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.
God I love lemmy, tysm for posting genuinely
My JBL soundbar has no app.
Your only option is configuring it with the Google Home appYou don’t need Google account for your phone to work.
Peoples expectation for “working” is “has absolutely all features that you would have with google, no exceptions”. If even a single feature is missing, people will scream thats its unusable.
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!
This is why I bought a 12 year old Sony ereader, the only thing I really miss is a back(front?)light
That was a great feeling–taking something locked in, programmed, something that used intentionally deceptive description and design, and finding a way to make it your own. To, basically, break the deceptive design and make the device better by “breaking” it.
When I rooted my first Android phone I felt that way. It’s a shame how much of the computing power in phones is used for nothing but harvesting our data and profiting from our use of the computer.
There’s so much more we need to break now.
it’s very sad to me that I won’t be rooting my next phone because of play integrity API. At least ADB is here to stay… right?
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.
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.
i would let this man fix my broken app connected cockring
I wonder if he accepts those products.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pwym1VUfl0
Depends on if you want to believe him or not 😋
What you need is design with purpose. Why is there an app vs physical controls. Because everyone’s doing it, or to collect data to sell, or because it offers real value to the user?
If it doesn’t benefit users, don’t be surprised when you get flamed and lose sales.
we’ve gone to a house email account with a tablet that is hooked to it and all those accounts stay on that and it never moves. But even then all those things that need it are put on a list for getting rid of and if we NEED the smart tech of it we will start to look for other options.
