The company that owns Juicebox is quitting the US market and removing all its apps and software updates.
Internet connected devices are a mistake. Not only is there non-existent security updates for the device, it means there is a timer on the life of the functions of the device. If a device cannot function offline, you will have a gimped (or completely dead) product soon.
functions like scheduling a charge will no longer work
Case and point. Why did the device ever need the internet to run a clock? It didn’t, but because it was ‘smart’, now it can’t operate a basic time function.
Case in point
Bone apple tea
This is why I prefer “smart” controls for dumb things. If the control gets bricked I can replace it or the thing will still work without it.
They say the home chargers will still work. It’s just the commercial chargers that won’t.
It’s all relative. My cheap Chinese spyware SmartLife devices are free to report the hours I turn my lights on back to China as they please, but they sit on a segmented VLAN with per client isolation.
If they ever EOL’d them, I’ve got more than my money’s worth, and yes, some of them can be flashed, but I’d probably just buy another well established cheap Chinese competitor.
But I agree, the above is not the use case and situation for every IoT device out there, and there are plenty of devices that I would never consider an internet/SaaS dependent version of e.g. medium to large home appliances.
Slight correction, internet connected devices without an open firmware are a misstake.
‘Eh, I’d have to argue that even open firmware devices are a mistake unless they’re really standardized and extremely popular, which aren’t things you can necessarily know when its early in its life cycle.
Open source things either get a cult following, or get that one lone dev that thanklessly keeps it going and then decides to give up and become a sheep farmer… or both.
Also the internet is the primary attack vector for most devices. I don’t have to worry about someone hacking my devices that just do their job and don’t have internet connectivity.
That being said though, the internet-based devices in the article are simply becoming non-internet-based devices, so my suggestion is kinda a moot point.
This (and 2 broken EVSEs) are why I bought an OpenEVSE 4 years ago. Zero problems since.
Thanks for mentioning OpenEVSE (https://www.openevse.com/) I’m going to keep them in mind against future need.
I have a charger by Webasto. It has a jankety app, and way more bells and whistles than I need. Tho’ I do appreciate the 48amp rating. I chose that one because my neighbor suggested it. Turned out to not have the rebate available as our power company is rather restrictive in their choice of chargers to support. Have seen JuiceBox chargers while on drives around my state.
our power company is rather restrictive in their choice of chargers to support.
Most of them want you to give them control over your charger so they can load-balance. Much like they do with your thermostats. OpenEVSE supports this via EmonCMS, I believe? I dunno, mine stopped getting software updates a long time ago.
Thank you for posting about OpenEVSE. I’m in the market for an EVSE and was not aware of this option. Did you buy a product or a DIY kit?
I just bought the assembled kit.
I got the assembled kit 4 years ago. I highly recommend them.
So there will be at least a partial refund right? Of course not.
This is like selling someone a birthday cake and after they have a few slices you scrape of the remaining frosting and suck out the moisture.
IMO juicebox should be responsible for 25-50% refunds for taking away the web features, depending on how much more it cost than similar products without the features. The charger it self still work, so I don’t think a 100% refund should be required.
Alternatively, they can (preferably) release the software under an open source license or sell the service to another company who is forced to match whatever the subscription cost is for at least 7 years.
Edit: I just read a comment on the article, I take back what I said, 100% refund + plus cost for an elecrrition to rip this shit out peoples homes.
your charger can potentially deliver more power than the branch circuit to which it is attached (i.e. if you have a 48 amp charger on a 40 amp circuit) you need to use the software to derate the charger so that it limits charging to an amount valid for your circuit.
That should not be a software switch…
I think a lot of us saw this coming for a while based on how they were treating the “smart” functionality and apps in general. A year or couple years ago they switched the app software and a bunch of functionality you had access to went away (scheduling, some metrics, etc). As long as I can plug the thing in and it charges, I’ll be okay but still…
loss of features when the company can no longer support them, are a feature, not a bug /s
Consider switching to OpenEVSE :)
I second this! I have had mine for 4 years. It’s so nice having the ability to swap parts if anything fails. The brains can be swapped out as needed like if someone creates a new controller like one with Ethernet. I just noticed they released an upgraded screen. My wife is gonna hate me if I upgrade the screen. 😁 It integrated with home assistant too with the HACS package from firstofnine.
Too bad, I kinda dig the name and the asthetic.
Oh. The campus I teach uses juice box. I wonder what’ll happen to them.
Now I understand why parents give their toddlers juice boxes to calm them down.
