I got a Sonos speaker for Christmas a couple years ago.
As soon as I realized I needed an account for it to simply play music, I went to return it. The guy in the store told me that there were no speaker brands that did not require an account these days, and that I shouldn’t be so petty. He said “but you also have a Google account, right?”, “Why is a Sonos account such a problem?”.
I told him indeed, I already need a Google account for my phone to work, a Spotify account for listening to my music, and now a Sonos account for my speaker that plays that music , and I thought that was ridiculous.
My previous speaker was a Sony, and while that did have an app to configure it, it didn’t require setting up an account with any personal data, which I think is fucked up for a device whose main purpose is just to produce sound. I left the speaker in the store and got my money back.
I did some research and found Teufel devices, speakers from Germany that work fine with an app that doesn’t require an account. Now all my speakers and soundbars around the house are Teufel, and I’m very happy with them. I think also Yamaha has (or at least had) accountless speakers. So win/win - buying European and keeping my privacy a little more in check.
I did the same for my smart scale. I don’t want my weight in the cloud somewhere, or on the servers of some Chinese or U.S. company somewhere. An app on my phone can store daily weight and other health data just fine.
So when I wanted a smart scale, I also did some research. It turns out there’s an open source app called openscale that does exactly that: just store the data locally on my phone, and it supports a bunch of devices.
I got myself a Beurer scale (coincidentally also a German brand) because I read you can skip the whole account setup. Then used openscale to register my weigh ins. It works, I’m sure the cloud apps of larger brands have a nicer user interface, but they come at the cost of my privacy, which I simply refuse to sell out for a piece of hardware whose main purpose is to show me what I weigh.
I think people should be more conscious about their data. I don’t use apple pay or Google wallet, my bank already knows most of what I pay, where and when. Why would I want to share that with these big corporations? I will gladly trade in a little convenience for a lot of privacy.
Teufel
It’s hilarious that you literally have to make a deal with the Devil for this.
I have a scale that shows my weight.
And a speaker that plugs into my phone with the jack.
God I love lemmy, tysm for posting genuinely
This speaks directly to GoPro. Fuck them and their bullshit.
You can’t even properly use their hardware without using their crippled app. And if you aren’t paying for their subscription to use the app they force you to use, be prepared to be harassed endlessly about subscribing.
They even cripple new hardware with the inability to stabilize video unless you have their shitty app do it.
Could you imagine headphones that only play music through an app that requires a subscription? That’s the level of enshittification we’re going to start seeing.
I remember when I got a Kobo Glo ereader a decade ago, I was soo excited to have an ereader that wasn’t tied to Amazon.
So I booted it up, and it immediately wanted me to not only register, but to download a program on my computer, and do it from there.
I refused and got pissed.
I started googling and found a guide to hack it.
You had to manually modify the Sqlite database and create a user there.
After doing that, it just worked.
The feeling of relief and accomplishment was fantastic!
I got the same camera. I did not want to side load an android app just to use it, but I legit thought “three tries only, this can’t be serious”. Sure enough if you exhaust the trials you cannot use the device. None of the reviews or vids I read and saw mentioned this, or glossed over it. I returned that bitch. Told DJI the reason was I cannot use the camera and I don’t have an iPhone and I also don’t want to side load an app on my android phone. They accepted thankfully.
Who else heard “gargle my balls” upon seeing that pic of Louis Rossman?
For those not familiar, check out his YT channel, his work with futo.org (https://wiki.futo.org/index.php/Introduction_to_a_Self_Managed_Life:_a_13_hour_%26_28_minute_presentation_by_FUTO_software), and his Consumer Action Taskforce wiki (https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Main_Page). Here is a person with an electronics repair business trying his hardest to make sure nobody ever needs his services.
Louis always leaves me confused. He gives a strong libertarian vibe but equally I seem to find myself in agreement with most of what he says, certainly on board with his crusade.
He’s got that typical Libertarian thing where he hates regulation and anything that might interfere with his business. And yet, he doesn’t realize his core complaint (hardware manufacturers making their gear impossible to repair) can only be solved with government regulation of those businesses.
He does realize it and is fighting for a government regulation for right to repair.
This is why I like marine devices. By necessity, they have to operate offline. There’s no cellular service in the middle of the ocean. I have a Xantrex LiFePo BMS and a Victron solar charge controller on my boat, and neither requires a cloud account to use the app.
Will add on that for things needing open source alternatives that are actually needed then we need some for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Amazon
I keep saying framework laptop guys should come out with Linux phone that runs postMarketOS or Mobian. It’s can’t be that crazy of an idea considering Pine64 and Purism could literally push out their own phones. Obviously given the state of things right now, sure maybe not going to happen… but I will keep preaching this.
The only thing holding back linux phone other than the SOC is the modem. It is a black box computer on its own with no fixed way to interact with them.
VoLTE is nearly impossible to implement across all the countries. Same will be true with 5G.
You can’t build a open hardware modem because of all the patents.
It will get worse than this and I’ll tell you how:
At some point Apple may be forced to allow alternative app stores.
Win for consumers, right? Hahaha… nope!
Because now the device you just bought not only requires an app, that app is only available at the shady AppStore that some salesman convinced a CEO to use or whatever.
So now you need an account with this new App Store who surely protects your privacy and is held to the same scrutiny as Apple. /s What could possibly go wrong?
Oh and it won’t be your device just for you, it’ll be your new washing machine or car or spouse’s car or the refrigerator or something else that you can’t easily return/your family won’t see the big deal.
