

Ninja Blocks – What’s been happening, what’s happening next - bentoner
https://discuss.ninjablocks.com/t/ninja-blocks-whats-been-happening-whats-happening-next/3608

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amirmc
Although this is a shame it is yet another sign (for me) that the 'Internet of
Things' is going to be DoA if we have to _also_ rely on them for a backend
cloud service. Most of these devices could be run in a completely
decentralised way, such that if the company goes under, your device is hardly
affected. e.g. I don't expect my light switches to stop working if the parent
company gets acquired or shuts down.

There are real challenges to making distributed systems easier to build but
I'm working with others on that c.f [http://nymote.org](http://nymote.org) and
[http://openmirage.org](http://openmirage.org).

~~~
jimmcslim
Completely agree. But of course using a cloud service means no need to run a
server on your own network/device or have to punch holes in your router to
have the device accessible whilst you are not at home. Requiring either of
those wouldn't help IoT adoption outside of enthusiasts.

~~~
amirmc
If you could give everyone their own 'personal cloud', without having them
become sysadmins, then it's possible (of course, that's not easy but it's also
why it's a valuable goal). The work under Nymote has a longer term vision so
not ready to help people just yet -- some more detail at
[http://nymote.org/blog/2015/brewing-miso-to-serve-
nymote/](http://nymote.org/blog/2015/brewing-miso-to-serve-nymote/)

In this instance, I bet sandstorm.io could come up with a transition for Ninja
Blocks users. I hope they think about it.

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ChikkaChiChi
Ninja Blocks just became the poster child for cloud based hardware failures.

The product never "needed" to be cloud-based. The dashboard could have lived
on the Beaglebone Black inside the main unit and from there it could have
allowed us to hook it into IFTTT, Pushbullet, etc. without the need for Ninja
Blocks to still be a part of it.

These sort of failures make the larger corporate offerings look even more
sweet, and that is a terrifyingly dangerous prospect. The company might not go
away, but the data they will collect on you will probably blow your hair back.

IoT needs an open source solution, and fast.

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exodust
One thing I feel the NB never quite achieved was "state". It sort of worked,
but sometimes not the way expected. It turns out that "state" \- like a door
open or closed, is not easy to keep track of reliably. Caution is needed for
anything else in the chain eg "if door open for longer than 30 sec, sound
alarm".

In the end, nothing beats a physical switch on the door (wireless battery
operated), with hardware on/off states. Then the door can't be mistaken ever
as open or closed due to mis-matches in sending the state, or whatever other
interference cause the "door open" state to get out of sync. If Ninja Blocks
had made their own special little purpose-built wireless sensors and switches
rather than use aftermarket, then things like state could have been sorted out
early on IMHO.

The supplied door switch for example that came with the NB, triggered the same
thing whenever the pin was moved in or out. The switch had no concept of open
or closed or on/off, it just blurted the same signal each time it was
triggered. Attempting to build "state" from such trigger data is never going
to be reliable.

Knowing _without doubt_ that your garage door is open or closed when looking
at the app on your phone, is not something you want your security device to be
wishy-washy about. You want the truth. Ninja Blocks (in combo with the basic
remote sensors) simply couldn't give you the truth, it could only give you a
"pretty sure, quite likely, almost certainly the door is closed". This isn't
good enough for security.

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DiabloD3
This sucks. I wanted to buy one because it seemed to do what I want, but I
guess they have decided that its better to go under than sell me one.

All I was waiting for was better support for existing services and devices.

Anyone behind YC want to go buy them to keep them alive? Its a massive waste
to let the company go under when they have customers wanting to buy their
product.

~~~
jcoffland
Unless that product cannot be produced for much less than the price those
customers are willing to pay for it.

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uptown
If the Ninja Blocks guys are reading this, you should remove the "Buy" buttons
from your site.

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erbdex
They are a great source of inspiration to me. This comes as a shock.

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omegote
The bubble is coming.

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jcoffland
This reads like an onion article. This material is ripe for an episode of
Silicon Valley.

~~~
dang
What a mean thing to say about a shutdown post. Kicking people when they're
down is not ok.

Please don't post mean comments to Hacker News.

~~~
jcoffland
And you think it's perfectly ok for a company to say, "hey sorry guys we wont
be delivering what we promised you because we made bad decisions and spent all
your money." Sure companies fail but this is ridiculous. A typical example of
a heavily promoted company riding a wave of hype in to the gutter. I'm sure
it's hard for the guys who built this company but they should be ashamed of
not delivering what they promised 300 of their customers. I found their post
rather cavalier and deserving of some kicking.

I'm not saying HN should be a place of ruthless criticism and shnarky comments
but I'm also not in the camp that thinks it should all be cuddling and cooing
either.

~~~
dang
> And you think it's perfectly ok

No; more than one thing is not ok.

HN's values aren't "cooey and cuddly", they're "civil and substantive". That
leaves plenty of room for criticism, so I'm not really seeing the worry here.

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hitlin37
so, snappy core didn't see the day?

