This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I've been slowly making my way into the smart home ecosystem and was incredibly concerned about these not because of paperweight necessarily but because of needing to send data to a company over the internet which might not be available when it's needed.
So I ended up going with Home Assistant and I'm really happy about the launch of the Works with Home Assistant program with the logo on devices.
The company is Qardio. The device is the QardioArm.
This exact thing happened to me yesterday. I woke up, tried to use the blood pressure monitor for the first time in months, and was signed out of my account in the app with no way to log back in because the server is now offline. I went to reddit and tried their suggestions, but nothing worked.
I looked for an open-source app that might be able to interface with the QardioArm, but no luck. It's just junk now. I can't even access my blood pressure history in the app. I knew this was a risk when I bought it, and I did get around 4 good years out of the product, but what a damn waste.
Make this illegal already.
Open source software and hardware are the only technology future.
It's the only reason my 1500$ CPAP still works. Company discontinued it but I fixed it up so it still works. And it had a hard 5 year replacement rule, ie it's designed to software block you from using the machine after 5 years and get a new one.
StopKillingBloodPressureMonitors?
StopKillingTech?
Stopkilling?
It's not a new phenomena, but it seems to be growing.
I remember when perfectly functional scanners and printers were ditched because the new Windows version would not support them and the vendor would not provide OEM drivers either.
Nowadays they unplug some servers and you are left with an expensive doorstop. That's progress, I guess.
The part that is growing is how many tools rely on apps and other connected features.
I have a blood pressure monitor, and it just outputs the result to a built-in screen. I can then log the values however I want, and it's probably easier and quicker to manually enter the three numbers each consisting of 2-3 digits into an app than to wait for the bluetooth connection to be established.
This battery monitor will never be remotely shutdown, because there is no remote function. And if the blood pressure tracking app shuts down, I can just use any other.
I have a CO² station that logs to a .csv on a fat32 formatted sdcard. Beat that.
I made a physiotherapy game console for kids that logs physiotherapy executions to a .csv on a fat32 formatted sdcard ;)
Ok, let's call it a tie.
This something that really annoys me about more and more hardware sold these days. The incessant need to have a connected app and sign in. What I don’t understand is why businesses do it, it increases both the costs before and after a sale to make and maintain?
What I want is “noddy” hardware that does just what it is made to do.
Businesses like having an app on your phone because they can update it to fix bugs, add features, track your activity and send you notifications/ads when they have something new to sell.
Probably because businesses themselves want all their applications connected so one doing the administration is easier (and better) and there is more management information.
Then again, there are still a ton of bookkeepers and accountants (especially in the US) wasting your money on reconciling bank transactions more than once a year when the bank connector is foolproof
Other than Garmin GPS I don't think I own any devices that require an app to function. Just don't buy this shit.
If you can. Medical devices are particularly nasty: there may be only one or two brands on the market that do what you need, because such devices understandably require extensive certification. If the only available option requires an app, you're stuck. If you need something that meets other legal or professional certification requirements, you might also have very limited options.
For just about anything else, I agree that there's probably some alternative to an app-locked device, although some level of convenience tradeoff may be necessary.
One company that I can recommend is Withings. They do have an companion app, but a lot of devices do work on their own, and when not, they work with Google Fit or HomeAssistant, though probably due to that fact the products are pricier.
