
Cats, dogs starve as web-connected chow chute PetNet plays dead - linker3000
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/27/petnet_outage/
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pi-rat
I'm afraid we're going to have a couple of really bad years with products like
this pumped out every week. Hardware that's turned to bricks when the company
goes bankrupt, has server issues, or simply abandons the product in favour of
focus on the next big thing(tm).

This pet-feeder is simply a motor on a timer. You have to make some
hilariously bad design choices to make it 100% dependent on the internet for
scheduling.

~~~
flyinghamster
Looks like they applied the CueCat model to actual cats.

A pet feeder that needs Internet access? Come on. This is something that's a
job for a dumb timer, or, at most, a simple microcontroller.

~~~
napworth
I understand the benefit of creating a pet feeder with Internet connectivity.
It allows you to provide a web portal to your customers so they can update
their feeder timings or view food reserve quantities while they're in the
office or on holiday.

But making it so the pet feeder _needs_ to be connected to dispense food??
That's insane. The internet connectivity should be to upload new timings. But
if a connection can't be made, the old timings should continue to be used.

Write failsafes into your models!

~~~
arethuza
"But making it so the pet feeder needs to be connected to dispense food??"

I suspect it will be someones bright idea to generate recurring revenue.

~~~
napworth
It always is. When will business people learn that money is literally the
least valuable thing in the world?

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userbinator
I can understand having the _option_ to control/monitor something over the
network being useful, but making it deliberately dependent on Internet access
is IMHO horrible design that could only be good for vendor lock-in, forced
obolescence, or other anti-user measures.

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bambax
Had to double check if this was not from The Onion.

Don't know about dogs, but don't cats feed themselves? Mine certainly does,
when we leave for holidays (or even sometimes during the year) we just leave a
lot of food and it just eats what it needs everyday.

~~~
bitwize
Cats are opportunistic feeders: if food is available, they will eat. This was
a fine adaptation for cats' EAA, as for wild cats, food was much scarcer and
would run away unless stalked and caught!

But leaving more than enough food lying around to be eaten _ad libitum_ is a
recipe for a fat cat, as they _will not stop_ when they've had enough.

~~~
delecti
When it comes to dry food, many cats _do_ stop when they've had enough. My cat
is given 1 cat of wet food a day and then unlimited dry food, and she's 10
lbs; 9 would be ideal but 10 isn't worth worrying about for a cat her age. My
ex's cats are both allowed access to unlimited dry food; one is in a similar
position to mine, slightly pudgy but not worryingly so, and the other is
perfectly fit.

A dog would eat until it weighed 500 lbs, but some cats will actually pace
themselves.

~~~
bambax
Ah, maybe that's the explanation: we indeed only use dry food.

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StavrosK
Who would design a feeder that only worked if the server was online? Wow.

~~~
forgotpwtomain
Someone that has never heard of cron?

I mean presumably they might have had some web-ui functionality to change
feed-settings - but why that wouldn't just update a cron-tab is beyond me.

~~~
csydas
Cause that's probably outside the scope of the request tht was given.

This is absoultely speculation, but my guess would be that the way this
product came to life is as follows:

1\. Company saw a niche for IoT products with pet owners willing to splurge on
their pets (an aside, pets owners are very happy to spend...)

2\. Requested IoT software for already existing auto-feeders to be written up
as fast as possible

3\. IoT part written and works, product is rushed out without designing an
offline mode (either not interested or to be patched later) [1]

It was an imagined race to be first with the product and get _the_ pet feeder
IoT device on the market first and build up a brand name. The end result is
this silliness.

Basically, I don't think they envisioned an issue where the servers would go
down - if the customer's own net went down, obviously they're to blame for
Sharik and Musya not being fed.

I sure this sounds overly cynnical, but as was mentioned by someone else, this
is just the first of many such things to come with shoddy IoT devices. The
practical consideration of "well, what if the servers go down?" just doesn't
seem to be on people's minds with IoT.

[1] From their twitter, I was right - they didn't bother with an offline sync
in the firmware, and had to build it out:
[https://twitter.com/petnetiosupport/status/75838081375903334...](https://twitter.com/petnetiosupport/status/758380813759033344)

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martin_a
AMAZING!

Everything should be in the cloud, just to make sure it can fail when your
internet connection is down or some server has hiccups or whatever.

Those are strange times.

~~~
gerbilly
Yeah, instead they could have built a digital timer into the device like in
the 80s.

Even though this would be more reliable, you couldn't control it from your
phone, which seems to be a selling feature for all of these badly designed IOT
devices.

Somebody should design a timer module that can be controlled via bluetooth and
(optionally) via Wifi.

Then you could program the timer from your iPad or whatever, but if
connectivity is lost, the local controller would retain the settings and
continue to work until connectivity is re-established.

~~~
dasboth
Exactly, it's nice to be able to change the frequency of the timer remotely
via the web, but the device should cache the latest settings offline. This is
definitely an instance of malice/greed rather than an oversight...

~~~
brianwawok
How often do you need to change your cat feeding frequency? Once per 10 years?

~~~
dasboth
Well and that's the other thing, exactly. The offline caching is more
important for other appliances that need to happen on a timer and you might
alter the frequency more often (e.g. a thermostat or something).

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f_allwein
Rather than each individual company cobbling together systems like this with
massive security/ privacy/ ... issues, it might be better to establish an
Internet of Things operating system, no? That way, some common standards could
be established and one company/ organisation would be in charge of patching
things.

~~~
pjc50
> _one company / organisation would be in charge of patching things_

That company would also be the one that gets all the surveillance data and
would be the one that gets to make all of the money.

This is part of the problem of IOT: lock-in is critical to the business model.

~~~
f_allwein
So let's say Amazon comes up with an IoT operating system. Then the question
is: do you want a cat feeder/ home security system/ teleporter that is made by
Amazon, according to their standards of quality and reliability, or one made
by a random company you've never heard of? Then it comes down to privacy and
who gets to use what data. I.e. Amazon would have a motivation to use your
data sparingly (otherwise nobody would use the system). Or it could even be a
freemium model, where you pay in exchange for not giving access to your data.

Many questions to sort out.

~~~
pjc50
Amazon are one of the few companies that could make this work, as an extension
of AWS, and people suspect the 'Dash' button is an initial foray into the
space. However all their Kindle Fire incompatible Android systems haven't
exactly been a roaring success.

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rawTruthHurts
Can't wait to see this happening to a web-connected human baby feeder.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Internet-connected insulin pump.

~~~
pyvpx
the Powers That Be who regulate and approve such medical devices would surely
have one or two things to say about a device whose functionality is
_dependent_ on connectivity to the internet.

~~~
Brakenshire
Thank god for strong regulation of medical devices.

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JustSomeNobody
Why does this have to be web enabled!?

If it has enough power to connect to the web, it should have enough power to
"serve" up it's own web form so that you can adjust the schedule. Why does
_everything_ have to go back to someone _else's_ computer!?

Edit: Well at least we know who NOT to hire, they conveniently supplied
photos! [http://www.petnet.io/about](http://www.petnet.io/about)

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RankingMember
According to their Twitter, they're working on a firmware update to eliminate
the reliance on network connectivity for scheduled feedings.

[https://twitter.com/petnetiosupport/status/75838081375903334...](https://twitter.com/petnetiosupport/status/758380813759033344)

It's still pretty ridiculous that this kind of logic made it into a product
that is relied upon for feeding.

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jkot
For that price I would expect build-in battery as a backup for main power
supply. This thing does not even work without internet.

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ourmandave
Obvious Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat metaphor is obvious.

