Hacker News Reader

Comment by userbinator | Hacker News Reader

If there's a demand, someone industrious will likely figure out a hack --- I hope. Server-side blacklisting (unlike whitelisting) doesn't stop someone from simply changing whatever unique ID they have to a different one. I can even see repair shops doing this service for those who accidentally bricked their devices.

This reminds me of a related situation I've seen with electric toothbrushes --- they have instructions on how to remove the battery "for recycling", which is deliberately designed to make the unit self-destruct in the process (by e.g. making the plastic thin and fragile, and the wires brittle and easily broken), but others have figured out how to use those same instructions to open it up and replace the cells at a fraction of the cost of a new unit. The fact that nothing needs to be broken to replace them, and that it could be trivially designed to make that job much easier, clearly demonstrates planned obolescence.

View on HN

"Disposable electronics" is a big trend too. I myself saw not so few times devices that used rechargeable batteries, and a charging circuitry, but nevertheless were single use only.

A lot of Bluetooth "beacons" are of such construction, and not so cheap at all medical devices will be coming second.

Reminds me of a certain very well known startup in beacon space. I visited them some 6 years ago, back when they were finishing their fist product - a nice-looking battery-powered Bluetooth beacon, completely encased in some kind of silicone. I asked them, well, what's the expected time until battery is completely discharged, and how do I charge it back or replace it? And the answers were, a year or three (depending on use), and you don't, because by the time the beacon dies, you'll want to get a newer, better one anyway.

One of the many reasons I never bought anything from them.

Are you aware of any beacons like these that can be inductively charged, let's say with a Qi charger?

I get that you want to keep them as small as possible (and disposable so that you buy more..), but the environmental cost behind that is too heavy IMO.

No, I'm unfortunately not aware of any, but I stopped paying attention to the field years ago, after it turned out to be almost entirely focused on surveillance capitalism.

But back then, the startup I mentioned had a local competitor too (which initially marketed itself to industrial and medical use, aiming to actually improve something in this world for a change - that's why I liked them, until they too pivoted to helping retail fleece customers). The beacons made by that competitor were designed to be opened, and to have the battery swapped when it died.

> Server-side blacklisting (unlike whitelisting) doesn't stop someone from simply changing whatever unique ID they have to a different one.

Dunno, if the ID works like an activation key it might not recognize ids that don’t pass some sort of cryptographic signature check. Then you would need the private key to generate new valid ids.

How about copying them from valid machines then?

May be they generate new tokens for every request and one set of the key is in hardware itself protected.

Such a waste of tech and resources to not let use the very things which they purchased.

I agree it's a terrible waste, my suspicion is just that if they want to keep unauthorized devices off their network, it wouldn't be hard to implement.

I disagree. Electric toothbrushes need to be 100 % waterproof to be usable safely. If I were a toothbrush manufacturer, I’d at least look into making the brush self-destruct when opened, for safety reasons (and safety reasons alone).

Is this true? My electric toothbrush runs on one double-A battery. That isn't enough power to electrocute me.

Of course, high-end electric toothbrushes have rechargeable batteries inside of them, and maybe they have more capacity. But on that note, I think I've needed to replace my battery exactly once in the past year. These things don't take much power, that's one of the reasons it didn't feel worthwhile for me to upgrade to a higher-end more expensive model. And rechargeable electric toothbrushes get plugged into cradles -- they don't need enough capacity to run for days and days.

I am mildly skeptical that a non-waterproof electric toothbrush would be dangerous to anyone.

Edit: I just checked my toothbrush to make sure, the only waterproofing is a tiny, easily removable rubber ring where the battery case screws on. This doesn't seem to be something my manufacturer is worried about, which might make sense, because I don't put my toothbrush handle under the water when I brush my teeth; I hold it.

I suspect that the main safety issue is shorting the battery, not electrocution.

What about an electric toothbrush is unsafe if it is not 100% waterproof?

You might feel a minor tingle on your tongue if the battery connects to it somehow

The battery can catch fire when shorted?

Which brands?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com