Logitech To Shut Down 'Service and Support' For Harmony Link Devices In 2018 (arstechnica.com) 131
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.
This is cloud appliancing (Score:5, Insightful)
Better get used to it. It's the future!
Cloudy thinking (Score:3)
I agree, it's cloudy thinking by Logitech managers. Saves Logitech how much money? Then subtract the damage to Logitech's reputation. The loss, I'm guessing, is in the tens of millions.
Re:Cloudy thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Cloudy thinking (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Perhaps. But the drip drip does get through eventually. DRM on music was railed against for years before it became publicly accepted that it was a bad thing. We haven't had any big cloud failures yet but the message is getting through. Just wait until Valve or Amazon or Google make a big error. And then wait a bit longer... public understanding of tech is slow to change, but it does change.
That and legislation, because the market doesn't fix everything when companies are colluding, even if people care.
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Amazon, Google, and CloudFlare have all had massive, critical, damaging outages repeatedly, yet nobody cares.
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Actually, Google is by the the most reliable service I have every used. I think there was a 10 minute outage that I noticed, in more than a decade.
But this is not about accidents, this is about intentional sabotage of user devices. I do like Logitech for their hardware, but the software is always lacking, and this is just another example.
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Google also has the worst track record for long term support of any product. Using anything from Google is just begging to be hit with the plans obsolescence problem.
Re:Cloudy thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Not entirely, streaming is ALSO the new CD. free streaming has killed the radio, but paid streaming with it's ability to request any song at any time has killed music ownership almost entirely.
Re:Cloudy thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be when the first big game console service shuts down prematurely that people really wake up to it.
Slow degradation of Logitech business? (Score:2)
It seems to me it was very self-destructive for Logitech to do something that caused there to be a story on Slashdot about bad management at Logitech.
I think most Slashdot readers don't realize how many people read Slashdot. Each one of those readers has family and friends who sometimes ask for advice.
Some Slashdot readers buy products for sale at stores or online.
Re:Cloudy thinking (Score:4, Funny)
Remember when Creative Labs not only pulled the same kind of crap with their drivers (back in 2008)?
Forcing people to upgrade their discrete sound cards by killing the drivers worked really well for them!
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> when they re-engineered the MX518 to fail
Link please?
I have two MX518, two G500, and two G500s because I want backup mice when they fail -- which they haven't (yet). *knock on wood.*
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I don't know if this is the same thing, but the microswitches on the Logitech Performance Mouse MX and the Marathon Mouse buttons fail prematurely. After 2 years (or less), clicks begin to register as double-clicks before it gets worse and you lose the click sensation entirely.
Concordance (Score:3)
Quick search shows someone made a FOSS app to handle them: https://github.com/jaymzh/conc... [github.com]
Concordance is nice but not the answer (Score:4, Informative)
You didn't read the thing you linked to. To wit:
Logitech stops website, users of concordance are just as bereft as everyone else.
In fact, you can't really start using concordance before you signed up through the windows-only logitech "app" because you can't do that directly through the website, or at least I couldn't, last time I tried. It just bitched about my browser.
Re:Concordance is nice but not the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly this.
I have a Logitech Harmony remote. It's a great remote, but the setup experience is absolutely abysmal. The software is Windows only, and dependant on a cloud service that may, or may not, exist tomorrow. Additionally about 80-90% of devices in the library seem to be incorrect in one small way or other (e.g. remote thinks a TV has more inputs than it actually does, resulting in the remote always cycling to the wrong one when changing inputs) which requires a large amount of manual workarounds to setup most systems. If that weren't bad enough, the workflow in their app makes these minor changes as painful as possible to accomplish because it's setup only to work with their specific envisioned perfect world workflow where you simply tell it what devices you have and it guesses at how you have them hooked together and what you might use each one for.
Knowing that the biggest issue was the software, not the hardware, I looked for alternative software, I figured that would also help if/when Logitech decided to discontinue my remote (which actually happened to a friend of mine with a slightly different model). Concordance looked like a godsend, it worked in Linux, and it wasn't affiliated with Logitech. Then I discovered that it mirrors the same workflow, and uses the same web service, and really just provides a way to get the data files from the website to the remote. This is extremely unfortunate as I has hoped to find an actual software independent of Logitech that could keep this thing going.
For now I'm still using the Harmony because it still works, and beats my old method of having 6 different remotes (4 of which were needed just for the simple task of watching TV). But if it stops working at some point (which seems likely, especially if I change any of my hardware and need to reprogram it) I highly doubt I'll be looking to Logitech for the next solution. Unfortunately, there isn't nearly as much competition in this particular space as one might think. (It should also be noted that it's getting harder to do this the same way too, as more devices are moving their remotes to bluetooth instead of IR, something that's much harder to make a universal remote for)
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Not sure if it is quite there yet for home entertainment, but check out Universal-Devices.com and their Polygot. You end up needing an ISY994 and a Raspberry Pi, along with a IR Blaster... but it can be a much more flexible solution.
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Flexible it may be, but if you read my complaints about the Harmony software being difficult to use, this is not exactly the solution, it makes the harmony system look... harmonious.
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Not sure if it is quite there yet for home entertainment, but check out Universal-Devices.com and their Polygot. You end up needing an ISY994 and a Raspberry Pi, along with a IR Blaster... but it can be a much more flexible solution.
A nice thing about the Harmony Hub is that it uses IR blasters, Bluetooth and Wifi to control devices depending on what the device expects. My Wii-U is on bluetooth, Nvidia shield tv on Bluetooth, TV on IR, soundbar on IR, Roku on Wifi etc. The system is very very flexible. So far, Logitechs support on the harmony hub has been pretty good. Time will tell...
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I have one, and it it works just fine with OS X, as long as you don't mind downloading Silver(b)light to run their downloader app. Yes, that's right, Silverlight. Adobe Flash wasn't crappy enough, so Microsoft had to do it worse.
The remote itself is pretty junk, though. First of all, the side buttons stopped working without a lot of smooshing them around. The display comes on at the slightest shake, running the batteries down faster. I particularly hate the "one activity time" model. You will either watch
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If it stops working why don't you return it?
What are your local consumer rights laws like? Around here if something doesn't last a "reasonable length of time", which for a smart remote I'd take to be 10 years, you can return it to the shop for repair, replacement or refund.
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Around here consumer right laws aren't bad, but meaningless as there is no enforcement of any kind so all companies simply ignore them.
How many thousands of dollars is it worth spending on lawyers to return a remote control?
Bluetooth support (Score:2)
The Harmony Hub system supports IR/Bluetooth/RF and IP as ways to control your devices. Yes you run the risk of Logitech dropping support for the Hub but that can be true of any device. At least the Hub has a physical remote that works without a connection to a central server.
Examples of devices controlled by my Hub:
Roku -- RF
PS4 -- Bluetooth
Dish Hopper3 -- RF and IP
Sony TV --
Re: Concordance is nice but not the answer (Score:2)
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Talk to professional home theatre installer, they spend hours on customizing shit. The harmony is a fraction of that.
I installed harmony remotes professionally for several months before our company wised up and stopped doing so. It was eating up WAY too much of our time in a customer's home. So if by "fraction" you mean "50% or more", then sure, you're absolutely correct.
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Well shit. Yeah. I was going for cheap karma with a google search seeing the post.
Same as the old Squeezebox product line (Score:5, Informative)
Logitech has a history of this behavior. It did the same thing to its old Squeezebox product line, dropping hardware support and moving one of its remaining products (the Radio) to new software they thought would sell better (UE Smart Radio). It didn't. Fortunately, the original software was not as entangled with the Logitech-hosted service as the Harmony remotes, and both the server and client software are open source as well. So now there's ongoing support for the software, and other companies are making audio devices that are compatible with it. My setup continues to work just fine years after Logitech bailed. And my newest Squeezebox device is a RaspberryPi.
But I did research the software side of the Squeezebox product line before I originally purchased, expecting that there was a very good probability that the devices that I bought would possibly far outlast Logitech's stomach for supporting their devices (typically 5 years for consumer products). And it was the availability of open source software that clinched my decision to go with the product. One must really think twice when buying a consumer product with software in it, and thrice if that software depends on a cloud service or even regular updates.
Even otherwise simple standalone devices that have a settable timezone are exciting again, with the New England states beginning to consider dropping twice-a-year DST related changes. Can you update the software's timezone table when jurisdictions make these kinds of changes?
Re:Same as the old Squeezebox product line (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, I was all in on Squeezebox too and never regretted going with it instead of Sonos. A major reason I bought all the Squeezebox stuff was the open source backend to it which I knew would keep going even if Logitech disappeared. This is doubly important with a big system made up of a lot of components like a whole house music system or a home automation system. I simply refuse to buy anything in these areas which requires a vendor remain supportive in order for it to function. The investment in a system like this is a long term play and consumer electronics vendors just don't have a track record for long term support.
I will say that I keep hoping for a community rewrite of LMS because it is quite long in the tooth and has some substantial drawbacks these days over other solutions. Alternatively, I hope for some entirely new whole house music project which will still work with my existing Squeeze devices but has a mobile friendly website, better API for integrating with automation, etc. If I was starting over again I would probably look at Music Player Daemon, but I do like having a centralized web control panel which it is lacking and no one has really good open source hardware projects that connect to it to create something usable without an app at all like the Squeeze devices can be...
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Love my Squeezebox Boom. Still going strong as the best Internet Radio ever.
SubjecttIsSubject (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't buy "cloud" products, people.
Fool me twice (Score:1)
Intentionally pissing off your customers in a bid to convince them to buy more shit from you is one hell of a business strategy. Let me know how it works out for sales and (what's left of) your reputation.
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Intentionally pissing off your customers in a bid to convince them to buy more shit from you is one hell of a business strategy. Let me know how it works out for sales and (what's left of) your reputation.
Eeyup. That is why back in ye days of olde, my upgrade path went TI-99/4a --> Used Apple ][+ --> New Apple IIGS --> DOS/Win/Linux PCs and laptops.
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Eeyup. That is why back in ye days of olde, my upgrade path went TI-99/4a --> Used Apple ][+ --> New Apple IIGS --> DOS/Win/Linux PCs and laptops.
Are you comparing the 1977 - 1992 run of the Apple ][ line, to what Logitech is doing?!?
The Apple ][, ][+, //c, //e were sold from 1977 to 1993 (yes, even in parallel with the IIGS, and a full year longer, mostly due to strong educational sales), and the IIGS was sold from 1986 through 1992. That's WELL into the Macintosh-era! Heck, Apple even released an embedded //e on a CARD for some Mac models!
And I can whip my ][+ and IIGS out of the closet right now and fire them up and, assuming the floppies will sti
Re: Fool me twice (Score:2)
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Defective leaky caps ring a bell? $1000 motherboard replacement, in middle of third year after having two years of Applecare. Was also on the hook for getting to repair place, 10 hour drive away.
This was for my aunt to deal with when my cousin was away. Fuck Apple forever after that ass fucking.
Apple wasn't the only mfg. bitten by bad capacitors. It has been an on and off thing for years, and has affected a diverse and wide array of electronics. Apple did not foresee that those caps were going to die, any more than any of the other mfgs. that had the same issue. The fact that it happened 6 mos after the end of AppleCare is very unfortunate. I wonder if you tried taking this up the chain a bit. Apple has certainly bent over backwards before when it is a "defect in materials or workmanship", especia
Re:Fool me twice (Score:5, Interesting)
For most other companies that have tried this approach it's worked out great. And no, that's not sarcasm. It appears that very few future customers bother to research this sort of behaviour, it gets very little media attention overall, and unbelievably, a portion of the user base you just screwed over will actually buy your new product despite the fact that they really should know better.
Worse yet, this is becoming so widespread and common that it's actually hard to find a company that isn't willing to resort to these sorts of tactics, and consumers are actually coming to expect it, and actually don't seem to care.
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In 2009 I purchased a Seagate GoFlex TV box. I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. One of the features that the device had was a RSS feed of videos from American News stations. At the time I liked NBC news. An hour after the nightly news was broadcast, the show would show up in the RSS feed and could watch commercial free.
Well, one day without warning late 2013, early 2014 the GoFlex page for News RSS feeds went blank. I contacted Seagate customer support and informed them of the problem.
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You certainly could ask. Expect crickets, however.
Why Logitech won't respond to your request is right in TFS:
Planned enforced obsolescence doesn't work if you don't force
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My generic universal remote will let my receiver's volume controls punch through no matter what mode I'm in. I can teach it devices that aren't already in its ROM by pointing the remote at it.
Controlling multiple devices at the same time outside of that, I just push a button for which device I want to send the control to. I'd rather have fewer buttons that work on multiple devices than trying to remember which button goes to which device.
My Roku came with a bluetooth remote, but it still accepts IR. If y
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Glad I don't own one! (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately the cable company remotes can't compete with the feature set of something like a harmony. This isn't the case of a remote with 4 power buttons across the top or something, it really is a better remote in that with a single button it will turn a group of devices on, and change them all to the correct inputs for a specific activity, and when changing activities it will remember the current state of devices to change only the appropriate settings to support the new activity (e.g. if you're watching Netflix through a WD Live box and want to switch to listening to a CD, it will turn off the TV, but leave the surround sound system on, turn off the WD box, turn on the CD player, change the input on the surround sound system, and change the mode on the sound system to music instead of movie.)
Worse yet, there isn't nearly as much competition in this space as you might think, Logitech really is the massively dominant player here. I really like my Harmony remote, but I've always been worried about the cloud dependence (enough that I probably wouldn't have bought it myself, but when I got it as a gift I've enjoyed it) If/when I have to replace it though, I'm not sure exactly what I'll do. With my current setup I'd need 6 remotes without the Harmony, and 4 of those are needed just for the simple task of watching TV (and the cable company remote won't reliably control ANY of my devices other than their own cable box)
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It was just an example. Any video requires: screen, surround sound system, HDMI switch, whatever source I want to watch. Any audio requires: surround sound system, whatever audio source I want to listen to, and possibly the HDMI switch.
Having multiple devices is not at all uncommon.
Think twice before buying IoT devices (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh wow. You think a modern appliance runs for 10 years? You're in for a nasty surprise when your old reliable devices finally kick the bucket and you join the disposable modern world.
Note that still applies if you spend Miele money, not just on Chinese garbage.
Logitech screwing themselves. (Score:1)
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
Do they really think their customers are that gullible ?
How many are gonna give Logitech the middle finger over this, after all, fool me once etc etc.
And not just destroying the goodwill of existing customers, potential customers will see this and say "fuck this company" and spend their $$$ elsewhere.
Re:Logitech screwing themselves. (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you underestimate the willingness of the average consumer to let companies screw them over. It's unlikely this will actually hurt Logitech in any meaningful way, and it may even benefit them as a certain percentage of users actually buy Logitech's newest version despite the fact that they really should know better.
It doesn't hurt any that, as pointed out by other respondents, there isn't nearly as much competition in this space as you'd think.
Re: Hems screwing themselves. (Score:2)
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I was an optimist once too. Maintain the rage is nice in theory but in reality it dissipates quickly. How many people stung by the sony rootkit still avoid sony and their affiliates? Anyone still boycotting Nestle? What about all of those "never again" pronouncements that poor forth whenever MS tightens the screws just a little bit more?
Nah, people like to make grand statements but sticking to their guns is not their strong suit. Which is of course the core problem with an economic theory assuming rati
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I also wouldn't buy it if the sources aren't available.
How's life without any technology?
I agree about the idea of needing to control your own things as much as possible, but realistically you have a lot of technology that you don't have the source for. If you really are sticking to that, you aren't using any computer (you may have the source to the OS, but I doubt you have the source to what's running on the chips, or to the chips themselves which is just as important) You aren't using a car built in the past 20 years (they all have software, and I don't know
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I got a Harmony Elite remote, with the Hub. What non-cloud alternatives are there?
I currently need to control the following devices:
- NVIDIA Shield TV
- Surround receiver
- Bluray player
- Cable STB
- Wii
- TV
Of course I need to be able to do things like switch modes on the surround receiver (Dolby ProLogic to pure stereo etc), subtitles for the bluray player, tv guide for the STB etc etc. And some of the devices are inside the cabinet, so external IR blasters are a must.
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Try controlling your PS4 or Roku4 with that programmable remote and IR repeater. Ain't going to happen.
More and More entertainment devices are moving towards RF, Bluetooth and IP for control so it will just get worse.
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My Roku 3 came with a BT remote but still has an IR receiver. Did that change with newer generations? I thought they'd still keep it for compatibility.
Though the Roku has an Ethernet control port, so something like a Pi could translate those IR codes to something more useful to the Roku.
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So can you point to one which can control the Wii and isn't a pain to configure? I'm genuinely curious.
Obviously it'll need to support activities (that's the whole point) and have plenty of buttons to map to different actions (like switching "sound mode" on the receiver as mentioned).
Re: What blows my mind is people buy this cloud cr (Score:2)
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Smart phones are no replacement for a remote. Need the tactile feedback.
Bad way to keep customers (Score:1)
100% predictable. (Score:2)
These companies only make money by selling you more stuff. and the best way to do that is make the old stuff redundant
Re:100% predictable. (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst part is that they were selling off remaining inventory at fire sale prices knowing full well they were going to brick them soon, and arranged the timing of the warranty to completely screw the buyers.
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Sounds like a lawsuit for fraud, to me. Selling a product you have no intention of supporting, and in fact plan to make unusable in a very short period of time.
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New Zealand has a much simpler system, the Consumer Guarantees Act. Anyone who has bought into the system over the last 2-3 years would be entitled to their money back
No lawyers involved
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No lawyers involved
You mean except for the fact that lawyers, aka the profession from which we get the vast majority of politicians, who passed the law?
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In before you are confusing it with the Harmony Hub
No more logitech for me (Score:3)
I was seriously thinking of buying a Logitech Harmony remote to replace my old Philips remote, but now it's clear that I will not be buying any Logitech products ever in the future. So does anyone know of any good universal remotes?
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You can buy an IR blaster that goes into the audio jack on the old cell phone sitting in your junk drawer and install any of the actively maintained FOSS remote apps to be your new-forever universal remote control. If you want physical buttons to push such phones are nearly free these days.
Cost: under 10 dollars and probably supported forever.
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And yet I have yet to find one with even half the functionality of the 7 year old Harmony remote I'm using. Please tell me what apps you find that are worth using, because I'm actively looking for a Harmony replacement, and this seems like the obvious option.
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I have to admit I've only investigated it because I just don't have enough devices to justify it. I use a regular remote to turn on my tv and a wireless keyboard that is attached to my media center PC. I used this for a long time though.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod... [amazon.com]
I'd even used it to write code. It eventually broke and I went to the store and bought a cheap logitech wireless that works ok. But if you're like me this remote is probably the best I've used and I've tried about 10 different devices ove
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Thanks but I'm not interested in having to wait 2 min for my remote to boot, charge it every couple of days, and stuff around with a clunky touch screen.
Phones are great for a lot of things. This isn't one of them.
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Does that work on my Roku4?
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As I look at the manual to my old TV Remote watch from the 90s (which worked on my high school's B&W Zenith TVs) and current manuals today, the code has not changed. So, yes.
I actually bought one of these remotes. (Score:2, Troll)
You basically had to hand-program every last fucking button OTHER than power. And even then it didn't work a lot of the time.
And do to any modifications you had to plug it back into your computer...
Complete waste of money.
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And why was my original post a troll? It was my actual experience with one of these units.
They required a lot of work for initial configuration and didn't work very well even then.
Re: I actually bought one of these remotes. (Score:2)
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Yeah. Tell that to the remote.
I DID do all of the above. And the fucking thing DID NOT WORK.
And the TV at the time was a simple Visio Plasma Screen.
When will people learn? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
what a great idea (Score:2)
shut down a cloud based service, forcing all your customers who paid for the products that depend on it to buy something else.
Offer them a discount on your new cloud based service
Rinse
Repeat
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The problem is SSL. The Harmony Link (not to be confused with the Harmony Hub) has a built-in SSL certificate that expires in 2018. Presumably, Logitech tried all they could to update the certificate, but given the age of the product, it likely wasn't possible. Those who are still in warranty will get a Harmony Hub for free, while
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Why does it require an up to date internal certificate? In the typical SSL web service scenario, the web service has the certificate. A client would only need one if it was doing certificate authentication. They could change their web service to not check the expiry date of the client certificates if that was really the problem.
What's that sound? (Score:2)
AUUUUUUUUUUUUGH....[WHUMP] [wordpress.com].
Repeat after me, don't buy devices that need to phone home, EVER.
It's their own fault. . . (Score:2)
for relying on someone else's service to regulate their home's temperature. Apparently all these upset users didn't bother to think through what might happen if the service, or Logitch, went away.
"You mean they can stop offering this service? How dare they! I have my free app."
Trust (Score:3)
shutting down of the Harmony Link system is a way to get more customers on the newer Harmony Hub system
That seems a strange idea: brick your product, and expect customer to trust you again and buy a new one.
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99% of customers not reading this Slashdot article (and probably about 10% of the ones who are) won't even have the wherewithal to realize the device didn't just break due to natural causes. They'll assume their kid pressed the buttons too hard or pissed on it then just buy something else from the same brand. This will repeat for generations before awareness seeps into the greater population by osmosis.
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It only seems strange in the absence of evidence that it works. That evidence is clear from a number of companies who have made "dick moves (TM)" and yet have their customers endlessly coming back for more.
I WAS a loyal Logitech customer (Score:3)
I have never used anything but Logitech's "Marble Mouse" trackball since it first came on the market decades ago. Well, it seems the 64-bit drivers don't offer all the functionality of older ones. I tried contacting them about it, and was basically told to get lost.
It looks like my experience with them was just an early indicator of what was to come. Logitech has chosen a customer service model, and it's not one I want to be part of. So when the time came a couple of months ago to replace my main computer's sound system, I walked right past the Logitech options. My next trackball will probably be a Kensington.
Based on what I'm reading here, it looks like I made the right choice. I might not be a major corporation, but every device in my house (at the moment) has a Logitech pointing device attached to it. Two of them have Logitech keyboards. One has a Logitech sound system. I was a long-term loyal customer who would never have felt the need to look elsewhere.
That was then. This is now.
Logitech is dead to me.
me too... (Score:1)
The good guys [roccat.org], at least for now.
Anyone surprised? (Score:2)
up yours (Score:1)
adding that Harmony Link devices 'will no longer function after this date,'"
Well fuck you too Logitech.
All Internet-enabled products should be SaaS (Score:2)
A lot of companies and consumers alike haven't figured it out yet - any time you have an internet-enabled device you have to keep supporting it (pay for servers), and patching at least the security holes. All that costs money. People buy products and expect them to last 5-10 years or longer, that is one hell of a support burden! I work in software and security. A 10 year old product is all but forgotten, the engineers who wrote the code are all gone, nobody knows how to maintain it, and most of all, the com
Re: (Score:2)
There is no such thing as "lifetime" subscription unless it cost a lot of money.
TiVo started it, the GPS units followed along. They just change the meaning of the word "lifetime"
I wouldn't count on a monthly subscription fee to be anything but icing on the cake for them before they force you to buy a new device in 5 years.
Technology Reviews need to do better (Score:2)
Well, that is a useful data point. (Score:2)
For the past 8 years, I've been using a Universal Remotes MX-350 that I got "free" from the bank when I re-financed. It's annoying to program (all via the remote's buttons) but it works; one-button startup of all the parts that make the TV work (TV, Stereo, TiVo) and it can even learn IR signals from random stuff, like the 4x2 HDMI switcher. And it remembers settings across a battery change, so I haven't even had to consider programming in ages. Since I added the HDMI switcher to my setup, I think.
I have