On the flip side, maybe these companies shouldn’t be allowed to sell shit that they can render inoperable long before the end of the physical product’s life? I’d say given this stuff is sold through normal retail channels, we’re dealing with consumers that might not fully understand what they’re buying into.
Requiring manufacturers to provide an open firmware or local API that would allow 3rd party software to make use of the devices is such an obvious solution to this, it should be a legal requirement.
Especially for a company the size of Belkin, there isn’t really an excuse
These devices can be used locally according to Ars comments, but it should be a requirement to release one last update that makes sure local only setup and usage is working.
On the flip side, maybe these companies shouldn’t be allowed to sell shit that they can render inoperable long before the end of the physical product’s life? I’d say given this stuff is sold through normal retail channels, we’re dealing with consumers that might not fully understand what they’re buying into.
Requiring manufacturers to provide an open firmware or local API that would allow 3rd party software to make use of the devices is such an obvious solution to this, it should be a legal requirement.
Especially for a company the size of Belkin, there isn’t really an excuse
These devices can be used locally according to Ars comments, but it should be a requirement to release one last update that makes sure local only setup and usage is working.