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IoT Garage Door Opener Maker Bricks Customer's Product After Bad Review (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Denis Grisak, the man behind the Internet-connected garage opener Garadget, is having a very bad week. Grisak and his Colorado-based company SoftComplex launched Garadget, a device built using Wi-Fi-based cloud connectivity from Particle, on Indiegogo earlier this year, hitting 209 percent of his launch goal in February. But this week, his response to an unhappy customer has gotten Garadget a totally different sort of attention. On April 1, a customer who purchased Garadget on Amazon using the name R. Martin reported problems with the iPhone application that controls Garadget. He left an angry comment on the Garadget community board: "Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iPhone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here..." Shortly afterward, not having gotten a response, Martin left a 1-star review of Garadget on Amazon: "Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products." Grisak then responded by bricking Martin's product remotely, posting on the support forum: "Martin, The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums. At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection."
When someone posted details about upcoming firmware online.
Did the guy agree that his device can be disabled at any time and the server side service is not a given?
Yeah, Strisand, blah, blah, blah... But seriously, right after "People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive"? Wonder why? Crap implementations by people that counldn't care less about security (but obviously should know better), and than douche bages like this who don't know about customer service because they've never been out of their mom's basement? Nope, I'll wait a few years...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
. . . . . . reminding us that those buying IoT devices don't own anything useful, and that your f**cking GARAGE DOOR OPENER could be dependent not only on Internet connectivity but the continued willingness of a service provider (Garage Door Operation As a Service--GDOAAS?) to provide service, at whatever cost they deem fit. I'll leave my light bulbs, refrigerator, door locks, garage door opener, and thermostat off the Internet, thank you very much.
IOT is great but I'll keep out until companies understand I do not want a device that connects to thier server only and probablyu at a subscription.
But it's getting easier and easier to do your own these days with lots of great kits around, so I'm sure I'll be fine.
Anyone stupid enough to trust some small startup (or indeed megacorp) will get what they deserve.
+----------------- | What is the question!
Sometimes the customer is wrong
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Other than a method to allow a hacker unauthorized access to your home, why on god's green earth would you need a wifi powered garage door opener *for your phone*, when the tried and true RF based ones have been around for decades?
i'm 34; am i too old to understand why people would want clownshit crazy things like this?
Then it's okay.
#DeleteChrome
This sounds like a guy got one of his friends to pretend to hate the product, so he could stir up a media frenzy.
tl;dr: This is just free advertising.
Damn I wish that was me, I'd be getting a 5 mil payday.
This is why I don't buy ANYTHING that requires some connection to some service provider to control the device. If I cannot control it locally, without the manufacturer's servers up and my network connected to the internet, it doesn't come home. If the manufacturer wants to give me remote access to my stuff, I get that it is easiest to do this using a remote server, but if I cannot get to it locally, it doesn't get installed in my home.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"... only demonstrates your poor impulse control ..."
On both sides, yes.
A recent Nessus scan at my job found garage door openers on the general network. O_o
This is new start up.So it used brash language. Once it becomes established player and hires suites, they will do exactly the same thing but they will say it PR bullshitese.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It seriously wouldn't be hard to allow the developer to open any garage door using his software.
I'd be extremely suspicious of the companies intentions.
That was just about as stupid a move as a person can make in business. It's likely to have killed any hope they had of success. Denis Grisak might or might not be decent at technical matters, but he should never have any interaction with customers, and probable should not be included in business decisions.
So.... Your IOT devices that we paid for will only continue to work as long as we say things that you like? Hmmm, let me think... No thanks.
Mod me up. I'd be happy to respond to any issues about my comment on Saturday night. If you didn't give me any mod points right now your only option is to logout of slashdot permanently and ask them for your money back.
The obvious problem here, of course, is that a garage door opener is controlled (and DoSed) by someone else's server. That is totally and inexcusibly insane, and not just a little bit.
The original customer may have overreacted, but the fact that the vendor had the capacity to DoS the customer proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that it definitely is a horrible and unreliable product. You would be making a huge mistake, buying this bad product from the incompetent designer Denis Grisak.
People, computers are cheap. Cheap as fuck. You don't need to be using someone else's server. The server should be under your exclusive control, serving the interest of no other parties above your own interests. There is no excuse for anything else. The era of "the cloud" has been over for many years now.
...is always stupid and I can prove it = bad PR
...is always right even when they're not = good business
Cloud capabilities should be an add-on not required. I should be able to directly connect via IP(or DDNS) to my device from my phone or computer and control it.
So this guy admitted to destroying another person's property? What a dumbass.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Internet of Tantrums.
Now to add this garage door opener company to my list of "Never to do business with ever"...
I'm not clear on why the unit is being denied access to the server, but the customer was afforded the opportunity to return his purchase to Amazon for a refund. If the iPhone app is really that bad, I imagine that this company will have many unsatisfied customers and not be around very long.
...and raise you a poorly thought out reactive measure that will make people avoid the product as the plague that it truly is.
ONLY apps can app apps, NOT LUDDITE software!
Apps!
This kind of retaliation is no different from a cellphone service provider jamming your RF signal. The FCC (if we still had one) should step in and either fine the manufacturer for retaliatory misbehavior, or punitively shut down their internet access for a nominal period (at least a week) for abusing the privilege of being online.
Doing this periodically would send a really constructive message to many others who routinely abuse others on the net, be they bad businesses or just trolls. Access to the net is a privilege, not a right.
Okay. Buyer has poor impulse control. This is true. Don't many?
Message to company: "The Customer is always right" .. you need to work with them and have a mechanism so they can back their stupidity out. Turn it into a positive and then once they're happy remove the post or re-comment to say it's fixed.
Otherwise... someone will give the company massive negative exposure on a site such as /.
Not cool guys.
There was another one like this recently... a ham radio software maker. The software "Ham Radio Deluxe" was rendered useless through an authentication server if the customer left a bad review. Since ham radio call signs were used as the product key, they simply banned a call sign in their server.
No matter who dies it- it's very bad karma.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Everyone's pushing to gain control over your things left and right. John Deere would *love* to be able to brick your tractor if you dare try repair it yourself. Manufacturers dream of integrating it deeply enough that they can force subscription services for basic appliances. All of them despise privacy, and none of them ever cared one iota about security for customers.
Three-letter-agencies have their panties flooded at the thought of committing murder and incrimination through these things, whether dissidents, the families of political rivals, or even random innocents (once they're dead they're all 'were terrorists'), and themselves push for awkward developments to finally allow the kills we see in bad 80s hacking movies.
It isn't just a matter of not-buying anymore: Basic necessities are having these things forcefully and recklessly integrated into them with no oversight and often no reason, while the most malicious - and one should always assume the worst abuses of feature or law alike will be exactly what it gets used for - are actively demanding these things be designed in such ways as to finally get a sword hanging over people's heads. No, this needs to be actively, and decisively fought against - not just with harsh letters but by willful and collective destruction of those preparing these nooses "for our convenience".
People Think Smart Home Tech is Too Expensive
If you buy something that requires the manufacturer's equipment to operate, it means, of course, that they can effectively brick your purchase any time they want, for any reason they choose.
No price is low enough to buy something you do not actually own .
I absolutely must have a garage door opening that'll become useless when the local internet goes down, cloud servers go down, or company goes belly-up in a few months. I must have two of them.
I deal directly with homeowners on stuff like this all the time, They complain when they have to do work like that or remember stuff like that. its pretty funny because the only other option is stuff like this. but you cant tell them that, as most of them have no idea how the internet or computers work. they just know that they do.
I haven't figured out what law yet, but I get the feeling that blocking all functionality of a customer's electronic device out of spite, and specifically a device for access control to a dwelling, might not have been a legal act. There might be penalties under civil or criminal law.
I'd cut more slack for an Open Source developer who simply refused to help the user because of abusive language, since that developer isn't being paid and the user didn't pay anyone for the software or service. But to lock out a paid customer...
Bruce Perens.
I mean it's just a $12 Particle Photon P1 and a relay running some simple code talking to an AWS instance or similar, probably just running IFTTT (If This Then That). It's roughly the equivalent of Arduino Due or Teensy 3.5 with onboard Wifi, or a faster ESP8266.
You could probably just reprogram the thing with the Particle IDE over the USB interface, although I'd still feel robbed paying $100 for something I could replicate in $20 worth of hardware, IFTTT Garageio (https://ifttt.com/garageio) and the Arduino IDE in a few days, or a little longer if I didn't want to lean on something in "the cloud" like IFTTT.
Screw up a firmware update resulting in a device that can not be recovered (short of using jtag or something similar), that is a bricked device.
Removing access to a critical part of a service for a product you own, just results in a useless product, but it is not bricked.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Yeah, I'm old enough I don't get it either. The only reason I can imagine my garage door being attached as an IoT, is to tell me I left it open, and to close it. Or it was opened by RF and I wasn't expecting it to. The IoT doesn't need to open my garage. Too much of a physical security risk. (RF can be the same way, but we've given up on that for a long, long time.)
I can see very limited reasons to be able to open my garage door, or front door, or side door, or whatever, remotely, over the internet. If it's an emergency, I guess I'll either have had to leave a key with someone I trust, or just tell them to bust in my window/door/etc to get in.
We tell our children: Don't share things on social media you think could come back on you later. It NEVER goes away.
If you put your doors on the IoT, it's like passing out your keys to everyone out there...and it NEVER goes away, unless you uninstall the product.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
far too easy to spend money and have it be useless
Death penalty for Denis Grisak. Shut down shitty companies and euthanize the CEO.
Get a Raspi and a motor driver hat.
Leave a bad post, and we short the device and burn your house down...try leaving a 4 star review...not leaving a review will also be considered a bad review. Thank you for your purchase.
At least in spirit. Because this probably isn't the first time it's happened.
The hardest thing in work to do is put down the phone and let customers lie until the office is open. It might take two days. It takes a certain level of entitlement to expect an immediate response, RIGHT NOW when these operations might not have been able to do it. Being the person trying to answer now nearly led to burnout in work for me.
Because, you know, people do deserve to have lives. They might have sold you something, but giving them a hundred quid doesn't mean you own them.
And I've taken those calls. From people who're really pissed that slavery was outlawed so they just sort of treat anyone that's had the gall to charge them for a service as their own personal rental slave.
There've been plenty of times, and plenty of people, to whom I would love to have done something similar.
An yes. I'm sure I'll get modded troll for this. I don't care. I specifically recovered my account to say it. This sort of absolute customer entitlement in the modern era really pisses me off. Business is much easier for everyone when there's a level of mutual respect.
So there I was, scribbling down some notes off the PC screen by hand, when I reached for the keyboard and Ctrl-S'd.
Back in the day, while working at the call center for an international company, we had one specific customer who logged some ridiculous number of hours on the support line for a machine he bought at Sears. At some point this company had enough and put out a support-center-wide memo instructing the technicians that the next time the guy called, we were to instruct him to take the machine back to Sears and get a refund. At some point you just have to cut your losses and move on, though the big-ass company displayed a lot more patience than this little company did.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Buy a product that allows them to lock me out of my own house..... NOT!!
Sounds like Denis Grisak is an asshole. I repeat, it sounds like Denis Grisak is an asshole.
I'd laugh if he tried to sue me for daring to say so. Any jury would take one look at this case and throw his skanky, vindictive ass right out of court.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Hold on....I need an internet connection to this asshole's server just to open mygarage door?
Who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
This incident will destroy sales of this product and likely ruin the company.
The article even included the obvious clues when it mentioned "quality assurance" and "Indiegogo", but not a single comment so far looked in that direction. Tiny bit of goodness in that some of the funny-moderated comments actually were, but it was another low-hanging target for jokes.
So why was the "quality assurance" bad? Why insufficient testing? Because the funding model of Indiegogo is bad and doesn't require it. From the Indiegogo perspective, this looks like a "success" because it got more money than it needed, but the resulting product is not good, which is bad but not any of Indiegogo's concern. There were a couple of EULA-related comments here, but they focused on the developer who got the money, not the Indiegogo funding model that gave him the money without checking for such things.
Solutions might be available. I've even written about my own favorite, a charity share brokerage focused on PROJECT MANAGEMENT so that this sort of thing won't happen. That proposal is even designed so that the brokerage can't claim success unless there's some evidence the results met their success criteria. No evidence of understanding or interest on Slashdot, so (1) Feel free to rummage among my old comments (though on Slashdot most of the discussions have been dragged down to the level of the trolls), (2) Feel free to offer your better idea (though I obviously think you're wasting your time on today's Slashdot), or (3) Ask real nicely and maybe I'll waste the keystrokes again.
The modal commenter on today's Slashdot could not catch a clue after being stripped naked, being dipped in clue musk, and being dumped in a field of clues at the peak of clue mating season.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Come back one year!
I'm all for blocking people that I think are trolls. I'm all for blocking people who believe that you have to immediately jump on a fix (We are all human here. Give it a chance OK? Allow a reasonable time for a response.). Blocking everyone that gives you a bad review is bad business (not the vendor in the story, but other vendors do).
Guy A doesn't like Guy B's product. Guy A gets vocal and doesn't give Guy B any time to fix it. Guy B pulls the plug on Guy A's device and offers his money back. Unless there's a problem in the EULA, I don't see a problem here.
Customer said it does not work. Customer is angry. Customer told to return device. Customer is angry so customer shouldn't use device in the future anyway. Obviously lots of other happy customers using device.
I don't see the problem. Why would I want to sell devices to unhappy customers?
Company Rep chides poor impulse control, then exhibits it.
Oh me, oh my.
This, I was thinking this too. If you post on amazon review a tech support question and expect ANY response from tech support you are a complete idiot. Sure some companies monitor it closely, but it wouldn't even be the 3rd place for me to go intuitively if I needed support.
second, how many of us have needed support during "off-hours" and just had to wait until the business was open again. Maybe some big big companies have 24hr tech support, but we are talking about a small company, with a product that opens/closes garage doors, what in the world would make you even think that this company is going to have 24hr tech support over the weekend.
We've all had to wait until business hours the following Monday when something doesn't work, it sounds like the person posting was an entitled jack-ass. I get that they might have been frustrated, but that is just the way it is. At least in this case it was something as insignificant as a garage door auxilliary control. The old method still worked fine for the time being, so you've lost nothing but a day or two of not getting it to work. Try and see what happens when your internet connection goes down on a Sat. Unless you are a business customer, you will be waiting until Monday morning as well, except that IS a bigger pain with no internet/VoIP/TV. It is what it is though.
That being said, the old adage that "2 wrongs don't make a right" can also apply to the manufacturer as well.
IoT means you're in somebody else's control for the most basic functions of the device. Simply put, stay away. Attaching your garage door to the internet? WHY? You want to unlock your garage door halfway across the planet? WHY? Attaching your fridge to the internet to show everyone on pintrest that new mold spore you discovered that makes MRSA look TAME? WHY?!?
Better ways of doing stuff like that than trusting some hardware built by the Nigerian Prince you met on Indigogo.
First, people are misusing the term "bricking" in this context but I understand why. One COULD say they EFFECTIVELY bricked the device because the idiot (pardon my French) blocked the IoT Mac Address/ID of the device but technically the device wasn't actually bricked. It was effectively bricked by in fact being blocked from the required server for to have a chance of working (not that it was from the report).
Now that constitutes removing the primary function advertised/sold to the customer which legally he doesn't have the right to do unless: 1. The customer has been fully refunded + any damage caused in using his product. 2. The customer is committing acts that harm the functionality of the devices for others. 3. The customer has been proven a public threat through use of the services (basically a superset of 2). This business is probably sunk and will harm (and this is perhaps a good thing) the IoT business sector in general because people are finally becoming aware what installing IoT (I like to pronounce "idiot") devices for security in their homes; The provider of the 3rd party server could lock them out, let others in, all sorts of stuff. But I digress.
The customer can sue the manufacturer/service provider because he withdrew the core component before refunding him. That is a classic breach of contract. This business is probably finished because the owner has not only shown poor judgement, lack of legal knowledge and a serious emotional impulse control problem, but in addition to all this, a lawsuit could well bankrupt him. And the evidence is on the Internet for all to see. (and he even admitted it on the Internet...)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Agree. I'd up it a notch: Force vendors calling those things what they are - a botnet.
Your device is not under your control, but under somebody's elses. Somebody else re-interprets your instruction and hopefuly does the right thing with the device (either that, or your IoT operated microwave explodes).
I have a theory why people are ok with voluntary botnets - it is so much common in human society when you think about. Firefighters are a botnet. Portfolio management is a botnet, pretty much all of service industry is a botnet in computer terms. You're not in control, you delegate and hope for the best. As for why home appliances-as-a-service - I suppose there's this perverse satisfaction of having a tardy, 3rd party "house maid slave" just for yourself, even if you are perfectly able to open the fridge on your own (and more reliably).
It's just that us, old geeks, are not used to seeing this brought into computing - we used to be the ones fully in control. We're dinosaurs.
Stop trying to defend the whiners.
... for reminding everyone not to buy things that require cloud access to be useful.
It's about time we get some legislations which protect customers from companies stopping services or going out of business and thereby "bricking" a product you bought.
They'd have to deposit sourcecode, patches, server installs etc. in some trust which then has to release these things to customers.
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
A simple click on the very firt link (to the Garadget site on Indiegogo) teaches me that this is NOT a garage door opener.
It is a sensor detecting whether your garage door is open. It also seems to be capable of opening/closing the garage door "by simulating taps on the wall button".
So no, the fact that this person's account was closed off does NOT mean he couldn't open his garage door anymore.
This is the reason my new hobby is dabbling in electronics, at the moment it's messing with Pi's and Arduino's but I am gearing up to move onto PIC's.
I want a smart home, but I don't want any of the expensive proprietary IoT crap that is out there at the moment. Fly by nighters, incompatible protocols, slow to fix security issues, needs internet access to work etc. etc. All my IoT devices are going to be on the LOCAL network only, I might have a outward facing port on a server for monitoring stuffs when I am away, but the devices themselves will not be outward facing.
There are three kinds of falsehood: the first is a 'fib,' the second is a downright lie, and the third is statistics.
DBADAMYLA - Don't be a douche and move your lazy ass
I smell a lawsuit...That dude is gonna loose his business.
The CEO needs to get a pair of big-boy pants since he's obviously a child, from his incredibly childish response.... Well, he's going to find out from the market just what happens to people that don't put the customer first...
I tried to do that once. I didn't think they actually allowed it.
If that's it, then it has backfired horribly. Even 20 years from now, if Denis Grisak googles his name, all he's going to see is that he's dishonest businessman, an incompetent product designer, and he'd fight to the death to oppose someone else fighting to the death to protect his right to say things.
For the rest of his life, employers will know that it would be a terrible mistake to hire him, customers will know that they will be defrauded if they buy his products, and free speech advocates will know he is an enemy of society.
He is covered in mud. Stuff like this is why Diebold has to rename itself. Not all PR is good PR.
Pretty much the only option he has left, is to run for president.
Many manufacturer's devices---including garage door openers---use WiFi in the customer's house from the garage. Not just this thin-skinned, vindictive manufacturer.
I'll just leave this here.
"Ok, calm down everybody. Save your pitchforks and torches for your elected representatives. This only lacks the death threats now.
The firing of the customer was never about the Amazon review, just wanted to distance from the toxic individual ASAP. Admittedly not a slickest PR move on my part. Access restored, note taken."
http://community.garadget.com/t/iphone-app-will-not-stay-open-just-flashes-when-trying-to-launch/1706/10
We don't need you or your negative attitude as a customer.
The company didn't remotely brick the device. They just blacklisted it from connecting to the services that enable it. Also, he can return it for a full refund.
It was perhaps not the best response the company could have chosen, but this R. Martin guy sounds like an entitled, self-absorbed asshole who deserved what he got.
Somebody get this port fellow an arduino and some motor drivers.
Yes, and the smart versions are much more functional.
I have an Insteon Hub for controlling things like light switches, outlets and lamps. Door sensors so I know when they open/close and motion sensors so lights turn on when I enter a room and automatically turn off after a period where movement isn't detected.
Being able to adjust the lights in your house or turn on an exhaust fan using your phone, computer, or a small remote control is really convenient. You won't want to go back to having to walk across the room, or to a different floor, just to flip a dumb switch.
Dude might get bought out right away just because someone sees marketable product that was not visible before the news.