- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/technology@lemmy.world/p/902391/pet-owners-say-smart-pet-feeder-outage-led-to-furry-ones-going-unfed
This feels like bad design
Smart pet-feeder company Petlibro suffered an outage on Tuesday, giving users a harsh reminder of the risks of relying on smart devices.
Petlibro makes pet feeders that connect to Wi-Fi and, for setup with Petlibro’s mobile companion app, Bluetooth. Users can set the feeders to automatically dispense food at scheduled times, which is handy for pet care when the owner is out of the home.
In a statement to The Verge, Petlibro CEO York Wu said this week’s outage was “related to how the Petlibro app communicates with devices through its online servers.”
Some user reports have also conflicted with Petlibro’s claims about offline functionality. As The Verge pointed out, various users online claimed that during the outage, their devices did not perform any scheduled feedings, performed some feedings but not others, or performed feedings late (examples here, here, here, here, and here).
This is something that literally needs no internet connection.
Just a simple electric motor and a mechanical timer.
We’ve had this technology for a long time.
We don’t need the fucking internet and smart screens and wifi shoved into every goddamn thing.
When will idiots learn that does not provide convenience, it just provides justification to charge you 200 dollars for a 20 dollar item.
Only reason they run this through their servers is because they are selling that data.
No reason why this setting couldn’t be contained in the feeder itself.
Many have backup batteries to prevent this very situation.
Hell, if you want it connected to the Internet to adjust the schedule on the fly or to report when food is low or an error has occured that’s fine. I could see that being useful. Why on earth would you make it so the actual timer functionality isn’t local?