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Comment by ShakataGaNai | Hacker News Reader

#1 - If you bought the product with Apple Health sync in mind and it doesn't do that for free, file a complaint with your OAG. It's false advertising.

#2 - If you have the apps today, you should warn other users with a review (which may or may not be 1 star).

#3 - If you haven't reviewed the product on Amazon, you should warn other users with a review (which may or may not be 1 star).

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> #3 - If you haven't reviewed the product on Amazon, you should warn other users with a review

I've warned users of many such instances of false claims, and safety issues with products. As a consequence, I've been banned from reviewing, and all my past reviews have been removed.

"Community standards", I guess.

I've stopped trusting reviews altogether. They're to easily gamed - dishonest competition and clients posts fakes. Dishonest businesses dispute all negative reviews(and most disappointed customers don't have the time to fight it).

Reviews just don't work when the user pool goes below a certain "average honesty level"

amazon famously let you swap products of an id/ad/product without loosing the reviews so you can even find literal unrelated reviews under such fake product amazon listing pages

Yeah all the 3rd party printer cartridges do this. Their reviews are for other random products. Drives me nuts. They sell paperclips for a while, accumulate hundreds of 5-star reviews because it's hard to screw up paperclips, and then swap the paperclip listing out for a shitty, leaky printer cartridge.

Where the hell are the good 3rd party cartridges? They're almost impossible to find.

Nowadays, companies see the users of their platforms as captive audiences, and they try to extract as much money from them as possible.

This completely destroyed the resale value of this product as well. It's not a product we own, but it's their product we happen to use, and we're still subject to all kinds of ads and traps for subscriptions etc.

Tricking the customer into an exploitative subscription is more profitable than earning loyalty by providing good value.

And it requires less work to boot!

I'm on holiday at the moment so reopened the app to transfer photos from my camera directly to my phone again after a while of not using it (at home I just use the microsd card readers in my computers). Anyway, I discovered Canon now has a mandatory account requirement. There wasn't even an account option when I bought the camera. Luckily the old apk from APK mirror still works on my phone.

You'll want to keep a copy archived for reverse engineering if/when Google decides to prevent these "loopholes".

At first I was think of the people who signed an agreement for their solar roof (which was entangled with solar credits, etc)

nowadays selling your tesla involves the new owner identifying themselves and uploading their identity documents to tesla.

> nowadays selling your tesla involves the new owner identifying themselves and uploading their identity documents to tesla.

wait does this mean you cannot buy a used tesla anonymously (to tesla), not the reseller (?)

If so, that's crazy

A $100 scale isn't really that captive, especially if continuing to use it costs that much per year. There's no shortage of scales for tracking weight loss and the Apple health integration in my Withings is pretty useless from experience.

Yes, it's not as captivating as a $1,200 iPhone or $4,000 MacBook Pro. But we're talking about habits, and gradual changes and engagements.

However, once you're within a system, and used to interacting with it on a daily basis, you would lean towards their slight nudges and pushes, and over time subscribe to a $2/month service, or their "new solutions" etc.

Not to forget their continued advertisements in the app, and constant pushes. You're no longer a customer that purchases a product, but instead a captive audience that is constantly being engaged and steered towards one thing or another.

I have a $100 Garmin scale as well as a watch [1] and some similar devices and it seems like a good value to me but many people I know say "gee, that's expensive!"

I am really impressed with my Apple hardware but the services strike me as uniformly shoddy and dare I say a lifestyle brand that seduces people into treating garbage as if was gold. Ok, I like what they did with Foundation, I really do, but I think Apple Health, Apple Home and all of those things are for suckers and Withings probably thinks so too. For all I know Apple is charging them an arm and a leg to participate. On the other hand, Garmin Connect takes my active lifestyle seriously.

[1] with 100% satisfaction after discovering third party charging cables!

I like my Apple watch but Apple health app is pretty bad. It's just noisy and complicated. Withing's chart's in the app was good enough.

I'd probably prefer a second more fitness dedicated watch otherwise so that data integration was better.

Well I am a Garmin enthusiast and I often get them refurbished at a good discount

https://www.gpsnation.com/collections/garmin-refurbished?pag...

The official charging cable is atrociously unreliable, enough that I almost gave up on the brand, but there are numerous third party charging attachments like

https://www.amazon.com/RUXELY-Charging-Forerunner-Approach-V...

https://www.amazon.com/Itramax-Charging-Converter-Forerunner...

from Chinese brands with weird names that work perfectly.

I'm a cheapskate so I'd probably make a shortcut so I can say "siri, log my weight at 165 lbs" and have that put my weight into apple health or a spreadsheet. It's a bit more friction, but if the data is useful that's what I'd do. If I find that I'm not using the shortcut, then the data probably isn't useful.

You don’t even need a shortcut: “hey dingus, log a weight of 156.3” and it gets logged to HealthKit. Just did it minutes ago (because I long ago gave up on getting that Withings scale to do the same).

> file a complaint with your OAG

Honestly one of my new favourite uses for AI. Little things I wouldn't ordinarily complain about I can now engage the regulatory state on. (Currently pursuing LG under Wyoming's wiretapping statute.)

Though heading that off might be why this is only "starting from October 13th, 2026" and in respect of "any new Withings account."

I agree, that's a great use for AI.

As for the timing... If you BOUGHT the product before October 13th and simply didn't activate an account yet - then it might still be worthy of a complaint. I'm not saying they are actively false advertising, I haven't checked every one of their store fronts after all. But it is a valid path for someone who did get swindled.

> Honestly one of my new favourite uses for AI. Little things I wouldn't ordinarily complain about I can now engage the regulatory state on.

And public service is getting swamped with petty little BS in return. Even if the substance has merits (and most doesn't, because AI systems are yes-men that don't push back like an actually trained lawyer would), they have to spend sooooo much time reading and digesting all the AI written fluff plus checking if stuff like cited court cases actually exists.

It's ok, they can use AI.

Then perhaps they know the true scale of consumer complaints once friction to file is removed, they can take better actions to reduce those complaints.

> they can take better actions to reduce those complaints

Nine out of ten times companies settle because (a) the claims have merit and (b) it costs them more to go in front of a regulator than it does a consumer.

Can I do the same for like EcoBee?

I bought them a year ago and today they showed me an ad ON MY THERMOSTAT.

If you bought from a big-box retailer and you’re considering ditching ecobee because of this, you should try to return them. Even if you’re outside the return policy, if you’re pleasant to the customer service staff they might be able to help you.

Amazon reviews are essentially meaningless at this point, the important un-fakeable stat is return rates. Brands care, and retailers track it and will drop products with high return rates.

Also trustpilot:

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.withings.com

I had a similar experience with tado that tried to paywall a basic temperature control of a smart thermostat. Their ratings got trashed and they pulled back.

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