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Logitech To Shut Down 'Service and Support' For Harmony Link Devices In 2018 (arstechnica.com)
Logitech recently informed customers that it will be discontinuing service for its popular Harmony Link remote system, which allows users to control home theater and sound equipment from a mobile app. "Customers received an email explaining that Logitech will 'discontinue service and support' for the Harmony Link as of March 16, 2018, adding that Harmony Link devices 'will no longer function after this date,'" reports Ars Technica. From the report: While Logitech is offering a one-time, 35-percent discount on its Harmony Hub to affected customers that are out of warranty, that's not enough for Harmony Link users who are expressing their dissatisfaction on Logitech support forums and Reddit. Users have not experienced major problems with the Harmony Link system that would indicate they are approaching end of life. Harmony Link customers do not pay a subscription or service fee to use the device, either. The only reason provided comes from a Logitech employee with the username Logi_WillWong, who explains in a response post from September 8, 2017 that Logitech will not be renewing a "technology certificate license" that expires in March. No details were provided about how this certificate license allows the Harmony Link to function, but it appears that without it, those devices will not work as promised. "The certificate will not be renewed as we are focusing resources on our current app-based remote, the Harmony Hub," Logi_WillWong added, which seems to indicate that the shutting down of the Harmony Link system is a way to get more customers on the newer Harmony Hub system.
Better get used to it. It's the future!
They are also apparently filtering "class action lawsuit" on their message boards to "**************" and being generally scummy.
Don't buy "cloud" products, people.
Want to use your dishwasher because it still runs fine after 10 years? Well, that 'Smart Device' might not work any more because the manufacturer wants you to buy their newest model instead or wants you to sign up for some paid subscription service that you don't want or need. They just won't send some 'certificate' that allows the dishwasher to keep working past its 'due date'. Same for your fridge, your TV, your security camera, your stove, your sprinkling system, your ....
We only have ourselves to blame.
Microsoft, Logitech and may other manufacturers KEEP proving that they can and will artificially shorten the life of even expensive products only a few years in, yet people just keep mindlessly buying products containing (often otherwise unnecessarily) nanny-net technology. Our buying patterns are just encouraging said manufacturers to keep getting worse with the blatant abuse on every product iteration.
We still need to learn as a society to look for, and prefer buying functionally equivalent devices that do not have any unnecessary internet connectivity, because its already freaking obvious that manufacturers already feel free to use that as an attack vector to totally abuse us.
Guess again.
The odds of new customers heading this warning never to use Logitech products ever again is minuscule, meanwhile, it's likely at least a small percentage of the affected users will act against their own self interest and buy the new system despite knowing better from this experience.
End result for Logitech is likely positive, despite the fact that in a sane society it would sound their death knell.
I don't think the public yet accepts that DRM on music is bad. Really people have simply switched away from owning music entirely. It's all streaming services now, and all of those are cloud based with no way to keep your music once you stop paying monthly. If you're using that as an example of a "win" for consumers, I think you're looking at the wrong industry.
It will be when the first big game console service shuts down prematurely that people really wake up to it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC