SmartDry’s useful laundry sensor to be cloud-bricked next month

Re:SmartDry’s useful laundry sensor to be cloud-bricked next... by taneq on Thursday September 01, 2022 @09:02PM (#32685401)

I’m as mad as everyone else about unnecessary cloud integration and companies bricking useful hardware but that description seems a REAL stretch here.

> In other words, SmartDry will become a tiny brick inside your dryer unless you're willing to procure a little ESP32 development board, load some code onto it, plug it in near your dryer, and set up your own alerts in your Home Assistant server.

Now I’ll admit there are cases that still count as “bricked” even if the device is recoverable with a Dremel and a JTAG debugger, but generally if you can fix it without specialist tools or software it’s not bricked.

In this case it sounds like the device still works fine and you just need to provide a server for it to talk to.

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Re:SmartDry’s useful laundry sensor to be cloud-bricked next... by maxerickson on Thursday September 01, 2022 @09:15PM (#32685476)

The "hub" is a 110 V smart plug that can shut off gas dryers, and the smart phone app doesn't work with other servers, so there is significant loss of functionality.

The actual sensor isn't bricked at all. The functionality most people bought it for is going away.

[ Parent | on HN ]