Logitech: We're gonna brick your Harmony Link gizmos next year

Official info?

I can abate my panic slightly, for now, as this is the link not the hub. However, there is nothing I could see on the UK site about this. The harmony elite + hub (which I own) are still on sale although marked "out of stock" which doesn't give me a warm feeling.

Time, I think, to put all my old Logitech gear (squeezebox/radio/controllers/remote) in a box and head for the dump. Shame, most of it was pretty good while it worked.

It should be obvious

If a one-off purchase requires some on-going expenditure by the vendor to keep working it's always going to end in tears.

There are only two ways it could be made to work:

- the initial price is high enough to provide an annuity that will support the service in the future and at present interest rates that's going to price it out of the market.

- the purchaser is going to be the product.

It should be obvious

If a one-off purchase requires some on-going expenditure by the vendor to keep working it's always going to end in tears.

There are only two ways it could be made to work:

- the initial price is high enough to provide an annuity that will support the service in the future and at present interest rates that's going to price it out of the market.

- the purchaser is going to be the product in which case it could be given away.

Isn't that obvious?

Why, you wonder, does a remote controller need access to The Cloud?

1) To get any possible information about you.

2) To brick the item.

Not the way to go about it

I realise Logitech needs to make money and maybe these devices are at the end of their commercial life. But actively selling remaining stock while simultaneously working to kill it off is just a terrible dickish thing to do.

The correct way is to discontinue sales, wait a reasonable amount of time and then give another period of grace for discontinuation. And discontinuation means just the cloud stuff, then they should preserve any functionality the device is still capable of. e.g. if the device can still work as an AV hub, or an IR channel switcher.

And if they wanted to be cool about it they'd even release keys that allowed people to write their own apps that talked with the device, or even keys to hack the now-obsolete device to do something else.

Maybe in so doing, it might make Logitech seem like they cared about their customers instead of fleecing them as they sell them a duff device.

I can't help but feel that anyone who bought the device in the UK going back over the last three to five years would indeed have a valid claim under what was the Sale of Goods Act (I believe this is now the Consumer Rights Act).

I also wonder whether deliberately bricking a device (as opposed to merely dropping cloud support) would fall under either the Computer Misuse Act or Criminal Damage (and I'm sure there are similar laws elsewhere in the world). Wasn't there a USB->serial port chip manufacturer who did this to cloned devices and realised pretty quickly they had to stop?

Happy Harmony User

Remember Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy: DON'T PANIC.

I daily use a number of Logitech products, wireless Mice, Keyboards and several Harmony products. I am quite satisfied with the operations of the devices and the support. I have seen other suppliers stuff come and go and Logitech is still here. I am on my third Harmony, a cheap one, but it does way more than any other such product, It even operates a really obscure HDMI switch that actually shocked me when I gave it a try and it worked.

EVERYBODY CALM DOWN!

View on the Hub.

I own a LogiTech 2nd generation hub so I should be safe for now. It was an uphill battle to get the damm thing to even recognize all my TV related hardware. It wasn't until an unspecified firm ware update that the device started to function. Even though, it is limited in it's functionality. Customer Service and I got to know each other fairly well. As I stated on their website: it is a work in process; good idea, piss poor implementation.

I own a Harmony remote

I bought it from CompUSA before they became TigerDirect and then went extinct, which should show you how long ago that was. There was some kind of web site available to allow me to configure the thing quickly. Using the site required installing Silverlight. I declined, and configured it the hard way. I have been using the remote for nearly a decade now; the original rechargeable batteries in it died and I've replaced them. I haven't even attempted to connect it to the site since the initial Silverlight debacle. I was totally unaware that it had any features requiring internet connections, other than initial setup. I feel that I've got my money's worth out of it by now, and in the event that it stops working tomorrow I'll simply dig out the remotes that the assorted thingies came with until I can replace it with a new (and probably far cheaper) universal remote. Not from Logitech, that ship's sailed. When I first got it, I used it to control my assorted systems; I had a DVD player, later replaced by a Blu-Ray player, a VHS, a set-top box first from Comcast then AT&T, and one, later two, computers attached to various ports on a largish monitor. The Logitech allowed me to flip between them all. I haven't used the VHS in years, and use one of the computers to remote into the other, and rarely use the Blu-Ray drive, one computer has a Blu-Ray drive which behaves much better. I simply no longer care about many of the features on the remote.

Hmm.. Lot's of Harmony stuff around. I only have a lowly (not lovely) Harmony One, which I only just put in use again out of necessity.

The software is pretty awful, relying 100% on being on-line to do anything. I can't even rearrange the Devices list any longer. (Which is why I stopped using it for years.)

I have no idea if this affect the Harmony One or not?

My AlertMe setup quit working end of last month. No prior warning. They (British Gas, of course) just switched off the server, which apparently was only serving a few hundred users anyway. Why the hell couldn't they just let it run on? They haven't done ANY changes to it for many years (including before BG bought the stuff for £50m from AlertMe.)

Yeah, this whole connected things really is quite sh*tty.

Cloud lesson

I don't think the lesson here is never buy anything which relies on a service run by someone else to be useful, because actually in this instance it's absolutely fine. If you have an in warranty link, it gets upgraded to a harmony hub for free. Great. If it's out of warranty you've been given notice and you get a discount. Not great but fine.

Contrast that with pebble, where your watch just stops working.

So the lesson is, if you're going to rely on someone else's service continuing to run, make sure they're a big company with a reputation to protect.

I've 5 Logitech Squeeze devices still going strong (with help from the great dev community) - was a great concept and an excellent product designed by the Slim Devices guys.

Logitech bought out SD and just didn't get it - marketing didn't understand it so they canned it. Genius.

I don't buy Logitech anymore.