[conspire] Flashing twelves

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On 3/14/24 6:20 AM, Les Faby wrote:
> The cheapest interface is the owner's smart phone running a simple app. 
> You have got a bigger touch screen, etc

and every time you've to use your microwave... you've to take out your 
phone. Furthermore once you put something on the net you've to take care 
of security, manage updates... then... you'll still need a small screen 
to input passwords for wifi (oh yeah WPS, srly?).

Having free TCP/IP stack on embedded device is easy, having a graphic 
stack is not, so you've to add license costs and/or development costs, 
add dependency from vendors etc...

There is a gray area where the device is sufficiently complicated that 
it requires more than a couple of buttons and where a screen start to be 
more cost effective (cost of "hardware": buttons, knobs.. increasing the 
numbers of pins/size of the mcu, soldering technology, cost of custom 
panels...).

And once you add a screen... you've increased 10 folds the struggle to 
complete a product because marketing is not interested in functionality 
rather in having a slice of that screen to show off.

This kind of conflict doesn't even require a full-fledged screen.
You plan to build a microwave. It has a segment display to show power 
and time. But well... it could also be a clock... so we can write it on 
the brochure... it has a clock. That's going to cost us nearly nothing, 
we can recycle few lines of code from another product... but backup 
batteries have a cost... and if your appliance has batteries you've to 
comply with more regulations. So let's add the code... but not the 
batteries -> painful UX.

Plus, since there is no standard... or if you're lucky there are some 
"standard de facto" pushed by oligopolies you can't put the "smart" part 
on a stand alone device and isolate your appliances from the net and you 
can't trust those oligopolies won't change the "standard" etc...

To make things "easier" for the users... many times the appliance 
connect to the "cloud" and your phone connects to the cloud so you can 
connect to the appliance... so you're at the mercy of the company to be 
able to connect to your appliance.

Many times you end up with fancy products connected to the net, 
controlled by a smartphone that are still a PITA to use and companies 
that drop support.

Products first have to be sold and only if you make money on the product 
they have to be bearable, not good, bearable.

Is product A better than product B? How am I going to know? Most sources 
are unreliable or lost in a sea of bullshits.
So if they write product A has feature w, x, y and product B has feature 
w, x, y and z and they cost nearly the same, (and none is a "branded" 
stuff, a status symbol), I'm going to get B.

Most of the times z is bullshits, but 90% companies compete on 
bullshits. So you get z with a tradeoff (a bit shitty UX) but since z is 
bullshit and it's rarely or never used you're OK with it.

Company B succeeded to sell you something, has a budget to keep selling 
bullshits, company A doesn't.


-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
https://www.webthatworks.it https://www.borgonovo.net