy do they rob? I can't think of dynamos without thinking of Bart Simpson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaKjmxb7Qlc
It depends both on the lights and the dynamo. Incandescent lights used substantial chunks of your pedaling power. LED lights need maybe 5W or so. Hub dynamos are pretty efficient. For an untrained person your average power output is around 100W. That means powering the light would be around 5% of your power if you’re using an efficient hub dynamo. That’s in the ballpark of “bad chain maintenance costs more energy”
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The best ones are roughly 50% efficient, 10W to output 5W but some are much less, 14W to output 5W. ...and 3W with no load.
https://www.cyclingabout.com/how-much-do-hub-dynamos-really-...
[dead]
I’m sure a Lion pack weighs less than a dynamo
I thought you were talking about those Lion[0] and it left me quite confused...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(chocolate_bar)
There's something beautifully satisfying about stripping away all the unnecessary "smart" layers just to bring back basic functionality
Not the topic of most comments, but instead of a 22 ohm resistor that burns up the majority of the battery power to protect the LED from overcurrent, a switching power supply would allow the light to run more than twice as long for the same available battery energy.
And I agree with other comments that linking products to their manufacturers is deplorable -- you don't own a modern product, it owns you.
Oh that's a great point/addition, thanks! The voltage already seems to be good. Everything seemed to work without even the resistor, just added the smaller resistor I had just in case and because I understand an LED in series with a power supply is a very bad idea, even if "it works" (wanted to be on the safe side). So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?
> So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?
First, in a regulated power supply, you control the current by (a) monitoring current, and (b) adjusting voltage.
Second, a switching power supply can easily be designed to regulate load current, which is what you want for an LED load, because the voltage across the LED changes with both current and temperature. The point of a switching design is that very little power is dissipated by anything except the load.
In your present circuit, the 22 ohm resistor is dissipating at least half the available power, all to protect the LED from overcurrent. I should add that, in any LED driving circuit, a way must be provided to limit the LED's current, or it may experience thermal runaway and failure. A switching power supply is an ideal way to do this, but only if it senses current in the load, not voltage.
Apropos, I designed switching power supplies for the NASA Space Shuttle. They were about 90% efficient, in spite of the fact that they had to deliver widely varying voltages and currents.
Weird. That looks so much like a Vanmoof which typically has light buttons on the left handlebar. Might be a knockoff.
It is an early edition Vanmoof, it has a single button on the handlebar that was for the Bell, no button for the lights. I could find little info about this model, it was only later versions that were a lot more popular.
If anyone is looking to do the opposite (i.e., make a dumb bike smart) check out the QZ app (qzfitness.com). Made by a solo dev who is amazing at support despite the tiny price and lack of subscription. I have no affiliation, just thought anyone reading the original post might be curious about the opposite...
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Watch out, the voltage out of that battery charger is the unregulated battery voltage.
Thanks, this felt fine though. I added a small resistor to limit the current, but even without it (direct battery) the light worked fine. I didn't think I'd need a boost converter here.
It has low voltage cutoff on the battery so you're probably fine.
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If government were 'for the people' it would be required that appliances etc work regardless of communicating with the parent company.
Eg, it is probably already illegal to use the term 'purchase' for this sort of thing - as it actually seems like some sort of 'service contract' with terms for both parties to agree to. That items that need to 'call back to base' are allowed to be sold with no repercussions, tells you who the legal/governmental systems are serving.
This is a real issue with most vehicles these days. I have a pal with a Triumph Street Twin which gave the message in the console and they couldn't figure out what was causing it. The bike would go into limp mode indicating as though there is something wrong with the engine.
They tried for months to diagnose why the message was coming up and they couldn't figure it out.
It would be great to have a motorcycle with as little electronic magic as possible to allow it to be repaired easily
That companies would follow such absolute shit practices to the people who trusted them with their money for actual physical products is grotesque. It should even be treated as a type of fraud, downright. Fuck these "smart device" manufacturers that can't seem to help themselves against fucking the thing you bought right over with bullshit fashionable tech trends that barely work.
That they do all this for the sake of extracting every possible penny out of you through data via forced app interaction only makes it more disgusting and parasitic. It used to b e that purely digital social media/ad-type companies mostly did this, now the very visible nonsense fashion is to cram as much extractive app-based shit into every possible physical product under the sun.
I can't wait to see a mass consumer revolt against such garbage, putting these companies sales firmly down the toilet. To those of you who fund, found or promote such things in your ventures and pitches, simply: Fuck. You..
Well, companies like shimano do the same thing. I have an ebike with shimano components with power outputs for lights. Even though the bike dashboard has buttons and you can navigate to settings, you need an app to connect to the bike and enable the lights. (to be clear, this is a one-time thing)
Caveat emptor has been a saying since long before social media ad-type companies.
But the fact that media ad-type companies can still get away with shenanigans is the crazy part. The hype machine just seems like it will always be faster/more powerful than those pointing out the lunacy. After all, the emperor's clothes look fantastic.
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This is victim blaming. Being aware of everything will paralyze you to inaction because you can't read a 20 page TOS just to view a website or buy a hairdryer. Like so many things in our society right now, this is a trust thing. Functioning societies have a level of trust that allows greater return than the maximum minimum. If I trusted companies more I would buy more things. But I don't so I avoid things like new cars and 'smart' TVs. That trust is generally built up with strong institutions and things like 'consumer protections'. Right now however people believe in ideas like 'buyer beware' and 'it is the buyer's fault for getting scammed' and it just leads to a weak economy filled with junk that people hate but have no other option.
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Didn't this company go bankrupt because of returns and warranty claims?
> Now my bike has a button, you press it and the light turns on. It's like magic how simple it is!
I recall no situations where I preferred an app as opposed to a regular hardware button like this.
Nice article and hack! Two things are confusing me here though:
If this is a VanMoof, I believe they were sold in Japan and even had a Store in Shibuya
Secondly, they were bankrupt, but to my knowledge were bought and is therefore still (again?) in business.
- Oh sorry, my friend bought it 2nd or 3rd hand after another individual had an accident and I understood they were not in Japan (some repair parts were 3rd party), but I searched and it seems you are right! I'll correct it.
- We tried a few times to recover the account but had some trouble with CS and the particular account, so ended up giving on that. It didn't help that he visits the country from time to time and we'd need to migrate the account each time.
Ahh I see. Yeah there are still many problems with "connected" bikes like this that are easier solved with a hardware hack!
> The lights don't work without the App.
I've owned a lot of VanMoofs. You absolutely do not need to use the app to interact with the lights, they are automatic. If the bike is misconfigured, it takes about 30 seconds to reset its preferences with a physical button accessible from the exterior, since the SX2.
Your friend may have bought a broken VanMoof.
> "since the SX2" + "Your friend may have bought a broken VanMoof"
The explanation is that it's one of the first generation ones. Originally there was a single push button outside on the handle, for the Bell, and a single charging micro-USB.
How did that VanMoof end up in Japan?
That's quite the trip it made.
Also that must have been in the sweetspot of couple of month between the release of the bike and the bankruptcy, who else would want to transport a "dead" bike that far?
It seems I misunderstood and they did operate at some point in Japan:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43768560
The bikes were built in Taiwan anyway, so seems reasonable enough to sell them in Japan.
Vanmoof had a very flashy store in Omotesando
1. The [1] in the blogpost leads nowhere.
2. > Someone risked life in prison for a measly $3.5/500円 light.
Is the punishment really life in prison in Japan for stealing a bike light?
something more problematic of this smart bike is that it also requires an app to unlock.
from what I read they used many (low quality) custom parts for this bike which aren't available anymore.
> something more problematic of this smart bike is that it also requires an app to unlock.
It doesn't, assuming you have the PIN to the bicycle.
> from what I read they used many (low quality) custom parts for this bike which aren't available anymore.
I've worked on my two VanMoofs a bunch to keep them running and they're okay quality parts in my opinion. Additionally, they sold about 200k bicycles so there's plenty of second hand, and even new, parts out there.
Since we were swapping it from owner every few months initially, when the App still worked, we left it unlocked and with a normal chain lock. Luckily for us, since now the app doesn't work anymore.
Hey, I'm one of the app developers at VanMoof – what's not working exactly?
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