> Things like app connectivity are after thoughts and not core to their products.
Good!
God help us the day something like a fan or a vacuum cleaner needs "app connectivity".
Good!
God help us the day something like a fan or a vacuum cleaner needs "app connectivity".
My Whirlpool emitted a diagnostic puddle of water underneath it. I Googled the seal, ordered it from an independent supplier, and installed it myself.
It is now on its 25th year of use with us, and cost less than $400 when new.
How much cheaper would an electric car like a tesla be if it didn't have autopilot, electronic keys, and LCDs everywhere? How much more secure would it be without an e-key to unlock it? I hope when I'm ready to buy an electric car I can find something like that.
My commute is 8 miles of which 6 is on a freeway. Doesn't feel like a burden. Unlike say a tech bro doing his 50 mile commute down 101. So I'm dubious an autopilot would be a big win from me.
All software is expensive up front but near zero cost to deploy to each additional car.
At some number of cars sold the software costs becomes a rounding error.
Meanwhile, software is costs at once so traditional car manufactures uses cheaper chip and force programmers to write efficient code.
It's probably also less engineering effort to put a set of controls on the screen than to design the corresponding physical controls.
Not everyone can work from home, so the shorter the visit the better. If the diagnostics are done remotely, they can arrive with the right parts and do the job more quickly since they already have a headstart from the diagnostics. Additionally, they should be able to complete the job in only one visit since they should already have the parts they need and not have to order them.
LG has a similar system too, and it makes sense for everyone. They save money on warranty repairs since their labor should be lower. Consumers save time on repairs for the same reason. They also get to drive repair work to the service company of their choice, which has benefits for them and has some pros and cons for the consumer.
Pretty terrible stuff. If it uses proprietary tones as a diagnostic code you can't diagnose and fix it out yourself.
You can use minimodem[1] to scream a file across the room from one computers speakers to another computers modem.
It's a cute trick but requires very little in the way of computation, and is a far cry from the bluetooth infested dumpster fire that is found in the modern app-controlled smart appliance offering.
It's also not significantly an improvement from giving your products clearly labeled short model names and having a two digit code on a 10c LED screen, preferably with a corrosponding entry in the manual. I'd happily give it up in exchange for a washing machine with minimal electronics, so that it will last 20 years and can be fixed with duct tape and epoxy.
But my guess is that pretty much every possible outcome of the diagnostic process is "Make sure an adult is home between noon and 6 PM next Tuesday to let the repair technician in." It's safe to say that empowering the consumer is pretty far down the list at Samsung's R&D department.
"Connected" vacuums are already here, but they're called Roomba, not Dyson.
Although the connectivity with their app is a bit rubbish half the time!
But it's crippled by poor UI, only supporting Alexa, and an arbitrary limit of how many schedules you can set, etc.