
GE accidentally makes the case for not owning smart GE bulbs - aaronbrethorst
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/20/18692583/c-by-ge-reset-insanity-internet-of-shit
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petee
I can't believe this is a thing that passed any internal approval...what an
infuriating process. I'm curious how the cost of consumer education and
returned-assumed-broken-products compare to just adding a damn reset button

Some youtube comments suggest this is intentional to make consumers buy a new
bulb instead of suffering the procedure. If that were the case though, they
wouldn't have bothered with a reset at all, just toss it like any other blub,
and save on making help videos.

Other comments theorize was an internal-only process that was forced to be
public because some later discovered bug; I disagree though, as two
generations of bulbs use different versions of the timing (another, "whyyy??")

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2rsf
Have you tried to reset a Philips Hue switch? it does have a reset button but
also requires precise timing to get it to the correct state.

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Piskvorrr
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start? This IoT is
growing into a parody of itself, without ever having worked.

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kstenerud
It seems odd that they need to have a signal to unilaterally reset the device,
when all you really need is a signal to push it back into a "receptive" state,
where it will accept commands such as "reset firmware" from any control hub
that connects to it.

Then, all you need to do is use a signal such as "on-off a bunch of times", at
which point it goes into receptive state for, say, 30 seconds, then returns to
normal operations if nothing sends it a command.

Now, if your kids decide to flip the switch on and off a bunch, all you have
is a 30 second window where normal commands don't work, after which everything
goes back to normal with no real harm done.

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Nasrudith
I think the issue is that sort of behavior requires coherence it may not have
and can fail if say its stacks are stuck in infinite loops. That approach
seems a bit more like a "launch options" than a "reset" function.

A reset signal on the chip level essentially needs to takes priority over all
other processes - since if they aren't responding to requests from entering
undefined behavior it will never hand over. Then once reset is achieved it
restores it to a base state - implying either a default state like say all 0s
or all 1s works without any logic (probably not for internet of things) or it
loads over a default state from a ROM.

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kstenerud
The way I see it, if they're able to trigger a reset routine from a series of
on-off signals, they can trigger any code path from it.

A base configuration wipe or code overwrite could just as easily be a call to
a separate code process/stack that runs completely isolated from all
configuration values and supports the primitive commands that you'd need
anyway to configure the device to a deterministic state for your use case, or
update the firmware, etc. If you're able to configure the device in the first
place, you're able to trigger it again since nothing on that code path ever
changes, has persistent state, or reads configuration values.

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PascLeRasc
Maybe this isn't the right thread for this, but it really bothers me what home
IoT has become. The "connected home" should be designed solely for people with
disabilities who can't see a thermostat or don't have motor control to work a
lightswitch, and if it happens to be cool and trendy, that's a bonus. Instead
it's this convoluted mess of many walled gardens for software engineers who
don't get their fill of technology at work and want to keep working at home.
Smart versions of fridges and TVs are objectively worse than non-smart, just a
ploy to collect and sell data. They require tons of work to maintain and
become disposable when the company moves onto a new line.

Thankfully I'm not handicapped and can use non-smart appliances, but it'd feel
pretty bad to not be able to and have this kind of ecosystem as the solution.

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neetdeth
Coincidentally, I just had to do the same procedure for a LIFX BR30 smart bulb
this morning. To be fair, I doubt the timing is actually that critical, and
it's more easily summarized as "turn it on and off five times." Not the worst
thing ever.

However, that was just to get started. WiFi setup from iOS failed with an
"unknown error" multiple times. So I had to wait 20 (!) minutes for it to fall
back to the old style open-AP type configuration, open the app, manually enter
my SSID and passphrase...

I bought this one bulb as a curiosity, not expecting to be impressed, but
honestly wasn't expecting to find an implementation as botched as this. The
day/night cycle feature seems cool until it randomly stops working. The app
often can't seem to figure out if the bulb is on the network or not.

Did I choose a lemon or is this par for the industry?

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pornel
It's an error recovery procedure, not something you usually need to do, so
it's not important to make it quick an easy. It could be a couple steps fewer
with shorter delays, but in general it's not a big deal.

What is important is that it shouldn't reset by accident, even if you have
kids fascinated by light switches.

Using power on/off instead of a reset button on the bulb allows resetting of
bulbs installed in hard to reach places.

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vbuwivbiu
why not a tiny recessed button you push with an inserted paperclip ?

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sslayer
Inevitably someone would electrocute themselves while trying to reset it while
still in a socket.

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vbuwivbiu
button is on the side and inaccessible while bulb is in socket

