Pixel 7a phone. Purchased for work, intended for infrequent use. I created a new Google account since I didn't want the phone associated with my personal account.
After a couple of months of inactivity, I needed access again. The finger print didn't work (not accepted after a time of inactivity), and I cannot remember the PIN or Google account. I'm essentially locked out.
I can easily prove I'm the rightful owner with an invoice or bank statement, however neither the retailer nor Pixel will do anything, despite multiple conversations.
It raises the question of who owns the device: The person who purchased it, or the person who initially set it up? The Pixel is designed for the latter. I would argue it should be the former since transactions can be verified through intermediaries, whereas anyone could have set up the device, however I understand the complexities of Google verifying retailer receipts.
So I'm left with an unusable device, and I've run out of possible PINs to try.
Hopes for the future:
- On initial setup, a big ugly warning about being permanently locked out, and that I should ideally add recovery options to the new account, and be careful in choosing the PIN
- Requirement for retailers that stock Pixels to accept refunds in these situations, either through the kindness of Google's non-evil heart, or consumer law ("fit for purpose"?).
Any suggestions for what to do with a "bricked" phone would be welcome!
If you can't reset from Settings or you can't use your screen, try a reset with your phone's buttons.
If your phone is on, turn it off. Learn how to turn off your Pixel phone.
Press and hold the volume up button and power button at the same time for 10–15 seconds.
For Pixel 6 and newer devices: Press and hold the volume down button and power button at the same time for 5–10 seconds until the 'Fastboot mode' screen shows.
If you hold the buttons for too long, the phone restarts. If this happens, try again from step 1.
Use the volume buttons to change the menu options until 'Recovery mode' is displayed on screen. To select, press the Power button once.
On your screen, 'No command' is displayed. Press and hold the Power button. While you hold Power, press the Volume up button and let go of both buttons quickly.
Android recovery options should be displayed. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Wipe data/factory reset' and press the Power button.
With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Factory data reset' and press the Power button.
Factory reset should start. At the bottom of your screen, when the reset is finished, 'Data wipe complete' is displayed.
With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Reboot system now' and press the Power button.
To set up your Pixel, after the phone completes the OS install, tap Start.
Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your phone and restore your backed-up data
IIRC on modern Android phones, doing this will prompt you to log into the original Google account when setting it up after resetting. If you can't log in, the phone is effectively still locked. It's supposed to be an anti-theft measure so that thieves can't just factory reset and make the phone useful again
You can wipe or factory rest without a pin. There are many articles and exact instructions at the top of search results for “reset pixel without PIN”.
As for who owns the data, that is most definitely the person who sets up that account with a PIN, not the device owner. If you forget the PIN, that’s a nasty situation, but unfortunately working as I think most would agree is best.
If you lose your house keys, you don't have to give up your house and all your furniture. You are allowed to pay a locksmith or break a windows, you own it after all.
Thanks for sharing your story. While I think that "forgetting" you pin is something that should not have happened, I understand why it did and it is another example of google not being able to give a proper way to prove your identity.
That's exactly the reason why I've started using GrapheneOS on a < 200 bucks smartphone lately (indeed I paid 90 bucks for a Pixel 4a). Pretty unlikely that someone would steal it (and if so, just buy another one), there is no google or generally FFANG at all and it's pretty usable with only FOSS apps. Of course the camera is not the best but it is good enough for more than snapshots. For banking stuff I keep an old iPhone at home locked in the safe - iPhones have real good software / app support and don't require a google account...
> On initial setup, a big ugly warning about being permanently locked out, and that I should ideally add recovery options to the new account, and be careful in choosing the PIN
Phones and computers should come with a USB-C HSM that can reset and unlock them. This should be in addition to all the existing mechanisms to reset any kind of activation-lock.
In my view, It's beyond absurd that Apple/Google/whoever can sell devices that only they can decide are permanently bricked in extenuating circumstances.
If I have the device, its box, and everything that came in the box, I shouldn't be locked out of it forever.
Isn't your experience exactly what would happen with any other modern smartphone? What you ran into is called Factory Reset Protection, which basically all Android phones have, and iPhones have Activation Lock, which is just their name for the same thing.
If you dont need the data two options
1. Install GrapheneOS on it. It's absolutely a more secure option.
2. Reflash it using stock android at flash.android.com
I don't even know if this is fully valid anymore as I haven't reviewed the latest passkey implementations, but it's definitely a fear of mine if passkey becomes the standard.
Sonos speakers. I got a big system during COVID and it got me through isolation. But then they decided to redo the app and the new one is terrible (not that the old one was ever great; software is not their strength). It's still a buggy mess to this day. Some of the hardware died too, and they don't offer repairs. Their customer service sucks too. You can't email them anymore and you have to wait hours on the phone.
I went from loyal supporter to wanting to get rid of the whole system. Buyer beware. Company has really gone downhill. I wish they'd fire the CEO.
Sonos were originally great, when they were a platform to injest your music and stream to your various rooms.
That was years ago, and now they want to own the whole thing, from music to speakers, and are willing to brick old devices to force you onto more isolating versions of their app.
I'm very glad I never switched to them (was close when Logitech killed squeezebox), and would not recommend them to anyone for any reason.
I have to agree with this. The software was always serviceable before the new app. I have a Sonos speaker in my kids’ rooms that we often use for audiobooks and lullabies.
Even with the latest version of the new app, when I play something on both speakers, there is a delay from seconds up to a minute before sound comes through the second speaker, they play at wildly different random volumes each time, playing Audible books within the Sonos app no longer works, Airplay won’t connect about 30% of the time, and sometimes they just decide not to work at all for no apparent reason.
Every night I fight the urge to throw them in the bin. I’m contemplating replacing them but don’t know enough about alternatives yet.
Got a Sonos One for free when I bought a new phone once.
So many issues with setting it up with WiFi. Gave up and used an ethernet cable.
It's absolutely useless without a network connection, as it lacks bluetooth. You can't use it as a speaker for a Windows machine, only for MacOS (using AirPlay). I only use it for Spotify.
I've had a bit of Sonos gear: A Play:1, a Bridge, and a fancy jog-wheel remote that I forget the marketing name of.
They deliberately bricked the jog-wheel remote around a decade ago. ("We aren't just not going to support these anymore; we're actually going to remote-brick every single one of them.")
Upgrading the Play:1 to S2 broke the Bridge. (It wasn't bricked, but it was incompatible with their S2 and thus became useless to me; they didn't care.)
Lately, the Play:1 has distortion in the woofer. Sounds like normal audio stuff; a torn surround, maybe. I don't know how to open it to even do a visual inspection.
At 0/3, I've got a lot to complain about with Sonos.
But the one thing I'm not complaining about is how it worked (when it worked): It is a networked loudspeaker, with network datagrams on one side and audible music on the other side. Once music is playing (started by an app or computer software or UPNP or whatever), it continues to play that music all on its own.
It continues to play music if I take my phone and wander off, or take a call, or if I reboot my PC. It lets someone else control the music that is playing. Other than control, one or more Sonos speakers comprise a standalone system that is dependent only upon having the network behave.
I have a very effective LAN in my house, just as I have also had in other living situations. That's an advantage and I want to use it.
I definitely don't want things like this to be burdened with Bluetooth's problems.
I bought the cheap IKEA variant and it uses the same crappy software. I once spent a couple of hours adapting a new device into the system.. in the end I had to flash it first and setup everything from scratch. I will not buy any more devices.
Also I don't understand why they can't play sound from any android device since I can make a radio station on Linux and stream audio to it. I mean playing podcasts on the Sonos speakers would be great..
Their software stack is just terrible. Even after multiple resets, many of their devices would not work. Some of their error screens are secretly stateful too, requiring you to do the same thing 4-5x before it'll let you try an alternative workaround (which will sometimes work). The old app was mediocre, but predictably so, and you could usually work around issues with the community's help. The new app is so bad and unstable that half the time server issues will prevent you from being able to finish setup even if you do everything right. It's aggravating.
A friend of mine built his own clone using Raspberry Pis and generic speakers and that works way better than the Sonos stack.
That's the way to go... I guess I always knew, in the back of my head, that a proprietary cloud app was a bad idea... I just didn't think it would get THIS bad. I thought the company would work to protect their reputation and users, especially after they already had at least one similar debacle in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos#Controversies). I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Just did a CTRL-F to find this. I fell for the shiny marketing and thought Sonos had a great reputation. The app is bad, the native voice control is bad, and Alexa doesn't work properly for me (cannot get it to drive Spotify no matter what I do).
Leadership ignored them, launched the app anyway, lost a ton of their stock value, and then laid off 100 employees.
I dunno wtf the board was doing at the time, but they should've removed the leader, rolled back the update, apologized to everyone and then worked to rebuild the experience and trust from the ground up. They never bothered with that, instead doubling down on the new app, keeping the CEO, and gradually restoring features. It still hasn't reached feature (or stability) parity with how it was a few years ago. I barely ever use my system anymore because it's so bad. (I really should sell it, but I just don't even want to touch the software to reset it, or try to support the buyer if they run into setup issues... which they will... because it's that bad.)
Empty promises from people we don't trust is not a way to win back loyalty. It's just lame PR damage control that fools nobody. They've been doing that for months now and the system is still half broken. Every week I run into issues and I've stopped trying to even report them anymore. RIP. I used to love my Move so much =/ At least that will keep working in Bluetooth mode... I hope.
Never going to buy a smart speaker system again. Dumb old cables is the way to go.
My highly customizable split mechanical keyboard. Not naming the product because it's my fault that I regret it. It's very high quality and does exactly what it claims to do, and I'm sure many users are happy with it. It cost nearly $400.
It's a ~60% keyboard, which means it's missing a lot of keys. Notably the F keys and the navigation keys (pgup, pgdn, ins, del, etc). There are ways to remap the blank keys to what you really need, and of course there are all the key sequences and chords you can use. But you have to memorize this stuff, because many of the keys are unlabeled by necessity.
I use it on my PC, Mac (work), and Linux (steamdeck). It's a lot of cognitive burden remembering shortcuts and which modifier keys do what on which OS, with the added headache of having to remember which unlabeled or remapped keys are which modifier keys. I love the feel of it and for normal typing it's great, but anytime I stray from the basic keys (A-Z, numbers, etc) it becomes difficult. I end up doing embarrassing things like using right click on my mouse to do things like copy/paste.
If I was on exactly one OS all day long, I think I could make it work. But juggling 3 is annoying.
If I could redo it all over again I'd realize I didn't need a split ergo keyboard, and would have gotten something more traditional.
I think the big thing is "you got less keys" not "you got a split ergo keyboard". I tried a 96% keyboard, but realized that I missed and used the few keys that I lost. I have since decided I want "all the keys" and found a 100% keyboard that I'm more than happy with.
If you are thinking of moving to another keyboard with fewer keys, you may want to to do something to keep track of if or how often you are using those keys that you'll be missing. Force yourself to use key combinations on your current keyboard instead of those keys specifically on your current keyboard and find out if it is doable before making the purchase.
My experience has been a bit better than yours. I had the same concerns you've raised here and opted for a more standard layout and got a Mistel MD770, a lesser known brand but it was important to me that the layout is familiar and it has F keys and honestly it's been great, had it for about a year now. I use it on all 3 OSs too. I'm now looking to buy another one for the office as it's too much of an effort to carry it and I've been looking for other keyboards but there aren't (m)any that have standard layout (no columnar stuff), split, pre-built, F keys and ideally hot-swappable switches. The closest is probably dygma raise but it doesn't have F keys which is unfortunate. I think I'll end up buying another MD770.
If you spend the day working with F-based applications, this may not be a solution. But if you require those keys for tasks like renaming files, etc it may be enough to configure SuperKeys on the Raise: keeping the key pressed for 250ms can trigger any other symbol, including the Fs. It might be more natural than switching layers.
I also bought this not naming split mechanical keyboard that costs nearly $400 :)
Not entirely dissatisfied, but disappointed.
Functional keys, cursor, home/end/pgup/pgdn are painful. The default layout is complete garbage. I made 3 iterations with functional keys over 4 months, still struggling. I connect the kbd to the laptop via the monitor, and recently noticed myself switching to the laptop to get things done quicker.
I bought a fancy, customizeable, ergonomic, mechanical keyboard. It feels great! But it's too much hazzle to learn, customize, OS changes etc.
I bought it because I was having wrist pain, and my old keyboard was one I got for free from the college surplus back in 2011. So I thought it was a sensible purchase.
I've been a split ergo keyboard user for many years now. Seen a lot of people decide to go from a traditional keyboard to a split ergo keyboard only to end up hating it.
This is too big of a jump to make in one go, and the sudden overhead in the amount of new information your mind and fingers need to get adjusted to ends up overwhelming a lot of people.
When you switch to a custom keyboard like the one you did. It's not just a split keyboard you're switching to, you also move to a smaller form factor that has lesser keys, and an ortholinear layout which has column stagger instead of row stagger. It's most effective to transition by gradually moving to the next form factor only after you're fully comfortable with the previous ones.
In your case, something like the Kinesis freestyle would have been a much better choice for you.
A recent Motorola smartphone. Only advantage: it's cheap.
* it's a Tamagochi that keeps crying all day long. "Please set this thing up". "Notification about settings". "Help I shat!"
* Loses connections too often.
* Good old apps, like internet radio silently crash.
* If you happen to listen music over Bluetooth and there's incoming call, it
a) shows you modal windows -- "should setting ______ be set forever?"
b) to turn off Bluetooth speaker, you must notice and click a tiny drop-down menu, and select from "speaker" (which is phone's own loud speaker), "bluetooth" and something else -- basically you gotta guess where is "normal" call with phone at the ear. All this must be done in like 10 seconds of caller's patience.
* Unconfigurable at all. You set it to "don't disturb" and whatsapp/telegram still ring loudly!!! IDK, if this setting changes anything at all. Seems that every app has own overrides.
* tries to add junk stuff like "smart wallpapers" -- and after I found a way to turn it off, showed me "The notification will be shown in 24 hours again."
* wakes up if slightly shaken and shines with the screen -- must put it screen down to avoid bright light randomly shining at night.
Maybe it's the recent Android OS such a pile of accumulated crappy features, like CSS in the wild, that is impossible to sort out... Whoever approved to buy crappy noname smartphones and brand them as Motorola, had no brain.
I have a Lenovo tablet and it mercilessly kills background apps, no matter what you do.
I sprung for the extra version with 12Gb RAM as well, so it's just so pointless. It has double the RAM of my Android phone that doesn't do that at all.
So forget about syncthing or anything else you actually want to run all the time in the background. I need to remember to run it manually if I want things to actually be synced.
I could go through the rigmarole of installing a different firmware but it looks really complicated to do, and there are pros and cons of doing that too.
This is so interesting, I used to use exclusively Samsung but bought a Motorola phone for travel and the experience was so good I got rid of my main Samsung and bought another Motorola.
It's ok-ish but too noisy, takes too long to do its job and as vacuum it kinda sucks I guess.
It also needs an app that doesn't really work at all. I was forced to install it to solve a random problem with the unit, but now it's useless. It doesn't trigger the Roomba sometimes.
I replaced it with a Bosch vacuum that has the bonus of using the same batteries as my cordless drill and other Bosch devices. Yay. The Bosch is also WAY quieter than the Roomba (also quieter than a Dyson, that was surprising), which is great since I have a cat. Also it doesn't have IoT capabilities so it's amazing.
Every device that requires IoT or an App needs to die die die.
I'll second the Roomba. I've got several "highly-rated" models that were recommended by Wirecutter a few years ago, and I scooped them up on a sale. These things are pretty terrible. They regularly get stuck on common household obstacles such as the carpet, the rug, and even the wall. More often than not, our main floor Roomba's charging station is empty because the Roomba itself got stuck somewhere and died, or it just decided not to return to its base and powered off under the dining room table. We also have a recurring problem where the Roombas will sit on their charging stations but won't charge, depleting their batteries until we notice several days later and slightly adjust the contact points to get them charging again.
I bought Phillips robot cleaner specifically to have a device without any IoT features. It just works.
After 3 years, though, the experience tells me that it's not such a revolution -- in an apartment with kids, you have to move lot of things out of its way, and this only pays off if you wash the floors afterwards. Otherwise there's little gain compared to wiping the floor manually.
I guess, if it were slightly bigger and could do washing, it would have had much more value.
It was the Bosch Unlimited 6. It was very cheap and surprisingly very quiet in the store even compared to the Dyson and other brands that have a reputation for being good.
The batteries seem to be PBA according to their website, which look the same as P4A! But I’m not sure! I only have a Bosch Drill and the mini-Drill/Screwdriver and they are the same!
So far no negatives, been using it daily for a month... it is great at vacumming pet hair and does a job as good as a regular noisy non-portable vacuum. The space for dust is quite good, much better than the Roomba, and very convenient to clean.
I upgraded from a Eufy (meh) to the Wyze Robot Vacuum and love it. I love it so much I got a second one for my basement and have evangelized my whole family on them. My two sisters and parents now have their own. We’re all big fans.
Which Eufy? We got a Eufy X10 Pro that mops/vacuums back in June. We love it. We have an older roomba for a different floor/level, and that thing is always getting stuck on something.
I bought a 2-unit Dell R730 server to crunch through a specific big data problem. I needed dozens of TBs of disk and hundreds of GB of memory. The cost of running it in the cloud one time was $2000+. I figured why not spend that on hardware and use it forever?
Well I got everything set up, turned it on, and it sounded like a jet airplane taking off in my basement. I knew it was going to be loud but this was ridiculous. It was an obnoxious high-pitch whine and I could hear it through the walls and in all rooms of the house. Plus it idled at 100+ watts so it was an energy hog.
Needless to say, I crunched the data that needed crunching then turned it off. I rarely spin it back up. I had some vague ideas about water cooling to avoid the fan noise but that's on the back burner. For now it's just taking up space.
FWIW, I'm in a similar situation right now. I was able to massively decrease noise (and air flow) by switching to Noctua NF- A4x10 FLX fans. As long as my workloads aren't sustained temperatures are fine and noise has from gone ~70-80dB to ~40dB, with the power supply fans being the loudest part now.
I once bought an Apple XServe and had the same experience. I sometimes don't always learn my lesson though. Years later I bought a Dell tower server. It wasn't as bad as a rack server, but still too much heat and noise. It's been sitting unplugged in my office ever since with my stereo components sitting on top of it.
Remarkable. It was great for doing math, annotating texts, and taking notes for a couple of months. The device became less and less sensitive to the pen over time, which eventually became intolerable. I had kept it around to turn into an eink ssh terminal at some point except I found the iPad that replaced it superior in every way.
Hopefully stupid question but were you replacing the pen nibs? My screen has been solidly responsive for several years of heavy usage, but the fiber nibs do get worn down and need replacing every few weeks/months (by design) or the pen starts exhibiting this behaviour.
I have to admit I have also switched back to real paper for a lot of tasks but I still like the remarkable as an e-reader, and enjoy writing on it occasionally, so I wouldn't say it's a big regret.
I replaced the nibs when I first noticed the issue, and a few times later. It did not resolve the problem, sadly.
I'm also using a lot more paper and have gotten into fountain pens for some kinds of note taking, which is about as economically ruinous as mechanical keyboards.
In the future, I have it on my list to change it into an eink linux box to use to connect to remote machines with the attached keyboard. At least the hardware will be used eventually. Probably won't use the pen in that configuration.
My Remarkable 2 does not maintain a battery charge (when not used / on a shelf) such that each time I see it and think "oh yeah I own this, I should throw it in my bag and use it for journaling today", I pick it up and click the power button and see that it's dead, plug it in to charge it, and then the cycle repeats. Also very heavy for what it is (I have the Type Folio accessory).
Interesting! I have a BOOX Nova Air3 C I bought back when it was the only color option on the market. Now that Remarkable has a color option, I've been wondering if the grass is greener. One thing that's always bugged me about it is, unlike my old Kindle 3G, rather than going to sleep after a period of inactivity, it straight-up powers down. So essentially any time I pick it up to use it I have to wait for it to boot.
BUT -- I can't remember the last time I charged it. It's possible it's still on its original factory charge from a few months ago. As someone whose phone is perpetually below 20% charge I greatly appreciate that feature -- given the choice, I'll always choose "needs to boot" over "needs to charge". Your anecdote has therefore reduced my own buyers' remorse.
HP Spectre X360. The wifi card started failing less than 1 year in and there was no way of getting it fixed. It was touted as Linux compatible, but the stylus barely worked with the latest kernel. Sound NEVER worked from the integrated speakers (in Linux, Windows was OK). I digged through so many alsa and pulse-audio posts that it was probably 10% of that year's time wasted. It wouldn't go to sleep when closed (randomly, 8 times out of 10 it would) , so it kept overheating in my backpack.
I actually pushed a fix for the soundcard upstream back in kernel 5.13, it had been working great. And yeah, don't expect a Wacom level pen, it doesn't come with tilt. I never trust/tried sleep on Linux(could corrupt the FS), but everything is working great on my side.
Readit News
After a couple of months of inactivity, I needed access again. The finger print didn't work (not accepted after a time of inactivity), and I cannot remember the PIN or Google account. I'm essentially locked out.
I can easily prove I'm the rightful owner with an invoice or bank statement, however neither the retailer nor Pixel will do anything, despite multiple conversations.
It raises the question of who owns the device: The person who purchased it, or the person who initially set it up? The Pixel is designed for the latter. I would argue it should be the former since transactions can be verified through intermediaries, whereas anyone could have set up the device, however I understand the complexities of Google verifying retailer receipts.
So I'm left with an unusable device, and I've run out of possible PINs to try.
Hopes for the future:
- On initial setup, a big ugly warning about being permanently locked out, and that I should ideally add recovery options to the new account, and be careful in choosing the PIN
- Requirement for retailers that stock Pixels to accept refunds in these situations, either through the kindness of Google's non-evil heart, or consumer law ("fit for purpose"?).
Any suggestions for what to do with a "bricked" phone would be welcome!
If your phone is on, turn it off. Learn how to turn off your Pixel phone. Press and hold the volume up button and power button at the same time for 10–15 seconds. For Pixel 6 and newer devices: Press and hold the volume down button and power button at the same time for 5–10 seconds until the 'Fastboot mode' screen shows. If you hold the buttons for too long, the phone restarts. If this happens, try again from step 1. Use the volume buttons to change the menu options until 'Recovery mode' is displayed on screen. To select, press the Power button once. On your screen, 'No command' is displayed. Press and hold the Power button. While you hold Power, press the Volume up button and let go of both buttons quickly. Android recovery options should be displayed. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Wipe data/factory reset' and press the Power button. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Factory data reset' and press the Power button. Factory reset should start. At the bottom of your screen, when the reset is finished, 'Data wipe complete' is displayed. With the volume buttons, scroll to 'Reboot system now' and press the Power button. To set up your Pixel, after the phone completes the OS install, tap Start. Follow the on-screen instructions to set up your phone and restore your backed-up data
Edit: This feature is called Factory Reset Protection, read more at https://support.google.com/android/answer/9459346?hl=en
> If you can't give this information during setup, you won't be able to use the device at all after factory reset.
As for who owns the data, that is most definitely the person who sets up that account with a PIN, not the device owner. If you forget the PIN, that’s a nasty situation, but unfortunately working as I think most would agree is best.
That's exactly the reason why I've started using GrapheneOS on a < 200 bucks smartphone lately (indeed I paid 90 bucks for a Pixel 4a). Pretty unlikely that someone would steal it (and if so, just buy another one), there is no google or generally FFANG at all and it's pretty usable with only FOSS apps. Of course the camera is not the best but it is good enough for more than snapshots. For banking stuff I keep an old iPhone at home locked in the safe - iPhones have real good software / app support and don't require a google account...
Phones and computers should come with a USB-C HSM that can reset and unlock them. This should be in addition to all the existing mechanisms to reset any kind of activation-lock.
In my view, It's beyond absurd that Apple/Google/whoever can sell devices that only they can decide are permanently bricked in extenuating circumstances.
If I have the device, its box, and everything that came in the box, I shouldn't be locked out of it forever.
I went from loyal supporter to wanting to get rid of the whole system. Buyer beware. Company has really gone downhill. I wish they'd fire the CEO.
That was years ago, and now they want to own the whole thing, from music to speakers, and are willing to brick old devices to force you onto more isolating versions of their app.
I'm very glad I never switched to them (was close when Logitech killed squeezebox), and would not recommend them to anyone for any reason.
Even with the latest version of the new app, when I play something on both speakers, there is a delay from seconds up to a minute before sound comes through the second speaker, they play at wildly different random volumes each time, playing Audible books within the Sonos app no longer works, Airplay won’t connect about 30% of the time, and sometimes they just decide not to work at all for no apparent reason.
Every night I fight the urge to throw them in the bin. I’m contemplating replacing them but don’t know enough about alternatives yet.
So many issues with setting it up with WiFi. Gave up and used an ethernet cable.
It's absolutely useless without a network connection, as it lacks bluetooth. You can't use it as a speaker for a Windows machine, only for MacOS (using AirPlay). I only use it for Spotify.
Wouldn't ever buy any of their stuff.
They deliberately bricked the jog-wheel remote around a decade ago. ("We aren't just not going to support these anymore; we're actually going to remote-brick every single one of them.")
Upgrading the Play:1 to S2 broke the Bridge. (It wasn't bricked, but it was incompatible with their S2 and thus became useless to me; they didn't care.)
Lately, the Play:1 has distortion in the woofer. Sounds like normal audio stuff; a torn surround, maybe. I don't know how to open it to even do a visual inspection.
At 0/3, I've got a lot to complain about with Sonos.
But the one thing I'm not complaining about is how it worked (when it worked): It is a networked loudspeaker, with network datagrams on one side and audible music on the other side. Once music is playing (started by an app or computer software or UPNP or whatever), it continues to play that music all on its own.
It continues to play music if I take my phone and wander off, or take a call, or if I reboot my PC. It lets someone else control the music that is playing. Other than control, one or more Sonos speakers comprise a standalone system that is dependent only upon having the network behave.
I have a very effective LAN in my house, just as I have also had in other living situations. That's an advantage and I want to use it.
I definitely don't want things like this to be burdened with Bluetooth's problems.
Also I don't understand why they can't play sound from any android device since I can make a radio station on Linux and stream audio to it. I mean playing podcasts on the Sonos speakers would be great..
The FOSS Soundsync used to work with Sonos speaker but I think they blocked them: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync
A friend of mine built his own clone using Raspberry Pis and generic speakers and that works way better than the Sonos stack.
That's the way to go... I guess I always knew, in the back of my head, that a proprietary cloud app was a bad idea... I just didn't think it would get THIS bad. I thought the company would work to protect their reputation and users, especially after they already had at least one similar debacle in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos#Controversies). I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Leadership ignored them, launched the app anyway, lost a ton of their stock value, and then laid off 100 employees.
I dunno wtf the board was doing at the time, but they should've removed the leader, rolled back the update, apologized to everyone and then worked to rebuild the experience and trust from the ground up. They never bothered with that, instead doubling down on the new app, keeping the CEO, and gradually restoring features. It still hasn't reached feature (or stability) parity with how it was a few years ago. I barely ever use my system anymore because it's so bad. (I really should sell it, but I just don't even want to touch the software to reset it, or try to support the buyer if they run into setup issues... which they will... because it's that bad.)
Apparently they're trying to make some changes with adding advisory boards, etc. But that won't help if leadership doesn't change. It was arrogance that brought them this mess, and the same people are still in charge. https://www.audioholics.com/news/sonos-backpedals https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/sonos-pledges-ch...
Empty promises from people we don't trust is not a way to win back loyalty. It's just lame PR damage control that fools nobody. They've been doing that for months now and the system is still half broken. Every week I run into issues and I've stopped trying to even report them anymore. RIP. I used to love my Move so much =/ At least that will keep working in Bluetooth mode... I hope.
Never going to buy a smart speaker system again. Dumb old cables is the way to go.
It's a ~60% keyboard, which means it's missing a lot of keys. Notably the F keys and the navigation keys (pgup, pgdn, ins, del, etc). There are ways to remap the blank keys to what you really need, and of course there are all the key sequences and chords you can use. But you have to memorize this stuff, because many of the keys are unlabeled by necessity.
I use it on my PC, Mac (work), and Linux (steamdeck). It's a lot of cognitive burden remembering shortcuts and which modifier keys do what on which OS, with the added headache of having to remember which unlabeled or remapped keys are which modifier keys. I love the feel of it and for normal typing it's great, but anytime I stray from the basic keys (A-Z, numbers, etc) it becomes difficult. I end up doing embarrassing things like using right click on my mouse to do things like copy/paste.
If I was on exactly one OS all day long, I think I could make it work. But juggling 3 is annoying.
If I could redo it all over again I'd realize I didn't need a split ergo keyboard, and would have gotten something more traditional.
If you are thinking of moving to another keyboard with fewer keys, you may want to to do something to keep track of if or how often you are using those keys that you'll be missing. Force yourself to use key combinations on your current keyboard instead of those keys specifically on your current keyboard and find out if it is doable before making the purchase.
Not entirely dissatisfied, but disappointed.
Functional keys, cursor, home/end/pgup/pgdn are painful. The default layout is complete garbage. I made 3 iterations with functional keys over 4 months, still struggling. I connect the kbd to the laptop via the monitor, and recently noticed myself switching to the laptop to get things done quicker.
I bought a fancy, customizeable, ergonomic, mechanical keyboard. It feels great! But it's too much hazzle to learn, customize, OS changes etc.
I bought it because I was having wrist pain, and my old keyboard was one I got for free from the college surplus back in 2011. So I thought it was a sensible purchase.
I'm back to cheapo surplus keyboard.
Either they are all 15 year olds with infinite time and better neuroplasticity or... more likely, people that quit are a bit embarassed about it.
This is too big of a jump to make in one go, and the sudden overhead in the amount of new information your mind and fingers need to get adjusted to ends up overwhelming a lot of people.
When you switch to a custom keyboard like the one you did. It's not just a split keyboard you're switching to, you also move to a smaller form factor that has lesser keys, and an ortholinear layout which has column stagger instead of row stagger. It's most effective to transition by gradually moving to the next form factor only after you're fully comfortable with the previous ones.
In your case, something like the Kinesis freestyle would have been a much better choice for you.
* it's a Tamagochi that keeps crying all day long. "Please set this thing up". "Notification about settings". "Help I shat!"
* Loses connections too often.
* Good old apps, like internet radio silently crash.
* If you happen to listen music over Bluetooth and there's incoming call, it
a) shows you modal windows -- "should setting ______ be set forever?"
b) to turn off Bluetooth speaker, you must notice and click a tiny drop-down menu, and select from "speaker" (which is phone's own loud speaker), "bluetooth" and something else -- basically you gotta guess where is "normal" call with phone at the ear. All this must be done in like 10 seconds of caller's patience.
* Unconfigurable at all. You set it to "don't disturb" and whatsapp/telegram still ring loudly!!! IDK, if this setting changes anything at all. Seems that every app has own overrides.
* tries to add junk stuff like "smart wallpapers" -- and after I found a way to turn it off, showed me "The notification will be shown in 24 hours again."
* wakes up if slightly shaken and shines with the screen -- must put it screen down to avoid bright light randomly shining at night.
Maybe it's the recent Android OS such a pile of accumulated crappy features, like CSS in the wild, that is impossible to sort out... Whoever approved to buy crappy noname smartphones and brand them as Motorola, had no brain.
I have a fairly new Pixel (so up to date OS) and none of these problems. Odds are it's something Motorola/Lenovo have messed up.
For better or worse, Android experience depends largely on the specific vendor.
I sprung for the extra version with 12Gb RAM as well, so it's just so pointless. It has double the RAM of my Android phone that doesn't do that at all.
So forget about syncthing or anything else you actually want to run all the time in the background. I need to remember to run it manually if I want things to actually be synced.
I could go through the rigmarole of installing a different firmware but it looks really complicated to do, and there are pros and cons of doing that too.
It's ok-ish but too noisy, takes too long to do its job and as vacuum it kinda sucks I guess.
It also needs an app that doesn't really work at all. I was forced to install it to solve a random problem with the unit, but now it's useless. It doesn't trigger the Roomba sometimes.
I replaced it with a Bosch vacuum that has the bonus of using the same batteries as my cordless drill and other Bosch devices. Yay. The Bosch is also WAY quieter than the Roomba (also quieter than a Dyson, that was surprising), which is great since I have a cat. Also it doesn't have IoT capabilities so it's amazing.
Every device that requires IoT or an App needs to die die die.
Terrible purchase, stay away from Roomba.
After 3 years, though, the experience tells me that it's not such a revolution -- in an apartment with kids, you have to move lot of things out of its way, and this only pays off if you wash the floors afterwards. Otherwise there's little gain compared to wiping the floor manually.
I guess, if it were slightly bigger and could do washing, it would have had much more value.
The batteries seem to be PBA according to their website, which look the same as P4A! But I’m not sure! I only have a Bosch Drill and the mini-Drill/Screwdriver and they are the same!
So far no negatives, been using it daily for a month... it is great at vacumming pet hair and does a job as good as a regular noisy non-portable vacuum. The space for dust is quite good, much better than the Roomba, and very convenient to clean.
Well I got everything set up, turned it on, and it sounded like a jet airplane taking off in my basement. I knew it was going to be loud but this was ridiculous. It was an obnoxious high-pitch whine and I could hear it through the walls and in all rooms of the house. Plus it idled at 100+ watts so it was an energy hog.
Needless to say, I crunched the data that needed crunching then turned it off. I rarely spin it back up. I had some vague ideas about water cooling to avoid the fan noise but that's on the back burner. For now it's just taking up space.
Upgrade took me an hour and cost $80 via Amazon.
I've replaced it (lab) with a KVM kluster of tinyminimicro machines (1L pc).
Now I just need to throw away the G8.
If all 64 cores are fully utilized for days, you need the fan running full blast to avoid overheating.
I have to admit I have also switched back to real paper for a lot of tasks but I still like the remarkable as an e-reader, and enjoy writing on it occasionally, so I wouldn't say it's a big regret.
I'm also using a lot more paper and have gotten into fountain pens for some kinds of note taking, which is about as economically ruinous as mechanical keyboards.
In the future, I have it on my list to change it into an eink linux box to use to connect to remote machines with the attached keyboard. At least the hardware will be used eventually. Probably won't use the pen in that configuration.
BUT -- I can't remember the last time I charged it. It's possible it's still on its original factory charge from a few months ago. As someone whose phone is perpetually below 20% charge I greatly appreciate that feature -- given the choice, I'll always choose "needs to boot" over "needs to charge". Your anecdote has therefore reduced my own buyers' remorse.
I turned them off one time and it wouldn't even last a day, but after enabling them back again it's back to it's normal multiple days battery charge.
HP + Linux, never again.
HP never again.
That’s better!