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This is a very real issue for even expensive items. If you buy a car today, doesn't it have some sw component that requires phoning home to work properly. What if that company goes bust? Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side? Both Tesla and byd seem like challenging purchases with all that's going on

I'm thinking that removing the smarts from "smart" devices may become a lucrative cottage industry in the next 25 years, as devices become orphaned and useless when their manufacturers disappear or go out of business. Bonus service: Pre-dumbing a smart device to increase its usefulness prior to purchase. Store sells a "Smart Dishwasher" for $400? I'll unlock it and un-app it and sell it to you for $500 instead.

Products are often cheap enough that the labor costs are too high compared to getting a new unit. It would generally work for appliances that are built into a house or hard to transport because then the relative cost would be offset by the cost of labor to remove and install a replacement.

For example, people generally wouldn’t do this for a TV when they can get a decent replacement for $300 new.

It would probably only work in countries where services are cheaper than buying new.

For example in south america is is common to get shoes repaired or customized. Clothing altered to fit or be repaired etc. In the US it really only makes sense if that article of clothing is > $200-300. Its pretty hard around me to find a tailor that will do much of anything more than basic hemming for less than $75-100. whereas in south america it would only cost me around $5 to get something altered or a shoe repaired.

I would get something altered about once a month in south america. In the US, maybe once every couple years.

You write "Products are often cheap enough" as if that is a law of nature — it isn't. That is the result of a global production chain that has valued efficiency of production over nearly everything else. This is currently changed, now national interests became more important in the most careless way possible.

There are many examples of countries where old technology has to be maintained because the new is unavailable or unaffordable.

> they can get a decent replacement for $300 new

Presumably the "decent replacement" will also be too smart for their own good and there will be people who will pay extra on purchase for a "de-smarted" device.

Speaking of which, I shudder to think what will happen if my current TV ever breaks. Would getting a "smart" TV and physically removing the wifi help?

My prediction is that more devices will start to come with an eSIM that phones home and downloads more ads or uploads user data whether you give it WiFi access or not.

Amazon Sidewalk can also be used - it automatically finds devices on other networks (like your next-door neighbor) and sends data through their devices in case you don't connect your device to your own network.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Sidewalk/

That may be a business opportunity... make faraday cages that enclose the right spots on specific tv models...

Have you ever seen TV not connected to the Internets? Some models refuse to work with "no free storage" alert if it has spywared too much data about the used (used is any user of proprietary sw). When the used connects the snoop-TV to the network it of course unloads the data.

> Have you ever seen TV not connected to the Internets?

I'm a luddite. I have an 1080p TV from before Android TVs.

And I'm afraid to upgrade it...

I haven't had a "TV" for over 25 years now.

I still have a dumb monitor that costs more than a TV that would have a larger diameter with an HTPC that is really just a regular Linux install and that runs open source software on it. Which software has changed over the years, as has what kind of "TV" I get on it, from actually having a cable TV tuner in there to all streaming or local files. Over that time frame, it has become increasingly harder to get things to work "properly".

As in, yes there are caveats to this of course. Like there's no Netflix (/insert your favourite streaming service) app for it and you probably can't get 4k and/or surround sound from in-browser. As in, they're intentionally making the experience of people actually paying money to them worse.

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

I'm kinda in the same boat, my 14yo 1080p TV still works like a charm, so my worry is more about what would happen if it died?

Those things aren't cheap.

GSM module? I think it costs several dollars. They are already installed into electricity meters for example.

The lifetime subscription :)

It doesn't need to be lifetime, only as long as devices are supported. Also, electricity meters makers somehow solved this problem. I am sure a subscription won't be expensive if the device doesn't use too much data. Also the device maker can pay with collected data or advertisement.

Electricity meters are already conveniently plugged to a wire?

Start with luxury items. You're right, not many people would pay $500 for a dumbed down device when they can buy a smart device for $300. But, I know for a fact that there are enough people that would pay $5000 for a $3000 tv if it had the default OS removed and replaced with something sane.

A lot of things are about to become very, very expensive in the US, if Trump isn't stopped somehow. If there's a silver lining, it's that people are going to want to hang on to what they have and keep it working.

Remember the PlayStation chips the gamesshop people soldered in while waiting for customers .

The problem is it may require both replacement computing hardware and software. At that point, you may just want to make competing washing machines.

its likely to be illegal for cars for safety reasons. Manufacturers will use legal roadblocks on other devices.

I'd beware the legal system in that case. A lot of product liability claims could be (spuriously or not) redirected on whoever last touched the firmware.

If you are merchant in a class of products, directing (not "redirecting") product liability claims for anything you sell to you isn't "disingenuous", it is just the normal rule of product liability. And that's even if you aren't modifying the product on the way.

For a real world example Subaru, when 3G shut down, their wireless modems started massively draining the battery even for people with no subscription. As it tried over and over again to connect to the 3G network to check if you even had a subscription.

The manufacturer had (has) no good solution to this. They just change something to dealer mode and hope your battery never completely drains and resets it.

Wasn't the fix for this pulling the fuse to the wireless modem?

> Or if a war breaks out and that company is in a country on the other side?

the company has something over the consumer, unlike the products of old. This is what i dislike about new age products that are so internet enabled.

It started with game consoles, but it won't end with cars.

I just want a self-contained piece of equipment that can work in perpetuity. Look at those old milling and lathe machines - some are as old as 30 yrs, and works brilliantly.

Many are much older than that.

It's played out countless times already, so often that the fact consumers are still not protected is now negligence and not simple innovation getting ahead of law.

It was predicted early on in the first IoT booms, earlier still in software, and I have to imagine even before computers were a thing, bespoke components rather than commodity items in particular parts of machines likely had the same effect.

Screw that these days. I drive a 2014 French compact POS rather than my old 2018 Model S now. It actually works properly and over its entire lifetime, including fuel, it'll cost less than the depreciation of the Model S while I owned it.

Can you please elaborate why BYD purchase could be a challenge? Do they call home and potentially get bricked if the home doesn't respond?

I'm considering buying one, being in India, so would appreciate an explanation.

As long as India and China have a good stance with each other there will probably be no problems. But if that ever changes, who can tell if services won't be "disrupted" by "accident" and take longer than expected to be fully functional again (if ever).

Same goes for Tesla. Same goes for every brand, but some are probably more likely than other to be used as a kind of "weapon" in a trade war or sth. alike.

I understand those aspects.

I'm asking for specifics. i.e., which system(s) of BYD call home which if didn't work end up bricking or severely impact the working of the vehicle.

People don't care, they buy smart lights, smart HVAC, smart thermostats, smart coffee machines, smart juice pressers, &c. It's all going to end up in a landmine before 10 years. The vast majority of things we can buy are made to fail quickly or are irreparable, usually both

We're multiplying points of failure and increasing the repairability complexity 100 fold, for a tiny bit of convenience, sometimes, maybe

> a landmine

I hope this is a typo or this is a terrifying prediction.

And it's creeping into more and more of our stuff

Maybe I've been listening to too much YKS but I can't imagine buying a bike that required me to use an app and company's cloud to control basic functionality like that

I couldn't imagine buying a dishwasher that did the same... but somehow that happened.

There's no indication that functionality is hidden behind an app. You find that out after you get the thing home, set it up, and start using it (a lot of the time).

Bosch I presume?

This is one of few places where I’d like to sprinkle a little more government overreach in just the right way - to prevent manufacturers from walling clearly essential behaviour behind an app. That’s far too gray of a line for governments to handle, but I can dream.

I would settle for something like - "any network functionality in consumer devices must be open sourced and user modifiable"

It is probably too high a bar for most manufacturers, so they will not likely include such functionality.

These days I would prefer it say that the documentation for communication protocols and for any computer control interface or network functionality must supplied and destination any addresses configurable by the user.

Yes, I'd be fine as long as there's a clear documentation and that I can control it within my local network even if the company's servers are down

> That’s far too gray of a line for governments to handle, but I can dream.

I know that GDPR doesn't get much love, but I think that it shows that we (well, not we, because I'm in the US, but the EU) can meaningfully legislate issues involving intent and essential function. IA (obviously) NAL, but I see no reason that "those portions of the essential functionality of a device that do not inherently require the use of internet connectivity must be available without internet connectivity," or even the weaker "a device that is not usable without internet connectivity must be clearly signposted as such or be subject to free return at manufacturer expense for [some period of time]," wouldn't be a meaningful and enforcable law.

> Bosch I presume? > I would bet on that too. I have an older 300 series that is not WiFi and app enabled. It works great. I was suggesting "dumb" device models to someone and it was damned difficult to find which SKUs had misfeatures and which didn't. Same model, possibly same SKU (there are #s for different retailers), but two years newer had "smart" features.

Like a sugar/fat/healthy label on food: enforce a clear sign on the package about each functionality that is too smart to be usable easily.

Needs some defining to get right (unanbiguous, useful, concise), but might be easier to realise than forbidding things.

Government overreach is the reason for this - no need to ask for more. If you believe in climate change, you will feel happy to 'save the world' by ceding control of your personal data and resources to the government.

The idea is that every resource is is monitored, the electric company's smart meters will report everyone's usage. This will then allow for fine grained control over your 'misuse', with carbon credits (taxes/fines) altering behaviour. 'Smart' everything is technocratic control.

Smart = spy.

This seems like a stretch. Why is the drive behind IoT not simple advertising opportunity?

You should look into technocracy. This is a long-standing plan.

I really appreciate you, in particular, posting that here, because if Jeff Geerling can end up with an appliance with unwanted cloud/app dependencies, it's not a customer skill issue - it's a lack of candor from the manufacturers issue.

What possible advantage is there to controlling my dishwasher through an app? Why would anyone buy this on purpose?

Ideas off the top of my head if you link “smart” dishwasher to smart home.

1. Loaded dishwasher doesn’t run until Time-of-Use electric is off-peak.

2. Dishwasher runs after everyone has left for the day

3. Dishwasher runs after everyone has gone to bed

4. Dishwasher stops and drains if external water sensor detects leak (the inbuilt sensor/s don’t work for all types of leaks)

Are these worth it? Who knows. But it does have some uses.

If it used some standardized interface for communicating with the app, a benefit could be not being tied to it's physical interface if it breaks down or if you want to extend it's functionality. Unfortunately interfaces are the opposite of standardized or open right now.

It’s a dishwasher, a compound word that pretty thoroughly describes its functionality.

So after you have manually loaded it and put the soap in and closed it, instead of pressing a button to start it you can go through 6 screens and 25 clicks to start it!

That's progress!

That is what online reviews are for.

And oftentimes, download the user manual. If at all possible, I download the manual before making any purchase decision. It can answer questions such as: What’s included in the box? What cables/accessories will I need? Will the specs be fit for purpose?

User manuals are unbiased and usually a very accurate way to figure out lots of things about a product, especially something complicated and/or expensive, before purchase.

Unfortunately I have seen companies who are paywalling or purchase-walling manual downloads.

> Unfortunately I have seen companies who are paywalling or purchase-walling manual downloads.

This is itself an enormous red flag of its own. I would never buy any product from a company that has its manuals online but then makes it difficult to actually download them. That's a worse sign than the manuals just not being up at all.

Bosch isn't one of those manufacturers thought. All their manuals are available online, so it's just a matter of doing your homework before purchase.

Bosch are nasty in many ways though. Their ebike battery and motor system in particular is extremely hostile to diy anything. Repair, generic battery with Bosch motor, using your Bosch ebike battery outside the ebike, ...

I wouldn't mind seeing some legislation that forced compatibility between different ebike systems, especially battery DRM....

A good start would be strong push to unify all rechargeable batteries.

And not just bikes, but all the various tools, from cordless drills to lawnmovers.

I loved (and hated... because 'enshitification') that video. Thanks!

> I loved (and hated... because 'enshitification') that video. Thanks!

What video?

https://youtu.be/5M_hmwBBPnc

They hide this fact several times - while others advertise proudly, and idioticly -, true, but that is why I read the user manual before considering the purchase. Several of home appliances I browsed failed at this step.

Overcomplication works for masses, unluckily, they want to be thorougly amazed like in a circus at every cycle of washing dishes or what, and real engineers are a dying breed. Children put together shiny crap nowadays. While the motto should be: "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

My clothes dryer has this stupid touch screen interface and keeps reminding me that it can be controlled by an app.

I'm all: "So? I Don't want my phone colluding with the dryer and the garage door opener to overthrow me."

Don't be ridiculous. They won't collude against you. They clearly will have a turf war instead with each claiming that the TOS you signed by opening the packaging (the TOS being, of course, on the inside of said packaging) gives them exclusive rights to your entire being.

We have a shredder at work with a touchscreen. It is a shedder, basically just a motor and some rotating blades. But every time i use it i have to wait 30 seconds for the touchscreen to wake up. Totally useless.

I'm old enough to remember when shredders would just turn on when you inserted paper into them. No interface needed, touch or otherwise.

How did you change the shredding settings though?

The shredder needs to scan the document on its way through and send the contents back to the cloud for processing*, only then can the algorithm correctly detect the correct shredding settings.

* Information is retained for up to 100 years to improve customer experience.

Ah, the famous "unshred" function for recovering destroyed documents.

I think I’ve told Gmail.com that 10k times in a row.

They will try again tomorrow though.

The dryer could tell the garage door to open, to reduce humidity.

YKS?

Probably the "Your Kickstarter Sucks" podcast. [0]

[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-kickstarter-sucks...

Is it possible the app wasn't advertised as required, but shown as a feature?

This is why I avoid anything that advertises as having an app. Whether it's adding huge latency to a volume change, using it for advertising or removing functionality entirely; the manufacturer simply has too much ownership over a product you've supposedly bought.

Right? At some point we crossed a line where turning on a bike light became a "cloud event." Like… why does my transportation need a login screen?

I was hoping this was about the Copenhagen Wheel. I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".

I thought I'd read about unbricking it. https://www.reddit.com/r/ebikes/comments/1bis770/diehard_cop... links to a private FB group that I haven't joined, but implies maybe it hasn't been solved yet. https://www.instructables.com/Build-a-Key-for-the-Copenhagen... makes me think at least one piece of the puzzle has been.

I'm sure there are startups that won't screw over their users even if they don't make it. Don't trust/buy any hardware that requires a cell phone app to use though.

If the CEO is an MBA then just don't even give them a chance.

Yeah, if the first thing they show in a promo video is using an app, I'm already rolling my eyes. If they instead just show the product working, and then "one more thing" the demo with app control, maybe I'll get my eyes to face forward the entire demo. It seems like the "but on a computer" just went to "but it has an app" mental picture.

They are unbrickable, I just got home from a rode using mine. It is super tragic that such a great piece of hardware was so mismanaged

I've been eyeing a Pikaboost 2 conversion kit for a while now, but I share your skepticism. For me it's more of a distrust of first gen products than it is startups. Even apple messes up 1st gen.

I live up a hill, and all my destinations are at sea level, so I just want enough E-bike to get home at the end of the day.

> I'd love if my expensive brick could get going again. It was my first lesson in "Don't trust a startup".

This does not even require an app. Simply lock down all hardware and make it economically unviable by charging 100+ euro for a 5 second "software update", which you need to do if you ever unplug the battery for > 10 seconds. See the thousands of Accell bikes (mostly Sparta branded) on dumps. You can get them going again but that's only for diehard hobbyists and requires custom hardware.

I detest this trend of needing an app for every piece of hardware.

Just put the damn interface on the hardware. You are after all selling the hardware, not the app.

They are not selling the hardware. They are taking your money in exchange for the privilege of utilizing the hardware they created to use a service they built so their customers can obtain data about your usage of the device and whatever it connects to.

I fear that small companies without VC are the only ones interested in making a thing they sell that doesn’t require some ongoing commitment from buyers. And those companies run the risk of folding overnight. It’s fine for the customers since their hardware continues to function, but it’s not an attractive business model.

> so their customers can obtain data about your usage

I can't prove it, but I suspect selling data is a very minor consideration in the appification of everything.

Aside from there actually being people who like that kind of thing (and them apparently being more common than people who like physical forms of self-flagellation), the main benefit of appifying everything is the opportunity to sell you "value-add services", aka sell you a subscription for the hardware you already bought.

I've been in the room when the decision was made to app-ify things. The revenue stream is 100% of the point.

The data revenue stream or the subscription revenue stream?

How much revenue can you get from knowing when someone was doing their laundry?

Both, plus the captive advertising revenue stream. If you can push ads during the laundry app, or do tie-ins where a given detergent enables some bullshit feature...

Replying to myself here. I just found myself shopping for a washer and dryer, and indeed, ran across one that takes manufacturer-branded detergent cartridges and offers to order more, right in the app, when they run low.

It can use third-party detergent by manually adding it at the start of the cycle, but adding some _during_ the cycle (which ultimately uses less) is only supported if using their cartridge.

I wish I was making this up.

> but it’s not an attractive business model

It's been the business model for over 100+ years with bikes. It's not an attractive VC buisness models as it cannot needlessly extract wealth beyond the product sale. It is double dipping as you fully pay for the bike, and people fall for it somehow.

The electronic computer didn't exist 100+ years ago. You can't ignore the exponentially growth of technology that has happened and pretend that the market dynamics are the same that they were such a long time ago.

> The electronic computer didn't exist 100+ years ago. You can't ignore the exponentially growth of technology that has happened and pretend that the market dynamics are the same that they were such a long time ago.

One can't argue that manufacturers won't try to get away with this stuff, because they will, but one can argue that it's parasitic rent-seeking, which it is. Certainly, there are new classes of device that can be made by leveraging new technology in previously impossible ways, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about classes of hardware that functioned perfectly well 100+ years ago (for a bike), or for other cases discussed in this thread less long ago but before the internet age, that are being artificially hobbled to allow additional revenue extraction.

Do a Dell. Sell the laptop. Sell support. This is a win win for customer and business.

VCs mandate that every possible avenue of rent seeking be exploited in order to maximize the amount and frequency of transactions. You're not getting hardware funded; the VC will steal your idea and pawn it off on some other party capable of exploiting the potential for your product as a service. Because if you don't, someone else will, and they'll have more money to outcompete your product, because enshittification is how FAANG got to be trillion dollar companies.

A person existing is sufficient to make these people assume they are entitled to something for it.

The phrase rent-seeking is such a funny one to me. Like, if rent-seeking is bad that should apply across the board. I.e. being a landlord, literally seeking rent from tenants.

Yet I fear the issue most people on here have with “rent seeking” is the harm it does to a theoretical idea of free market capitalism - rather than the tangible harm of extracting wealth from someone’s need for a place to live.

Rent-seeking is a pretty well-known term that has not much to do with rents.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

“Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth”

So, renting out a home. Just the manipulation of social and political environment has already been done. Rent sought, not rent seeking.

Rent as in rent paid to live in a home fits the definition of “economic rent” perfectly. Because housing rent is an example of economic rent. The cognitive dissonance i am pointing out is that seeking economic rent is bad, but using already created structures to obtain economic rent is… not bad somehow?

>So, renting out a home. Just the manipulation of social and political environment has already been done. Rent sought, not rent seeking.

That makes sense for the land, but not so much for the actual structure that sits on top. The land is going to exist no matter what. the same can't be said of the apartment building .

That’s the “without creating new wealth” part of the definition of rent seeking. Now, I’ve lived in a lot of rentals in my life - and not one of my landlords built the home they were renting out. Most or all of those homes had the cost of building them paid off decades ago.

And not all renting out is rent seeking! On occasion in cities with decreasing home prices, the landlord is subsidising the tenant. That is rare though!

Agreed - there are rare circumstances when landlords are losing money. When that happens landlords will usually seek rent increases, or changes to housing / zoning / development rules, etc.

I don't agree with your characterization here, so no cognitive dissonance needed.

Agree or disagree, housing rent is economic rent.

Renting a place to live allows one to hold a job and create value.

Having a place to live allows that. Rent just allows someone to take a portion of your income while you do that.

There’s a reason people in parts of the US are gravely concerned about the rapid acquisition of housing by PE groups and other large investors. Which, not coincidentally has led to the enshittification of the mobile home park market. Something I wouldn’t have believed possible a decade ago, but her we are.

You’re so close! This is like watching right wing people smugly saying “the phrase women’s rights is such a funny one to me - if we assume women are humans and deserve rights then what next, black rights?” As if they’ve hit a winning argument that of course black people aren’t human and don’t deserve rights so of course women's rights are a nonsense as well.

You've started with the assumption that landlording is a good Capitalist respectable thing and nobody could question it, so mocking the thing a landlord does can't possibly have any legs to stand on. But yes! A landlord seeking rent for doing nothing is a parasite! Yes! It’s rent seeking! The people who really try to defend it as difficult and performing a useful service are bad people who benefit from the status quo and lack the imagination and wider experience to see that things like council housing exists and works and benefits people other than the wealthy landowners. If there are two houses and two families could own them and live in them, turning it into one family owning both plots/houses and the the other family paying rent forever is worse. Turning it into one landlord owning both plots/houses and charging both families to live there forever so they don't have to work for a living is worse again. Turning it into a landlord class who both try to squeeze as much rent as possible while lobbying the authorities to block new-house building and reduce tenant's rights is worse again.

> You've started with the assumption that landlording is a good Capitalist respectable thing and nobody could question it

No, gently calling that into question was entirely my point. I was starting with the assumption that the reader believed that, but I don’t.

But how do we know people use the light on the bike if the bike isn't IoT? Bikes need Google Analytics.

The light placement (so the mudguard casts shadows) would drive me insane

Another problem is that when turning, the light doesn't follow the handlebar, so it "stays behind" the curve. It's bright/wide enough and I only drive in the city so neither problems are a huge deal though.

That is actually less of an issue as you might think, if the light is designed properly. As you will have to look at the corner before you ever shine the light directly towards it. This is not much different from motorcycles.

Since this is a vanmoof (first edition probably) I think they followed the design of "old fashioned" bikes which also lack the turnability features as the light is attached to the frame part of the central steering bar and not the insert which turns with the steering wheel.

Old-fashioned bikes usually have the light attached to the fork or the headset, not to the frame.

I consider that an advantage because the light stays nice and steady while I weave around bumps in the road.

> You can also charge this light with USB-C instead of the original micro-USB.

A dynamo would be the next upgrade

I can't state how convenient hub dynamos are, no noise, no maintenance, unlikely to be robbed without stealing the whole bike, it just works, perfect for a city bike.

I get why people like them, but they make way less sense when you work out the capacity of an equivalent weight (not to mention cost) of lithium cells.

It's easy to get to about 90Wh, which will run a dynamo-powered light for 30 hours on max (most dynamos seem to be rated 3W).

There are definitely cases where it makes sense, and not having to keep batteries charged is nice, it's just easy to miss how good batteries are these days.

Not having to take the light off the bike and charge it and then forget to take it back to the bike, not to mention forgetting charging it and finding out when it's dark, is completely worth having a dynamo.

I live in Tokyo, and only drive in the city center. 90% of me having a light is the legal requirement of having so, I virtually never need it since the streets I usually ride are well-lit. The remainder 10% is that I like the solid feel of the bike overall and felt sad for the integrated light not to work TBH.

When you are riding the bike in the city, the light is not for you to see things, it is for others to see and notice you.

Can't emphasise that enough. Especially if you're into black clothing and have a black bike.

"This showed that for cars DRL reduces the number of daytime injury crashes by 3-12%. The effect on fatal crashes can be estimated as somewhat greater (-15%)."

https://swov.nl/system/files/publication-downloads/fs_drl_ar...

This is about cars/motorcycles and daytime, but it certainly applies to any moving vehicle at any time...

When driving, I love those bicyclists that have a blinking rear light btw. Can't overlook them.

In my experience engaging a dynamo is worth one switch of the gear on a 7 gear cassette. I accept the tradeoff of having to pocket the light.

Not with a hub-type one. These work magnetically and you basically obly lose the 3-5W of power they produce.

I want a 25w+ one that normally engages while braking, with a capacitor for non-braking times

I don't even notice a difference.

A spare battery in your saddle-pack solves most of those problems.

If you're worried about being without light, a (typical) dynamo system is more complicated and exposed than a battery system, so will be more prone to failure.

I suppose you’re a casual cyclist and you don’t commute on a daily basis.

If you commute on a daily basis, a hub dynamo and light system is a bliss. Just hop on the bike and go. I have used bikes with Shimano, SP and Son for thousands of kms in all kind of weather and never really experienced a fault. It’s as simple as car lights - you just take them for granted.

With battery powered lights you need to take them off and put them back; recharge them; remember to bring them with you and not lose them. A spare battery pack is not enough (front and rear) and may not work during cycling (not all lights can be charged while turned on). And, low quality battery powered lights tend to quickly break (2-3 years) while I now realize one of my b+m systems is 10y old already. Good battery powered lights will probably last more, but they’re as expensive as dynamo powered ones.

So yeah, battery is ok and cheap for casual cycling, but very suboptimal if you want reliable lights every day throughout the year.

You're comparing a hub dynamo with cheap low-capacity rechargeable lights.

Rechargeable lights from the usual suspects are generally not good, they are expensive for what they are, have low capacity, and don't have swappable standard-size batteries.

They make dynamo systems look like a good deal, but if typical battery-powered lights were even close to their theoretical optimum I think people would be much less enthusiastic about dynamos.

Good lights last more (I have a Blackburn lamp and it’s working) but it’s still less convenient than dynamo. You need to remove and remount it every time, with the risk of dropping or forgetting.

Ofc if you mount fixed battery-powered lights and you could just swap a usb c battery, maybe it would compete with dynamo. But an easy swappable battery would still ve easy to steal (unless it’s inside the frame with a lock or sth like that)

Typical non-hub dynamo lasts like 30 years parked outside, and nice ones cost like $10 on Amazon. You smack it and they start whining at you. They are only barely more complicated than a stew pan.

Hub dynamos seem a bit more fragile, with a wire extending into the lightbulb, but never heard reliability is a concern with it...

Why do you think hub dynamos are more fragile? And what do you mean about a lightbulb?

I mean, it does have like, a wire between the hub and the lamp body. I think parent comment mentioned something about fragile wires when I posted the reply, I should have quoted it.

    A spare battery in your saddle-pack 

Don't worry, it will be stolen in 1 day.

It's not about weight, it's about having the light work when you need it.

Ensuring the battery is not empty at the time you want to ride it and it is night is not always convenient

I'm talking about commute, not sports, here.

They make a ton of sense when you’re riding long distance and when you don’t have access to a charger.

If you like hub dynamos, give hub gears a try. My electric bike has nexus 7 hub gears. It's fantastic. There's essentially no maintenance.

Exactly my setup, a nexus hub with 8 speeds, the bike has been outside under rain and occasional snow, and it's completely reliable for my daily work commute.

How are they for drag when you're not using the light?

My only misgiving is: Which bike to put it on?

> Which bike to put it on?

As mentioned, a city bike, I don't think a dynamo hub would be a practical choice for a racing bike or mountain bike, nor fit all riders.

The drag is not an issue for a bike that I use to commute to work and go shopping, the convenience out weights by far the drag, and if the worry was weight and drag there are other parts that contribute much more like the carry bags, pannier rack, mudguards that again, are convenient.

Another positive factor not mentioned would be environmental, no need to create waste with batteries.

I would imagine it's minimal. I'll never forget a demo I played with at a Science museum as a kid. A dynamo with a crank you can turn, and set of switches that allow you to turn on one, two, or three incandescent bulbs. The crank turns freely without load, and is increasingly more difficult to turn as load is added.

How much energy do they rob? I can't think of dynamos without thinking of Bart Simpson - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaKjmxb7Qlc

It depends both on the lights and the dynamo. Incandescent lights used substantial chunks of your pedaling power. LED lights need maybe 5W or so. Hub dynamos are pretty efficient. For an untrained person your average power output is around 100W. That means powering the light would be around 5% of your power if you’re using an efficient hub dynamo. That’s in the ballpark of “bad chain maintenance costs more energy”

100W is pretty high for an untrained person. Back when I was cycling regularly I could hit those numbers but not every time. I took my first ride of the season and averaged a whooping 63 watts. Stealing 5 watts from that it taking away 8% of my energy. If you account for efficiency loss in the dynamic it's probably closer to 16% of my output. That's a huge chunk

You need to take you into account that the required power output scales quadratic with the speed. Power in itself means nothing, speed is what matters in the end. If you run the math (and various cycling blogs and magazines have done so), you end up with speed reductions in the order of less than 1% or fractions of a minute per hour cycled. You’d likely gain more by wearing clothing that has less drag.

8% less power would imply between 0.92 and towards 0.92^0.5 times lower speed depending on if you are in the mainly linear or mainly quadratic region of resistance.

Older dynamos with a bulb connected were quite tiresome to propell.

The 8% are at the top of the power output - at the bottom end, the fraction doesn't matter. You'll be able to provide 5W more if you're only pedaling at 50W.

The old dynamos were a chore. But their efficiency pales in comparison to a solid hub dynamo :)

A 63 watt average must have been taking into account all the time you weren't pedalling, that's extremely low - you would struggle to ride into a slight breeze.

It's certainly possible for a leisure ride - 100W give you ballpark 20-25km/hour. The drag scales quadratic, so if you go below 20km/h, you'll end up somewhere in the region of 63W average. Peak output would still exceed 100W.

The dynamo wouldn't necessarily need to provide full power. Say your commute is 1 hour. The dynamo can provide 3W and the light draws 5W. Your morning commute would provide 3Wh to the battery. You don't use the light so all power charges the battery. During the evening, you now have at least 3Wh of battery alongside 3Wh of pedal power so you'd have 1Wh of battery left by the time you get home. A large enough battery could store hours of surplus light just based on your normal daily commute. If not battery power is available and it's night time, the light could be dimmed or you could charge the battery from USB. If the light is off, then load on your muscles from the dynamo would decrease as the battery charges to full.

hub dynamos are not particularly efficient. it's very difficult to make an electric machine that is efficient at the (very low speeds, relatively) that a bike wheel turns at. 60% sounds about right. However, safety lights use much less than 5W, and a modest but very useable headlight about 3W, so your figures are otherwise pretty close.

> Incandescent lights used substantial chunks of your pedaling power.

Not solely caused by the lights as they are about ~5W anyway (edit: the old one in my box of bike parts says 6V/3W on the metal). The wheel dynamo's are insanely inefficient and get hot everywhere which were the primary ones used with most incandecant lights.

The best ones are roughly 50% efficient, 10W to output 5W but some are much less, 14W to output 5W. ...and 3W with no load.

https://www.cyclingabout.com/how-much-do-hub-dynamos-really-...

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I’m sure a Lion pack weighs less than a dynamo

I thought you were talking about those Lion[0] and it left me quite confused...

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_(chocolate_bar)

There's something beautifully satisfying about stripping away all the unnecessary "smart" layers just to bring back basic functionality

Not the topic of most comments, but instead of a 22 ohm resistor that burns up the majority of the battery power to protect the LED from overcurrent, a switching power supply would allow the light to run more than twice as long for the same available battery energy.

And I agree with other comments that linking products to their manufacturers is deplorable -- you don't own a modern product, it owns you.

Oh that's a great point/addition, thanks! The voltage already seems to be good. Everything seemed to work without even the resistor, just added the smaller resistor I had just in case and because I understand an LED in series with a power supply is a very bad idea, even if "it works" (wanted to be on the safe side). So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?

> So is there something like a purely current protector that doesn't change the voltage much?

First, in a regulated power supply, you control the current by (a) monitoring current, and (b) adjusting voltage.

Second, a switching power supply can easily be designed to regulate load current, which is what you want for an LED load, because the voltage across the LED changes with both current and temperature. The point of a switching design is that very little power is dissipated by anything except the load.

In your present circuit, the 22 ohm resistor is dissipating at least half the available power, all to protect the LED from overcurrent. I should add that, in any LED driving circuit, a way must be provided to limit the LED's current, or it may experience thermal runaway and failure. A switching power supply is an ideal way to do this, but only if it senses current in the load, not voltage.

Apropos, I designed switching power supplies for the NASA Space Shuttle. They were about 90% efficient, in spite of the fact that they had to deliver widely varying voltages and currents.

Weird. That looks so much like a Vanmoof which typically has light buttons on the left handlebar. Might be a knockoff.

It is an early edition Vanmoof, it has a single button on the handlebar that was for the Bell, no button for the lights. I could find little info about this model, it was only later versions that were a lot more popular.

If anyone is looking to do the opposite (i.e., make a dumb bike smart) check out the QZ app (qzfitness.com). Made by a solo dev who is amazing at support despite the tiny price and lack of subscription. I have no affiliation, just thought anyone reading the original post might be curious about the opposite...

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This is a real issue with most vehicles these days. I have a pal with a Triumph Street Twin which gave the message in the console and they couldn't figure out what was causing it. The bike would go into limp mode indicating as though there is something wrong with the engine.

They tried for months to diagnose why the message was coming up and they couldn't figure it out.

It would be great to have a motorcycle with as little electronic magic as possible to allow it to be repaired easily

Watch out, the voltage out of that battery charger is the unregulated battery voltage.

Thanks, this felt fine though. I added a small resistor to limit the current, but even without it (direct battery) the light worked fine. I didn't think I'd need a boost converter here.

It has low voltage cutoff on the battery so you're probably fine.

Thanks! I just added the (very basic) circuit schema.

If government were 'for the people' it would be required that appliances etc work regardless of communicating with the parent company.

Eg, it is probably already illegal to use the term 'purchase' for this sort of thing - as it actually seems like some sort of 'service contract' with terms for both parties to agree to. That items that need to 'call back to base' are allowed to be sold with no repercussions, tells you who the legal/governmental systems are serving.

That companies would follow such absolute shit practices to the people who trusted them with their money for actual physical products is grotesque. It should even be treated as a type of fraud, downright. Fuck these "smart device" manufacturers that can't seem to help themselves against fucking the thing you bought right over with bullshit fashionable tech trends that barely work.

That they do all this for the sake of extracting every possible penny out of you through data via forced app interaction only makes it more disgusting and parasitic. It used to b e that purely digital social media/ad-type companies mostly did this, now the very visible nonsense fashion is to cram as much extractive app-based shit into every possible physical product under the sun.

I can't wait to see a mass consumer revolt against such garbage, putting these companies sales firmly down the toilet. To those of you who fund, found or promote such things in your ventures and pitches, simply: Fuck. You..

Well, companies like shimano do the same thing. I have an ebike with shimano components with power outputs for lights. Even though the bike dashboard has buttons and you can navigate to settings, you need an app to connect to the bike and enable the lights. (to be clear, this is a one-time thing)

Caveat emptor has been a saying since long before social media ad-type companies.

But the fact that media ad-type companies can still get away with shenanigans is the crazy part. The hype machine just seems like it will always be faster/more powerful than those pointing out the lunacy. After all, the emperor's clothes look fantastic.

I’m just saying, it’s always been this way.

This is victim blaming. Being aware of everything will paralyze you to inaction because you can't read a 20 page TOS just to view a website or buy a hairdryer. Like so many things in our society right now, this is a trust thing. Functioning societies have a level of trust that allows greater return than the maximum minimum. If I trusted companies more I would buy more things. But I don't so I avoid things like new cars and 'smart' TVs. That trust is generally built up with strong institutions and things like 'consumer protections'. Right now however people believe in ideas like 'buyer beware' and 'it is the buyer's fault for getting scammed' and it just leads to a weak economy filled with junk that people hate but have no other option.

This confuses blame with being deserving. Do victims deserve what happens to them? No, generally not. Someone who is attacked and assaulted in a dark alley at 2:00 in the morning does not deserve that, the perpetrator would be to blame for that. But could the person have avoided it by not being there at at that time? Yes, at least in many cases.

Thinking one can skip down the trail of life without having to watch out for wolves is just being naive. Most of us lock our doors at night.

I have lived in places where you needed three keys to three different doors to get to your apartment and everywhere had bars on all the windows and I have lived in places where you could leave your bike unlocked at your front door and not worry about it missing the next day. I'd rather live in the later and it is possible to have that life.

I've seen this arrangement countless times in cities:

First key for the gate on the road to get into the yard.

Second key for the gate in the yard to the stairs and elevator.

Third and possibly fourth key for the door to the apartment.

That's pretty normal. I've seen at least once another key for a door between stairs/elevator and the home door. That's because of many burglars in the very first months after the building was built.

That said, I agree with you that living in a place where you only have one key and nothing happens if you forget to lock the door is much better.

Saying it's pedestrians fault for getting robbed for walking at night sound exactly like blaming the victim though

Didn't this company go bankrupt because of returns and warranty claims?

> Now my bike has a button, you press it and the light turns on. It's like magic how simple it is!

I recall no situations where I preferred an app as opposed to a regular hardware button like this.

Nice article and hack! Two things are confusing me here though:

If this is a VanMoof, I believe they were sold in Japan and even had a Store in Shibuya

Secondly, they were bankrupt, but to my knowledge were bought and is therefore still (again?) in business.

- Oh sorry, my friend bought it 2nd or 3rd hand after another individual had an accident and I understood they were not in Japan (some repair parts were 3rd party), but I searched and it seems you are right! I'll correct it.

- We tried a few times to recover the account but had some trouble with CS and the particular account, so ended up giving on that. It didn't help that he visits the country from time to time and we'd need to migrate the account each time.

Ahh I see. Yeah there are still many problems with "connected" bikes like this that are easier solved with a hardware hack!

> The lights don't work without the App.

I've owned a lot of VanMoofs. You absolutely do not need to use the app to interact with the lights, they are automatic. If the bike is misconfigured, it takes about 30 seconds to reset its preferences with a physical button accessible from the exterior, since the SX2.

Your friend may have bought a broken VanMoof.

> "since the SX2" + "Your friend may have bought a broken VanMoof"

The explanation is that it's one of the first generation ones. Originally there was a single push button outside on the handle, for the Bell, and a single charging micro-USB.

How did that VanMoof end up in Japan?

That's quite the trip it made.

Also that must have been in the sweetspot of couple of month between the release of the bike and the bankruptcy, who else would want to transport a "dead" bike that far?

It seems I misunderstood and they did operate at some point in Japan:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43768560

The bikes were built in Taiwan anyway, so seems reasonable enough to sell them in Japan.

Vanmoof had a very flashy store in Omotesando

1. The [1] in the blogpost leads nowhere.

2. > Someone risked life in prison for a measly $3.5/500円 light.

Is the punishment really life in prison in Japan for stealing a bike light?

something more problematic of this smart bike is that it also requires an app to unlock.

from what I read they used many (low quality) custom parts for this bike which aren't available anymore.

> something more problematic of this smart bike is that it also requires an app to unlock.

It doesn't, assuming you have the PIN to the bicycle.

> from what I read they used many (low quality) custom parts for this bike which aren't available anymore.

I've worked on my two VanMoofs a bunch to keep them running and they're okay quality parts in my opinion. Additionally, they sold about 200k bicycles so there's plenty of second hand, and even new, parts out there.

Since we were swapping it from owner every few months initially, when the App still worked, we left it unlocked and with a normal chain lock. Luckily for us, since now the app doesn't work anymore.

Hey, I'm one of the app developers at VanMoof – what's not working exactly?

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