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Comment by fernly | Hacker News Reader

What kind of "functional change" did Bose do to your speakers, and how? And what happened when you took them -- where? -- to return them?

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Bose changed (some of?) their home speakers to "require" you to use their app to set them up or use Spotify/etc, where you use to be able to just cast directly to them. It effectively turned smart speakers into dumb bluetooth speakers unless you did it all from inside their app. I don't want to use their app, and I didn't need to before, and while it was outside warranty the store had no problems refunding me.

I was also one of the people who bought a Samsung TV that didn't have ads, then suddenly had ads. That also got me an instant refund with no questions.

In both cases I printed out a copy of the product website where they published the changed features (eg the changelog or PR release or whatever I could find) and I also printed off a couple forums/media-articles talking about the changes. The stores didn't question it or have any issues with refunding me, I guess they just then file with the manufacturer for their own refund.

How did you get the TV to the store? I assume you didnt still have the original box lying around? Seems pretty dangerous for the TV’s panel to move it without the box.

I find it kind of comical anyone would be worrying about this. Maybe because I've moved TVs quite a few times - upright, screen side down, screen side up - from across town to thousands of miles away in the back of a uhaul. It's not a big deal

It may not be anymore, but it used to be. I bought a 65" Samsung back in 2012, and had to sign to receive it. From the truck through signature, the delivery agent held it like a giant iPad in portrait mode, pinching the long edges of the box. It had a clear "this end up" arrows... pointing sideways.

When I turned it on, there was a big dim spot on the top edge of the panel. It had to be exchanged.

Does the law seem to discourage these types of updates? Are there any know products that didn’t get an update like this just in Australia because of the law?

In both NZ and Australia all returns/refunds and most warranty claims can be done through the retailer who sold you the product. Part of doing business in these markets is being the middle man between the manufacturer and the end customer.

I had a MacBook die just outside of warranty. It was purchased in Australia. I was overseas and spoke with support who said have to pay to fix. Flew to Australia and had it replaced under consumer protection law.

So how does this law affect smartphones?

Same way it affects anything else, not sure I understand your question.

Smart phones are ~annually getting major updates that change the functionality of the device. You typically can't revert back either. Some people might not like how the new method of doing something is different than the old.

However, you are not forced to apply the update. So that's a bit different.

So how does this affect smart phones? ;-)

It works for all technology, including phones, home appliances, everything. If it has a feature advertised/included on launch, and then they remove or change that feature enough that it no longer works "as advertised", you get an instant refund, even if outside the warranty.

We also get longer warranties than most other countries. Even if a brand says you only get a 1 year warranty, our consumer protection laws say a warranty has to apply for "as long as seems reasonable", so for most technology that's 2 years.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has this to say:

Warranties are separate from your automatic consumer guarantees. The consumer guarantees which apply regardless of any warranties suppliers sell or give to you, apply for a reasonable time depending on the nature of the goods or services. This means consumer guarantees may continue to apply after the time period for the warranty has expired.*

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...

You can ask for a replacement or refund if the problem with the product is major.

What is a major problem?

A product or good has a major problem when:

it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it

it has multiple minor problems that, when taken as a whole, would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about them

it is significantly different from the sample or description it is substantially unfit for its common purpose and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time

it doesn’t do what you asked for and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time; or it is unsafe.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees...

There is no specific time when the consumer guarantees no longer apply to products. They may apply even after the manufacturer's warranty period has past. The length of the consumer guarantee period depends on a number of factors including:

how much time has passed since the consumer bought the product the type of product how a consumer is likely to use the product the length of time for which it is reasonable for the product to be used the amount of use it could reasonably be expected to tolerate before the failure becomes noticeable.

https://business.gov.au/Products-and-services/Fair-trading/A...

Addicts don't return bad crack.

My guess is their app requiring you to login to set up devices.

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