This gets posted occasionally and while I agree, the subscription for an airbag is one of the dumbest things ever, it's not the only way to buy the thing.

It's available as a one-time purchase instead, which obviously is what everyone here would choose, but it's a fairly high price, and their argument for offering a subscription model is that they want the price barrier for safety equipment to be lower. There are other ways to do it, but the option of a subscription is fine IMO as long as the one time purchase remains as well.

[–] hexortor@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for the context but

I feel like price for the one time purchase is set deliberately high because they want people to actually pay for the subscription instead. If their goal really was to make their products more accessible, just allow people to pay in installments and take some recurring interest fees for the financing.

And, in any case, the product should work no matter whether I'm late with the monthly fee or not. That's just bullshit.

[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Also, do you need a persistent internet connection at all times so it can check if you're subscribed at any moment it may need to in case of a crash? In a fast-moving vehicle? What an awful idea.

[–] KISSmyOS@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

It checks status when you switch it on before your ride, and warns you with LEDs if it can't activate.
It won't ever switch off during your ride unless it runs out of battery.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why would you want computerized airbags? I don't trust the software to not have bugs

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Uhhh... Every single airbag is computerized. There is always some software involved in the evaluation of the acceleration data.

And noone trusts the software to not have bugs. That's why testing exists on many development levels.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Accelerometer -> Big acceleration -> software(is acceleration >threshold: toggle airbag) is a much easier and reliabel process than:

Accelerometer -> Big acceleration -> software(is there an internet connection? is the subscription verified? is acceleration > threshold: toggle airbag)

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes. Which is why the latter is not happening.

I'm not defending the subscription model, but that check is very obviously not done during the crash, but during startup, when a couple of seconds delay is not fatal. And if it fails I assume the entire thing just turns off completely.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So you stop for gas in the middle of fucking nowhere, the vest doesn't get an internet conenction for veryfying your subscription and you are fucked, even as a paying customer.

It still boils down to a complex and much easier failing system, that could deny you critical safety features. I mean this also adds an entirely new dimension of hackability. Someone could hack into the server for the subcription verification and deliberately mess it up, or depending how poorly it is coded, could even access the vests of customers during their ride and disable them.

The system to trigger the airbag should never ever have a remote connection of any sort.

[–] KISSmyOS@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Once it's activated, it won't turn off for any reason, except if you turn it off or it runs out of battery.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

So you could turn it off by accident, or it runs out of battery, or you stay the night somewhere on a longer road trip and it fails to reactivate in the morning because lack of internet connection. The issue still stands that there is another layer of failure that can also deny the product to paying customers for infrastructure problems that are out of their control.

[–] tryptaminev@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

That is bullshit. If they want to lower the price by renting it out, they could perfectly well licencese local dealers to rent it out, who can go after the customer in the same way, like they could for people who rented vehicles and didnt pay/return them.

The subscription based model instead proves that the production costs cannot be that high, that in case of a run out subscription, they'd rather lose the product.

Also the development costs of the subscription and the technical equipment to validate subscriptions, including running the servers etc. are a significant cost factor, without which they could lower the price of the product.