Privacy (for robot vacuums) isn’t cheap. via the Verge.

      • colourlesspony@pawb.social
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        11 months ago

        I know right! I hate that so much new tech needs an app and will lose functionality/stop working if the company stop supporting it or you phone stop working with the app.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        It wouldn’t be such a problem if they at least offered an API for connecting to the device for third-party apps. But everything is locked down to guarantee obsolescence on software timelines even if the hardware lasts.

    • ditty@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      The fact that it costs $1800 means it was dead on arrival for me. But I wish them the best if they can carve out a niche of privacy-focused iRobot/Roomba customers while bringing increased exposure to privacy issues

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      Do you also use a horse? Also good for privacy based on recent news.

        • volodymyr@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          You collect them stirckly yourself? No carbon-consuming tech involved?

          I do not want to descend into some kind of “but there is always some carbon” point, I just want to point out that a robot powered by, say, solar electricity can be more green than a human-powered broom, production costs included.

          Neither of the two is perfectly green, but a solar-powered robot is more efficient in leveraging solar power than human growing and eating plants.

          Or do you think this is necessarily not so?

          • ExLisper@linux.community
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            11 months ago

            I think that if we’re talking about human slave responsible only for swiping the floors that I feed vegetables and keep alive solely for the purpose of operating the broom you can be right.

            If we’re taking about the amount of calories I use while swiping and compare it with a robot that someone had to manufacture, transport and than charge using electricity it will be a clear win for the broom. Maybe if the robot lasted 50 years and I controlled my diet to the point that I was able to eat 3% of a carrot daily less because I’m not swiping any more the robot could win but it’s an absurd scenario.

            • volodymyr@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              It is not at all obvious to me why it is a win for the broom. Humans are a lot larger than a robot and there is a lot of wasteful body movement. Production costs are a factor, but why 50 years and 5? Or 1? We agree at least that production costs excluded, solar powered robot is more green than a human broom? If so, what remains is this time to offset production.

              If you stop brooming you will either gain weight or reduce carrot consumption, no need for custom control. Or you can do something else with time and energy previously reserved for brooming, maybe even something that results in an overall more green world?

              • ExLisper@linux.community
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                11 months ago

                I think you hugely overestimate the amount of energy used for brooming. It’s not like it’s a crossfit workout. I don’t eat more on the days I clean. My diet with and without a broom will stay the same so brooming is basically free when it comes to energy. People don’t use vacuums because they save money on food this way. They use them for their convenience. Vacuums let you save time, not energy. So yes, if you spend the time you save planting trees it’s great but we’re getting pretty far away from the broom vs. vacuum discussion and we’re starting to talk about imaginary people and their imaginary lives.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    This title is dumb. Companies are not selling all of their products at a loss just to harvest your data[1] and privacy is not significantly more expensive. Don’t let capitalism fool you into believing we’re suffering from anything but the natural progression of “infinite growth”.

    We’re so far into dystopia, and used to every company double/triple/quadruple dipping, that the entire concept of a company simply building a quality product, that lasts as long as possible, without ads, or extracting and selling your data, planned obsolescence, or price gouging is insanity… which is itself, batshit insane. This is not an efficient system. It’s a runaway freight train of greed and narcissism that is parasitically killing our host spaceship.

    [1] they might be with Alexa hubs and other select data harvesting multipliers, but they’re probably selling them at cost or a tiny loss.

    • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Depends on the business model. Take Apple and Amazon. Apple makes most of its cash off hardware sales. As such, Apple will never sell you a $50 Mac hoping to make the money back thru services or ad revenue of any kind. And why their HomePods cost 3x more than any smart speaker.

      On the other hand, Amazon doesn’t make money off hardware. They routinely blow out Fire products at insane discounts. A 10th of what Apple charges for a comparable product. Because they make their cash of sales and services. Products are just a conduit to more lucrative services.

      You can’t lump every company into the same money making MO. Every company tends to have their own unique angle.

    • DaDragon@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I mean it’s partially true, do you remember Juicero? The entire goal was to get you integrated into the subscription model. It was well built, but they still priced it in a way that would make people want to buy the service needed to actually use it. Most companies either want subscriptions, or willingly lower build quality just to be able to sell you a new version within a shorter timeframe

      • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The idea you need to buy a “juice pack” rather than literally buying a bag of good frozen fruit and just letting it melt into juice is insane. I hate how companies have everyone convinced they can offer you something and act like its super hard and only they can do it sucks.

        I had this realization about computer apps. You can replicate almost any function or code, but it does makes sense often in that domain to simply buy the app if its for keeps and that is maintained.

        • DaDragon@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          It was a badly thought out product, I agree. It also failed quite spectacularly because of it. I just brought it up because it was actually a really good deal based on the device quality itself. Sadly the entire press can’t even use normal burlap pouches with fruit inside, it doesn’t produce the pressure. It might have been a turd, but by god, they put as much gold on it as they could.

          I think juicers themselves can be a good product, but not with an idiotic business model behind it too. Oh and they should not require WiFi access for DRM verification of the juice packets and device.

          • homura1650@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            One of the lessons I have learned as an engineer is that device quality doesn’t matter if you do not need a high quality device. There are times when you need a high quality press. Squeezing juice out of a pouch is not one of them. All of that extra quality you bought is doing nothing, because all you are using it for is squeezing juice out of a pouch.

            • DaDragon@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Fair. Although it is nice seeing needlessly well built products when they do pop up (as long as you don’t need to pay for that extra build quality, of course)

          • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Again, you can just like buy frozen fruit and let it melt into juice. Not sure how that would work with apples/oranges (never see them as frozen fruit) but I don’t care for the mentioned since they’re so high in sugar baseline but my tip here def works.

            • DaDragon@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Frozen fruit as in normal packets of frozen whatever? It’s an interesting idea you mentioned, tell me more

              • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Just do it. Go buy a bag of frozen strawberries or whatever frozen fruit you would like to turn into a smoothie and just let it defrost until you’ve got a Juicero-style juice pack

                Edit: if you don’t cut the top and its still like hermetically sealed, you basically and literally have the same thing—juice pack.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It may have been well built, but was still completely idiotic. Who, in his right mind, would buy a proprietary bag of fruit pieces instead of normal fruit that has to be at least half the price.

        The business model just didn’t make sense.

        • arc25275@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 months ago

          It wasn’t even a bag of fruit pieces, it was already pre juiced and the machine just put it into your cup (which you could do by manually squeezing it too)

  • Rearsays@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    This is cool but it would have to be like a third that price before anyone could take the leap. If anything someone should find some way to hack and replace the spyware in a Roomba or something

  • qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one
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    11 months ago

    I know you can’t put a true price on privacy, but I can clearly state that this goes beyond reasonable pricing for me. $1800, plus $180/year in fees for bags/membership subscription. That’s a $3600 + battery and parts replacement investment over 10 years, and who’s to say the app/device firmware will be supported that whole time? The extended warranty is for two years. There doesn’t appear to be information on repairs outside of the warranty, which requires the subscription for 2 years for the extended warranty. This sounds like a disaster of a product from an ecological standpoint.

    • sbvOP
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      11 months ago

      The price is way too high. I’m still rocking my dumb Roomba from ten years ago. It’s a few parts away from the Roomba of Theseus at this point, but it still works. Without an Internet connection.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Another solution that guarantees no data is sold is to just buy a regular corded vacuum. It may not be as convenient, but it’ll save you having to worry about your vacuum stealing data. At least until they start forcing newer models to require an app.

    • dan1101@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I’m pretty sure my corded vacuum has been speaking about me behind my back and turning my wife against me.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It just shouldn’t need to be the case that I sacrifice privacy for convenience.

      Years ago shopkeepers asked you what you wanted and then they went and got it and packaged it for you. Then it became the better option to let you choose your own items and we’d just deal with the shopkeep to pay. This way more people were served simultaneously and everything went quicker. Imagine if you had to tell the shopkeeper the last time you cranked yourself or what size your living room is in order to progress to this more efficient process.

    • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      My current vacuum, cordless, with swappable batteries, was $100

      I could buy ten of them and leave multiples in each room (because I don’t live in a mansion)

  • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Me speaking to my mum: Get off Facebook! They’re just trying to sell you shit you don’t need!

    Also me: oh, I should replace my robot vac with this fancier one!

    • sbvOP
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      11 months ago

      I’m gonna have to wait for some sweet sweet inheritance before I can afford this one.

  • Stephen304@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Damn that bag must be super small to only last a week. My s7 ultra dock bag lasts around 6 months. Before I started living with a cat I was still using the original bag that had been going on a year and still wasn’t full, vacuuming daily.

    Edit: For context, my roborock dock’s bag is 3 liters, so think the volume of 1 and a half 2 liter soda bottles, and the apartment it lasted a year in was ~500 sq ft. The matic’s bag needs to fit inside the robot and looks to be close to the size of the palm of your hand. You can see it at 0:37 in the video on their site.

    • BluesF@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      Doesn’t the bag lasting longer suggest it picks up less dirt? My vacuum cleaner needs emptying every one or two times around the house, if it didn’t I would be concerned it wasn’t actually cleaning the floor.

      • Stephen304@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Well my floors are also spotless, so I can confirm that it picks up everything that’s there to pick up, don’t forget that the roborock mops also, so there’s really no chance for any leftover dust or dirt (all dirt picked up by the mop gets washed by the dock and flushed down the laundry room drain automatically so there’s a portion of dirt that doesn’t even contribute to filling the dock’s bag). And now with a cat it picks up all the cat hair and when it empties I can hear a clump of it being emptied into the dock. I think it has more to do with the S7 ultra dock bag being 3 liters, and with how powerful the dock’s emptying vacuum is because it seems to compact the fuzz it’s collected quite a bit. This one’s bag looks tiny on comparison, but they don’t give the dimensions. The roborocks is 6"x6"x5" approximately (dimensions vary a bit from listing to listing but most listings are right around 3L based on the given dimensions).

        I mean just take a look at the video on the matic website, it looks like the bag is smaller than a person’s hand. The roborock is 1.5 times the size of a 2 liter soda bottle. That’s a huge difference.

      • Stephen304@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Yeah the ultra dock is amazing, I got the mop dryer and water change kit addons, so it auto refills the clean water tank from my washing machine water line, and auto empties the dirty mop water out a tube I stuck down the washing machine drain. I used to have to refill/empty those water bins every week but now the most frequent maintenance is rinsing out the water filter every 2-3 weeks. Everything else seems to be only required monthly.

  • Nyfure@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Some/Many robot vacuums can be flashed with custom firmware and then only communicate locally.
    Unfortunately it seems the software isnt as polished or well as cleaning, but i guess some less efficient cleaning vs phone-home crap is a good counter.

  • JoeKrogan@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Or just buy one with a remote or a manual one. It does not and should not require an app to function

  • teagrrl@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    I’m think I’m okay with using my bagless, cordless, replaceable battery, dumb vaccuum.

  • rambos@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Anyone have experience with roborock s7 ultra with valetudo or simmilar?

      • UndulyUnruly@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        What is your perspective on Hegel’s dialectic of Master and Slave and the inference that these asymmetric recognitive relations are metaphysically defective, and does this apply to your relationship with the roborock q5?

        Who is the master and who is the slave in this particular relationship? Can authority exist without responsibility and vice versa, or does it necessitate reciprocity?

        The mind runs wild.

        • TheCrawlingKingSnake@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I hooked mine up to wifi and the app. I thought it was pretty sweet it maps out your house and shows you that map on the app. Will it work without the wifi or the app? I don’t really know. I’m not paranoid and want to use all the features on my 300 dollar robot vacuum.

          • iheartneopets@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            That’s nice do you, but this is a privacy community. I don’t think it’s weird to think it’s weird that a robot that connects to wifi maps out my house. Don’t like it, don’t want it.

      • rambos@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Id like to know is it worth to get valetudo. I see some dissasembly and soldering required (warranty void) and not sure do I lose any functions. Maybe there is something betterfor s7?