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ilovededyoupiggy ,
@ilovededyoupiggy@sh.itjust.works avatar

A $2/mo subscription for a fucking screensaver?!

Kbobabob ,

Some people really are that dumb. I guess the silver lining is that there weren’t enough dumb people to keep this dumb service alive.

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

Digital photo frame as a service. Wow thanks big tech, so innovative, I can ask it about the weather.

seaQueue ,
@seaQueue@lemmy.world avatar

“Now fetching the weather, but first a word from our sponsors!”

capt_wolf ,
@capt_wolf@lemmy.world avatar

So I bought one of Spotify’s Car Things when they were flushing them after realizing nobody knew fuck all about them.

The device itself works alright for it’s purpose, but is basically just a fancy way to change tracks or answer your phone. There’s no GPS or messaging integration that you’d get with CarPlay. It doesn’t even tell the time. Still, it works and is useful.

A few months ago, Spotify sent out emails that, as of December, they will be bricking all of them and to dispose of them via whatever recycling service you have.

Pretty shitty that we’ve entered an era where companies can just destroy something you paid for because they want to… There need to be laws against this.

MeepMorp ,

In September of 2023, Amazon announced the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition. It looked just like the regular Echo Show 8 smart display/speaker but cost $10 more. Why? Because of its ability to show photos on the home screen for as long as you want—if you signed up for a $2 monthly subscription to Amazon’s PhotosPlus. Now, about a year after releasing the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition, Amazon is announcing that it’s discontinuing PhotosPlus. That means Echo Show 8 Photos Edition users will be forced to see ads instead of their beloved pics.

whenyellowstonehasitsday , (edited )

i'm sorry but if you were enough of a rube to sign up for a $2/mo subscription for that then this might be darwinistic capitalism

SteveFromMySpace ,

A lot of people really have a hard time parsing what they’re buying with digital products and I think it’s unfair to expect them to compete with international mega corporations that love to surprise folks with gated featured/subscriptions as you go “caveat emptor.”

Marduk73 ,
@Marduk73@sh.itjust.works avatar

That device has gullible written all over it.

SadSadSatellite ,

The description of that device and subscription is so fucking stupid I’m not even mad. If you fell for it that hard, you deserve whatever they throw at you.

Astronauticaldb ,

Just as a little tip, in the US if you switch your Echo’s language to US-CAN it displays way less ads :)

Opisek ,

Those things have ads? Why would you intentionally buy an advertisement billboard for your house?

Astronauticaldb ,

It’s a toss up, but it pretty much only shows just photo/link ads. The one that they’ve really been pushing recently is that Disney platformer game on the Switch for some reason.

Fiivemacs ,

Crap like this is why I stopped buying things.

DJDarren ,

We have an older Echo Show in the kitchen. I hate it. It’s genuinely one of the single most ill-conceived, user-unfriendly products I’ve ever experienced. It’s straight up dog shit.

My wife originally picked it up because Amazon were flogging them for something like £30 as a loss-leader. Figured it would make a useful bedside clock and smart speaker in one. It’s a shitty clock, and absolutely fucking useless on the bedside because it keeps flashing shit up in the dark. You can’t load any photos on to it, so you’re stuck looking at whatever artwork/“tips”/ads it wants to show you.

I don’t understand how Amazon created a device that looks like a little picture frame, that would be an ideal bedside clock, and apparently at no point did they consider that people might want to use it like that.

We since got a Google thing that’s essentially the same device (free with an energy tariff), and y’know, Google did a good job with that thing. Just sits in the bedroom being a clock and smart speaker, dimming nicely when the lights are out, never advertising shit at us.

I use it as a Bluetooth speaker, which also sucks because it’ll randomly refuse to disconnect from my phone even though I did it through my phone’s settings. It’ll be disconnected, then I’ll be sat in the lounge and I’ll hear it reconnect, like some kind of cunt.

And they’ve programmed it to talk ALL THE FUCKING TIME. “NOW CONNECTED TO YOUR PHONE”. Yes, I fucking know it is, I just told you to do that.

It is legitimately the worst bit of tech I’ve ever used, and I’ve used a Virgin Media cable TV box.

DJDarren ,

All of which is to say, once I finally get around to picking up a half way reasonable Bluetooth speaker for the kitchen I’m putting a fucking hammer through that fucking show. Useless lump of crap.

PrettyFlyForAFatGuy ,

i remember when virgin media first used tivo boxes. was a simpler time

some_guy OP ,

I’m really sorry you have to share a home with that shitty device. Maybe break a window, mess up the place, and throw it away and pretend it was the only item stolen.

tilefan ,

time to open fraud complaints with your credit card company

some_guy OP ,

Now you’re talkin’.

conciselyverbose ,

You shouldn’t need a fucking subscription to display your photos on your hardware.

reddig33 ,

Oh look, more e-waste.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

Here’s to hoping the development of a good local replacement from Home Assistant. Like the Lenovo teams screen thing.

MediaBiasFactChecker Bot ,

Ars Technica - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)Information for Ars Technica:
> MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
> Wikipedia about this source

Search topics on Ground.Newshttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/08/amazon-is-bricking-primary-feature-on-160-echo-device-after-1-year/

Media Bias Fact Check | bot support

DmMacniel ,
@DmMacniel@feddit.org avatar

mhm, is there a way to root the echo show?

Astronauticaldb , (edited )

I kinda doubt it, since Fire TVs can’t be. Then again, FireOS is just a remux of Android. Edit: it seems like Echo Shows can in fact be rooted, but it’s a difficult process. Side-loading seems to be the easier option in this case. XDA Forums link: xdaforums.com/f/amazon-echo.6148/

DmMacniel ,
@DmMacniel@feddit.org avatar

oh nice, thanks for the link. I gonna scourge that forum now.

AA5B ,

Huh, I never knew this existed, or I might have bought a couple.

I’ve been thinking of digital picture frames both for myself, as my kids go off to college, and my Mom, as her grandkids go to college. However I’ve never been happy with how easy they are to manage

  • I want mine to just work, and incorporate new pictures as I take them
  • my Mom is not very tech savvy, so it really has to just work regardless of what she does, plus I need to be able to update it remotely

I see a variety of digital pictures frames and see how they try to make updating them easy, but I don’t see why they’re not completely automatic.

My phone automatically detects faces as I take pictures: I have a kids album that’s automatically updated whenever I take a photo of my kids. That’s how easy I want it

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