Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

Car Won't Crank said:
Just get something prosumer like Mikrotik. Got fed up with that kind of bullshit you see in Netgear, Linksys, Asus, etc routers for normies
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This. As an added bonus, prosumer routers tend to have more features and seem more robust than normie routers. At least that's been my experience with DrayTek.
 
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Pee Cola said:
This. As an added bonus, prosumer routers tend to have more features and seem more robust than normie routers. At least that's been my experience with DrayTek.
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How are node systems in prosumer tech? Stuff like those google circles and velop.
 
Toolbox said:
How are node systems in prosumer tech? Stuff like those google circles and velop.
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idk. Although judging by the 30 seconds or so of Googling I just did, Velop looks like expensive consumer gear. Last time I checked, Ubiquiti's gear was a solid choice for prosumer mesh use cases; however I'm just about at the edge of my (limited) wireless networking knowledge here.
 
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Pee Cola said:
idk. Although judging by the 30 seconds or so of Googling I just did, Velop looks like expensive consumer gear. Last time I checked, Ubiquiti's gear was a solid choice for prosumer mesh use cases; however I'm just about at the edge of my (limited) wireless networking knowledge here.
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Velop, in my experience, has been fairly reliable, but requires a shitty sign up and app to use. With what you know about ubi do they require anything like that?
 
Toolbox said:
Velop, in my experience, has been fairly reliable, but requires a shitty sign up and app to use. With what you know about ubi do they require anything like that?
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Nope, I've never needed to sign up and use an app to use Ubiquiti stuff. That said, I've only really used their switches/routers and wifi AP gear. It'll be a sad day if (probably when) a network hardware vendor insists on making it compulsory to use an app to control a switch.
 
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Stasi said:
My work have been handing out new wireless headsets to use with teams/Skype. I like to have youtube in the background and take breaks to lie down on the couch and check the news or shitpost on my phone.

I guess the headset has some kind of sensor in it if you tilt your head back it pauses whatever media is playing and I have to turn it on again so it turns off youtube every time I lie down on the couch. I can't figure out the purpose of this other than to annoy me. Why would a headset need such a function. Over engineering relatively simple tech for no reason is a very annoying trend.
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Do you work in software development? Because that sounds like something HR would implement to try improve 'performance metrics'.
 
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Un Platano said:
I absolutely hate how every internet router these days wants you to download their app, register an account with them, and connect it to the internet to use it.
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I miss the black box style router where you just plugged it in and it worked. No need to make a whole deal of it. Just, like, you know, route Internet traffic and shut the fuck up and go behind my desk and I never have to look at you again.
 
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AnOminous said:
I miss the black box style router where you just plugged it in and it worked. No need to make a whole deal of it. Just, like, you know, route Internet traffic and shut the fuck up and go behind my desk and I never have to look at you again.
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It's one of the most blatant forms of feature creep. Literally just needs to do my DHCP, DNS lookups and throughput. My Netgear D-Link required a phone app and didn't even provide me with the tools I needed (didn't even list my ISP). I needed to setup a NAS and a custom DNS lookup IP and was just so frustrating having to pull teeth, revert the software to an old one and then do it that way.
 
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Flabba_Wabba_Jabba_Noonga said:
Do you work in software development? Because that sounds like something HR would implement to try improve 'performance metrics'.
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Nah and its nothing sinister like that. Its supposed to be a "feature" where if you put it down it will go on pause but the sensor is shit so turns off if you tilt your head too far.
 
Stasi said:
Nah and its nothing sinister like that. Its supposed to be a "feature" where if you put it down it will go on pause but the sensor is shit so turns off if you tilt your head too far.
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Yeah ok, wow what is a button or a charging cable? Nah I've just had some bad experiences with them in the past is all, so I'm always quick to blame HR.
 
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AnOminous said:
I miss the black box style router where you just plugged it in and it worked. No need to make a whole deal of it. Just, like, you know, route Internet traffic and shut the fuck up and go behind my desk and I never have to look at you again.
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They've made them into black boxes even more, actually. I've checked with several manufacturers and most of the consumer grade routers are like this now: you can only access the router through a smartphone app through some cloud bullshit. You cannot access the router with a computer, there's no way to get into it. That's why it also requires an internet connection. You cannot set them up as an offline LAN because then the app won't connect through it because you can't access their cloud servers. It's a total regression of functionality because where you used to be able to access the router through any device connected to the router with a web browser, now you can only do it through a smartphone, and only through whatever remote bullshit they let you access it through. As soon as those servers go offline, your router is bricked.

A different company that tried to do this recently was Sonos. They make speakers that communicate over wifi instead of traditional stereo cables and similarly are only functional through an app. In the most brazen act I've yet seen from smart device manufacturers, one day they announced that they were releasing new speakers, and that service to old Sonos speakers would end in 5 months. Old devices would cease to function and could be put into 'recycling mode' (meaning, erase the firmware and brick all of your devices) and be traded in for a rebate on new speakers. They really thought they could get away with this. As it turns out it doesn't work to say "let's try to screw over literally every single customer we have simultaneously" and then they announced that old devices would continue to work, because shutting down old speakers was actually not necessary after all.

Sonos is a cautionary tale about any smart device you have whose functionality is tied to a server somewhere else. This will only happen more and more in the future. It didn't work for Sonos because they weren't big enough, but eventually, someone will get away with it. Routers are an especially obnoxious one because no one was asking for them to be 'smart' devices in the first place.
 
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Un Platano said:
They've made them into black boxes even more, actually. I've checked with several manufacturers and most of the consumer grade routers are like this now: you can only access the router through a smartphone app through some cloud bullshit. You cannot access the router with a computer, there's no way to get into it. That's why it also requires an internet connection. You cannot set them up as an offline LAN because then the app won't connect through it because you can't access their cloud servers. It's a total regression of functionality because where you used to be able to access the router through any device connected to the router with a web browser, now you can only do it through a smartphone, and only through whatever remote bullshit they let you access it through. As soon as those servers go offline, your router is bricked.

A different company that tried to do this recently was Sonos. They make speakers that communicate over wifi instead of traditional stereo cables and similarly are only functional through an app. In the most brazen act I've yet seen from smart device manufacturers, one day they announced that they were releasing new speakers, and that service to old Sonos speakers would end in 5 months. Old devices would cease to function and could be put into 'recycling mode' (meaning, erase the firmware and brick all of your devices) and be traded in for a rebate on new speakers. They really thought they could get away with this. As it turns out it doesn't work to say "let's try to screw over literally every single customer we have simultaneously" and then they announced that old devices would continue to work, because shutting down old speakers was actually not necessary after all.

Sonos is a cautionary tale about any smart device you have whose functionality is tied to a server somewhere else. This will only happen more and more in the future. It didn't work for Sonos because they weren't big enough, but eventually, someone will get away with it. Routers are an especially obnoxious one because no one was asking for them to be 'smart' devices in the first place.
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It's actually a huge issue that I think will present itself in the future. Tech has simplified itself so much (mainly due part to companies making it more usable by the general public) that a lot of people do not understand the inner workings of their computers, or the fundamental operations of computing. Heaps of people understand what technology is, what computers are, but I've seen time and time again relatives, friends, and others suffer the issue of not understanding even what the fuck is going on behind the screen.

I'm mainly focusing on the idea of dumbing down everything to a smartphone app, instead of actually understanding what you're doing with the technology and how it operates. Just interesting that as tech gets more and more complex, a lot of people's understanding is becoming worse and worse. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's just my personal take.
 
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serious n00b said:
People have worse sound systems than they did 20+ years ago.
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Blame the mp3 format for people getting used to retardedly awful sound quality.
Un Platano said:
As soon as those servers go offline, your router is bricked.
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At least my modem/router has a web-type interface. They wanted to rent me some shitty absolute garbage but if you rent a cable modem you are an idiot.
 
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Flabba_Wabba_Jabba_Noonga said:
Heaps of people understand what technology is, what computers are, but I've seen time and time again relatives, friends, and others suffer the issue of not understanding even what the fuck is going on behind the screen.
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This is extremely true, and there's a general movement towards answering, "how does your app / device / whatever work" with "you don't need to know."

This is combined with the whole deliberately making things an arsepain to repair to lock in people to planned obsolescence, of course. But it also has the side effect of normies increasingly thinking technology is magic. I would not be surprised if in 30 years' time there was a full on cargo cult about it, with Apple Geniuses as a sort of priesthood and technical manuals being withheld from the public for their own good like how the Catholic Church wouldn't translate the Bible into the vernacular.
 
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