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Cake day: March 25th, 2024

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  • Moto Watch 100

    I was willing to put up with a lot of sacrifices for a $100 smartwatch but I was not expecting the level of trash I received. Unappealing and cheap looking silver colored case, typos in menus, and navigating the painfully underperformant UI made me immediately regret my purchase. There were many other issues I’ve since pushed out of my memory. I packed it up for a return within 24 hours.

    The ONLY positive was supposedly the battery lasted weeks but I didn’t want to use the damn thing for more than 5 minutes.










  • This is a bad take. Software updates that fix life threatening defects are as serious as any recall.

    Rereading the original comment, I didn’t get the implication they were trying to say a software update “recall” is less serious. The word “recall” literally means “to bring back.” So fundamentally, calling a software update a “recall” doesn’t make sense because you aren’t bringing your car anywhere.

    As a car owner, now when you hear your car has a recall you have to find out if you need to take it into a service center or just update it at home. It would be better if these software recalls went by some different, new name that immediately conveyed what you need to do.


  • I don’t think anyone will disagree with you about unsupervised OTA updates.

    To your first point- I agree that any update that changes the behavior of any fundamental system in a car is pretty reckless. Especially ones that increase a car’s acceleration, which Tesla historically does. I don’t know why those sorts of updates aren’t being regulated harder. OTA updates should be for mundane things like infotainment updates or, in more serious cases, to fix systems that aren’t functioning properly. It shouldn’t otherwise be used to alter how the car functions as a car, especially when these updates largely happen silently or the changes are tucked into some changelog that the owner doesn’t have to read.

    However, to your second point, cars are smart now and there’s no going back. So cars do need software updates to close attack vectors.


  • Or worse comes to worse you can take it to a mechanic of your choosing.

    That’s also what I meant when I said “taking it in.” In either case you’re taking your car somewhere to get it repaired for X hours instead of applying an update at your home.

    A Tesla battery is expensive…now look at install costs. And if you’re not using an authorized installer, you’re locked out of the supercharger network.

    We aren’t talking about batteries.

    I just think there’s more nuance to the situation and saying that cars should be as inconvenient as possible to fix isn’t a good solution to lazy auto software that requires future patching. Rigorous safety testing and regulation around car software sounds like a better plan to me- automakers will be held to really high standards and the consumers will still benefit from simple OTA patches to fix their vehicles when necessary.