Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tomxor | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> Proprietary cassettes for dishwashing machines? That's next level.

Although it is proprietary, to be fair on two points: there wasn't really any "DRM", it was literally just a one byte counter on an EEPROM so that a cartridge could digitally record the number of washes remaining, and the machine made no attempt to prevent this being changed. The manufacturer also did not prohibit the cartridges from being refilled by owners, this is in stark contrast to printer manufacturers.

I agree they could have done way more to make it easy for users to refill, although it's not prohibited it's completely impractical without some EE knowledge, and as the author says sending cartridges around the world is not a very efficient way of getting detergent back into these things. To be honest a better design would be no cartridges and a couple of reservoirs with level sensors (As you essentially suggested regarding measuring detergent level), since the machine already seems to be capable of pumping an accurate amount of liquid out of the cartridges they wouldn't even need to measure, just fill... I suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design where users have to do the least possible work, as it is more of a luxury product than a utility.

I'm not entirely convinced they are trying to make a serious margin on the cartridges, they work out about 3x the cost of the most expensive dishwasher tablet, but they have to send the thing back to france to be reprocessed and programmed... probably not at a scale to be very cost effective.

I do love the article though, it's great to be able to hack on stuff like this when the manufacturer made poor decisions.

Is is exactly DRM: it's a digital method intended to restrict the user from undesirable usage (from the manufacturer's point of view).

Early restrictions on printer cartridges in the 1990s were simple: they could be bypassed with a bit of tape, or pressing a combination of buttons on the printer. Later, the chips could be reset, probably in a way similar to this. Now, there are encryption keys etc.

> suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design

That is naïve.

>> suspect the reason they didn't do this was for a more "consumer friendly" design

> That is naïve.

We are supposed to avoid this kind of retort on HN, but I'll try to read underneath the surface.

I am more likely than most to infer exploitative and manipulative intent behind the choices of large corporations. However I am also very much a realist.

Consider that this company (whom I never herd of before this post) is not some multinational behemoth like Samsung. This product is coming from a very new, small manufacturer of luxury, miniature home appliances in France (so far a manufacturer of 1 appliance it seems). Given their niche target market, it seems far more likely to me that their choice to use cartridges is an attempt to fit that market, than an attempt to milk people for huge margins at scale on a consumable. Yes it's far from economical, but nether is their product.

I may be wrong, but I am not naive.

The cartridge system certainly doesn't seem inconvenient, but given that they designed the system to hold at least 2-3L of water in a user refillable compartment, it slightly baffles the mind that holding 130mL of detergent and 35mL of rinse aid in a similar fashion was deemed impossible (or impractical).

From manufacturer's perspective, to make a user-refillable detergent/rinse container is against own interests all round:

- Give up on additional revenue;

- Costly to make machine more robust/tolerant to variations in composition/pH/viscosity/etc. of 3rd-party detergent;

- No good way to enforce rinse/calcite removal inside machine - without DRM, user can just pour water as "rinse" liquid, and then lie when RMAing the washer that eventually clogged up and broke.

Have you ever noticed at the pump that the nozzle for diesel doesn't fit in your car if it uses a gasoline engine? Try it some time. This is to prevent people who aren't paying enough attention from ruining their day by putting diesel in their car. It would be trivial to sell large commerical-grade detergent containers with similar protections to provide an affordable, fool-proof mechanism to refill their own cannisters. The best thing about this approach is that you could still provide the subscription based model to anyone who truly values the model (instead of being simply forced to use that model due to lack of a suitable alternative), giving your customers the best of all worlds. Obviously, that doesn't quite rake in the money the way that the "razor and blades" approach to gouging your customers in the name of convenience does.

Obviously anything that means you rake in less money is against the short-term interests of the sales department, but not necessarily the long-term interests of the company.

> This is to prevent people who aren't paying enough attention from ruining their day by putting diesel in their car.

FWIW this also protects against ignorant drivers who through no fault of their own have never filled up gas. Many countries are full service, as I believe are some US states?

Beats me why filling up gas is made out to be such a difficult task...

Per TFA:

>Credit where credit's due, Daan Tech didn't completely lock down the machine with Bob cassettes. Once empty, you can leave it there and add detergents manually.

If that was the true concern they'd have locked that up as well. They want you to pay for convenience, not for the warranty's sake.

I think noucermane is correct. Your point that there wasn't any software DRM does not mean that they did not intend it as DRM. I expect that they did a cost benefit analysis of additional electronics for SW DRM vs revenue lost due to hackers like this one for this version of their product, and found the tradeoff acceptable. This does not mean that if this hack became easily available and widely used, that they would not implement SW DRM on a later revision. Who knows, maybe the current version is already ready for SW DRM, it's just that they haven't felt the need to release the DRM version of the cartridge yet.

Given that they went out of their way to build an auto-renewal system in the device (a pretty sophisticated endeavor for a kitchen appliance manufacturer) it seems blatantly obvious that this lock-in was meant to prevent refills. Otherwise why not offer a manual override?

I have air filters that notify you when the filters should be checked or changed, I have coffee machines that tell you when you should descale them but they all let you override or ignore the issue if you so desire. And they're a lot less sophisticated than this device.

I'm not a fan of ad-hominem but I do agree with Symbiote that your take in a bit naive. You don't need to be a behemoth to embrace a crappy business model. Remember Juicero?

> You don't need to be a behemoth to embrace a crappy business model.

It's also the almost cliche case study in undergraduate business school. Known as the "Kodak" model or the "Gillette" model: "Give away the camera, sell the film" or "Give away the shaver, sell the blades" and while it's not an exact fit (I doubt they're selling the washer at cost) it's in the same vein.

I think investors are looking for the next Keurig. Sustainability be damned.

Look at the lengths Juicero went to create a subscription model for juice. Clearly there is a desire for that business model to be applied more broadly than just inkjet printers.

Absent any indications to the contrary, my default assumption is that we're seeing the same business model applied here.

I personally do think it their actions are deliberately exploitative. I don't inherently have a problem with offering users a 'more convenient' experience for a higher price, but there's absolutely no reason they couldn't sell their prefilled cartridges and also offer a refillable cartridge with a reset button, which can still tell you how many washes it has left. They also could absolutely sell the detergent directly to consumers, rather than implying it's some kind of secret sauce. Ultimately, this would cost almost nothing to engineer, and you wouldn't have to change the machine at all.

Their deceit is made more egregious by their supposed care for the environment.

I'd be interested in seeing the company's pitch deck. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the word "subscription" somewhere in their list of what makes them different from the competition.

> Is is exactly DRM: it's a digital method intended to restrict the user from undesirable usage (from the manufacturer's point of view).

Bollocks. DRM would have been to digitally sign the EEPROM.

I have beginner-level lockpicking skills. I can rake open the door locks from companies like Schlage and Kwikset used on most houses in the US in a few seconds. That they're easily defeated by someone with basic knowledge of tools for manipulating them does not mean they aren't locks.

This DRM will prevent the average consumer from refilling the cartridges even if it's easily defeated by those with a working knowledge of embedded electronics.

> I have beginner-level lockpicking skills.

Pretty irrelevant "argumentum ad verecundiam", but for the sake of argument, you are not "average" anymore. Being able to pick Schlage and Kwikset already puts you in the probably 0.1%.

Anyhow, back on track, the average customer does not refill their cartridges. I doubt the idea of doing so has even sparked in their head. (and yes, the average consumer is dumb).

> the average customer does not refill their cartridges

Yes, and this is why this rudimentary hardware DRM is sufficient for the current market. If the marketplace changes and the hack becomes easily attainable and widely used, SW DRM may emerge.

> Being able to pick Schlage and Kwikset already puts you in the probably 0.1%.

What percentage of the general population knows how to dump an I2C EEPROM, do some reverse engineering to find the counter, and update the counter value? It seems easy to us because we're on HN, and many of us are EEs or other embedded systems people, but it's pretty specialized knowledge in the population at large.

This is absolutely DRM. Not effective DRM when squared off against an embedded systems engineer, but DRM nonetheless. Yes, they could have used a hardened encrypted EEPROM specifically built for these kinds of applications (for example, the ATSHA204A from Atmel/Microchip), but that would have cost more and in applications like this COGS for the disposable element is king. They probably assumed that a simple unencrypted I2C EEPROM would be good enough, and quite honestly they're probably right: unless somebody goes and starts selling a little dongle to reset these cartridges to consumers, it's only going to be a handful of technically-inclined power users resetting them.

You're right for the wrong reasons. DRM doesn't have to involve encryption; but it does have to involve copyright.

A right-click blocker script or those domain locks on old Flash games is a form of DRM as long as it keeps you from copying something. Doesn't have to be elaborate, doesn't have to involve crypto. It just has to have the effect of stopping you from copying something that copyright law protects. Once you have that, then it's unlawful to remove the DRM unless it's for a lawful purpose; and it's unlawful to tell anyone how to remove it for any purpose.

I'm confused. Yes, normal consumers can probably figure out how to put detergent and rinse liquid in. But what percentage of customers is going to be able to overwrite an i2c EEPROM? It is DRM for almost everyone.

Printer cartridges used to be easier to fill, too. Give them time.

You might be right, time will tell. Or they might never develove into that position due to slightly better consumer protection laws since the HP thing.

My new printer has ink tanks that I can put any type ink into. No cartridges.

Which printer is that?

The one Shaq is hawking.

Epson ecotank. Other manufactures have tank inkjets as well to be more eco friendly and economical.

HP also has one. It's more expensive than normal ones, so it doesn't smell like razor-cartridge business model.

I'd happily buy one of these but, my current one runs like a champ and it's ink-advantage model, so it's really cheap to run.

Lasers are better if you don't print that often. I got one ten years ago and I'm still on the starter toner!

I have both laser and inkjet printers. Inkjet is for color, photos, and its scanning capabilities. Got a laser for printing papers during master and Ph.D.

Mine has split drum and toner. Its life is very long, but I need to find a new drum for it soonish, and it's a bit hard to find. Also Samsung's transfer to HP isn't helping.

Don't want to throw it away because it's a small business printer and a flawless machine from my point of view.

I have a laser for b/w. It’s a entry level brother printer. The toner cartridges they come with are only partially filled and replacements are expensive. My starting toner cartridge died after a couple reams of paper. Nice thing of about laser is the toner doesn’t dry up like inkjets but they also moved toward razor handle and blade model.

Some home lasers have this problem unfortunately. I think I learnt my lesson and started to buy home office equipment.

They're more serviceable, longer lasting and they're generally faster and higher quality overall. When used in light duty, they run as long as you can find refills for it.

I always buy original refills BTW. Yes, they're expensive but, they last for a long time and I sleep better at night.

I've got one of those entry level Brother laser printers. If you don't mind voiding your warranty, you can buy third party refilled cartridges for less than $20 on Amazon. They work just as well as the OEM ones.

On the other hand, one could argue that if the dishwasher manufacturer's intention was indeed to prevent user refills, they would have known to already implement their own strict "DRM-style" technological limitations, drawing from the history of printer cartridges. The fact that they haven't may well be a sign of good faith.

A small bit of trivia:

In the days of HP Deskjet 500C/510/550C trio, HP sold official black cartridge refill kits. It was a bit clunky, but you inserted your cartridge to a contraption, pulled some levers in order presented on the device and you'd have an officially refilled cartridge.

The black cartridges on these printers were transparent, held really liquid ink to the brim and the refill device had aluminum, HP branded ink bottles. Oh, the cartridges had air-pillows inside to maintain a positive pressure at all times.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com