Home Depot is introducing power tools that won’t work if they’re stolen

My dad ate lots of guava fruit in his childhood in his native country. He buys a few whenever the local grocers have them in stock. About half the time, the cashier keys them in as limes (about 1/3rd the price) and he doesn't realize until he's home and reads the receipt.

I had a similar experience. I had to ask the self-checkout store clerk whether each banana was $0.25 or if it was all the bananas. They told me it was $0.25 per banana.

If their labeling is confusing or misleading, that's their fault.

I think there may be a labelling law that covers that. I believe that they label on any package has to be an accurate reflection of the package's price. Things like meat that are prepackaged but sold by weight have to be individually labelled/priced on the shelf. Each jurisdiction will have its own rules but they all came from a time in the 1950s when evil supermarkets were attempting to hide higher prices on groceries knowing that few people would check their receipts against the shelf prices.

https://www.nist.gov/system/files/documents/2017/04/28/US-Pr...

Arizona:

F. Except as otherwise provided in this chapter or by rules adopted pursuant to this chapter, any package kept for the purpose of sale or offered or exposed for sale shall bear on the outside of the package a definite, plain and conspicuous declaration of: 4. The price, except as provided in subsections K and L.

DC:

(6) DISPLAY AND ADVERTISING OF CONSUMER COMMODITY UNIT PRICES.--A seller shall conspicuously and clearly display the price per package or unit and the unit price in close proximity to the display of the commodity

That's the trade off of self checkout scales that try to match what you're buying compared to those that don't seem to care at all. At some stores, it's overly sensitive, and you constantly need attention to get past the system thinking you're trying to steal, and even adding a paper bag is enough to cause problems. At other it doesn't seem like it cares at all, and two items can be on at the same time without it noticing. Maybe they track it all and just review cameras later?

Produce charged by the item is probably hard to account for, but three times the normal weight seems like something that might be safe to trigger on.

Been many years now. SOL lapsed long ago. I'm free and clear.

Your ideas of morality are interesting for want of a better word.

I grab one of the buckets and use it as a shopping cart, even if I'm only getting a few nuts and bolts like that, just so I don't accidentally lose one in a pocket.

Of course, that backfired once when I got home and realized I hadn't paid for the bucket.

I used to ride motorcycles, sportbikes. I was in a pharmacy once carrying my helmet via the chin strap. Rather than a bag or cart I was putting things into the helmet as if it were a basket. Store security noticed and confronted me in the aisle. They were friendly enough.

It was self checkout and OP selected the wrong SKU at checkout.

The stealing part didn't happen until later when OP realized his mistake and intentionally chose never to correct it

A Danish supermarket chain got all pissy about how you where stealing from them and you’d get reported to the police if you kept the money when their staff gave you the wrong change. It last until customers pointed out that their recipts where wrong in something like 80 - 90% of the time, in the stores favor and they’d now start filling police reports rather than just asking the staff to correct the error.

Would you consider it not stealing if it had been the cashier who rang him up?

What if he didn't notice it at all? Is he still "guilty" for the theft, such that it would be fair for police to show up at his doorstep and arrest him if the store detected it and correlated it to this credit card? Is it fair for him to be put in county jail for six months, which is a possible consequence for petty theft?

They don't?

https://www.homedepot.com/b/Hide-Unavailable-Products/N-5yc1...

"The company always wins."

You're replying to a story where the company lost.

There's a ton of consumer protection laws. I agree companies might have the upper hand, but I think consumers have a lot of recourse here in the US. There's tons of laws, the ability to do chargebacks, etc.

I've had this happen with a blender at a Target, and a Christmas tree at a Walmart. The cashiers were very much doing it intentionally. That's what happens when you pay people minimum wage!

Why would one want an empty one?

Crimes (theft, drug seizures, whatever) usually reported in largest possible numbers. So likely retail

The power tool market is likely more responsive than your average supplier.

They sell a huge volume through a limited number of retailers (Home Depot & Lowes), and there are a limited number of manufacturers [0].

So if retail says there's a problem, it becomes a problem for them.

The other side of this is professional customers, who will probably use the same technology. A tool that doesn't work if it's stolen off a job site is a big value add to professional contractors.

[0] https://pressurewashr.com/tool-industry-behemoths/

My grocery store has an app that lets me scan as I go through the store, then just pay in about 10 seconds at the self-checkout. I'd love to know what that has done to shrink numbers.

My local Costco has finally added self-checkout registers. I noticed that the receipt is a different color than the ones you would normally get if you went to a cashier. I assume the exit people who check your receipt look more closely when it's a self-checkout one.

I'd expect pretty much any move to make the customers do work that paid employees used to, increases customer theft (which, as noted elsewhere in this thread, is far from the only threat—employees, including managers and security, steal lots).

I mean, consider a classic old-school store (talking pre-supermarkets and pre-big-box stores) where a clerk would fetch what you wanted. Much harder to steal there. Save money by not paying enough clerks to handle that and making customers pick out their own stuff, and now customers can/do steal more.

Same with stuff like self-checkout, I'd expect. Might also increase the rate of honest mistakes resulting in accidental theft, though I've seen so damn many of those errors from paid clerks that I wouldn't bet on it.

I’ve spent a lot of time at Bay Area Home Depots, and I’ve only seen blatant theft once, and the security guards did attempt to intervene.

What is the support for your statement?

Also “the DA” is a ton of different people throughout the Bay Area, and the DA that everybody complains about has exactly 0 HDs in his jurisdiction.

This is mostly bullshit. Crime rates in California and SF are comparable to the rest of the country. However there seems to be a concerted effort to push back on any reductions in moronic "tough on crime" policies from the 80s and 90s. Thefts under $1k should be a misdemeanor. How the hell were they ever a felony? In Canada theft under $5k is punishable by a maximum of 2 years in jail (with most people getting a lot less) and retailers seem to be doing ok.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/14/bogus-bac...

Edit: The media seems to be in a real crime frenzy right now. Exhibit A is this bullshit graph that swaps the x axis to make it look like crime is rising: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/24/cnn-chart-crime

I've heard of the Walgreens issues, the topic, and am not doubting you -- however, i'm curious what is stopping more widespread theft. Given the no-prosecution stance, I can even imagine theft-tourism where people come from other cities and states to steal. Recalling NYC in the 1980s, people would even reach arms through and under metal hoods to steal, I could only imagine what happens if it can be done w/o consequence.

What is preventing that? Is it human good nature or is there some understanding that blatant/planned cases will indeed be pursued?

This sounds more like a tough-on-crime type fever dream than a representative reality. How much does this actually happen? Is it more of a harm to society than the harsh sentences people were getting for minor thefts? Civilization is a compromise between conflicting interests.

Nieman Marcus and Home Depot are still making plenty of profit despite this law changing 7 years ago. Is putting someone in prison for 8 years and giving them a permanent black mark that prevents them from voting and harms employment prospects over $200 really worth improving Home Depot's bottom line? That's the real question here.

> Security guards won't intervene

Weird. Makes me wonder why the guards exist.

In a world of small margins, it's just another small advantage that goes to Amazon.

That all assumes that UPS drivers are honest and that Amazon 'fulfillment' employees get their daily cavity search of course.

Returns are a huge source of fraud.

And it's difficult to solve, for the same reasons listed in this article: any solution (e.g. checking items fully) results in a worse customer experience (longer lines and delays).

So, you try and pick a sweet spot along the curve, where you prevent the worst excesses but are still able to keep your (non-thieving) customers happy.

> It’s bad enough for the big box stores, imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment!

I'd guess that small businesses aren't as targeted by organized thieves as "big box" stores are:

1) They're smaller in size which means the likelihood of getting spotted by a staff member during a theft is higher

2) The amount (and diversity) of available goods to steal is lower

3) "Big box" stores don't have people carrying guns, their staff has a "don't intervene, we're insured anyway" policy drilled into them, and this is known. A small shopkeeper however? A thief can't reasonably know if the shop owner has a firearm under their desk or will get confrontational if stopped.

> After the experience repeated itself at a second store, I looked on OfferUp and found the exact chainsaw “new and unopened” at about half the retail price.

The really interesting thing is: why does the police not "follow the money" and take out those advertising likely-stolen tools for sale in the open?

It sounds like that store has deeper problems. They aren't checking thier stock and so do not notice a theft when it happens. That has insurance implications. Also, it suggests inside jobs. If the staff are turning a blind eye to theft, not reporting missing stock, there is a reasonable chance that the staff are involved.

A seriously large amount of the goods on Offerup are stolen. It's insane.

I used to be a state security guard. I was required to go to a security convention once a year.

Everyone of these talks stressed that employee internal theft is bigger than customer theft on the whole.

So managment steals the most, followed by the rest of the employees.

This was in the 90's so things might have changed.

Different entities gave the talks.

I don't doubt that 800k number, but I wouldn't rule out the reoresenative of Milwaukee, or the closing managers, or security guards themselfs.

Everytme I was told about employees theft, they said it's retail security's big secret.

Personally, if they treated employees better, internal theft might come down!

When I go into HD, and am being filmed at least 10-15 times before leaving the store; their us a part of me that feels like not paying for that M8 bolt.

> imagine being a small business trying to survive that environment!

I was just at McLendon's yesterday outside Seattle, and while I was waiting to ask an employee a question, over the PA a came a message like, "need help up front. A couple just left the store with a bunch of stolen merchandise." So the dude bolted for the entrance.

It surprised me that the announcement wasn't coded in some way (eg, "code 9 at checkout").

It made me feel quite sad, as McLendon's is pretty awesome, and I'd hate for them to disappear.

> When I showed up the chainsaw was nowhere to be found, and after looking high and low and triple checking their inventories, the rep said he figured they must have walked.

I've always chalked this up to poor inventory management practices. I've gone to Home Depot for first aid kits, counter tops, smoke alarms, pipe fittings, etc and had the same experience. They show X in stock but none can be found.

We had similar issues when I worked at Office Max in high school, it was usually someone putting overhead stock in the wrong location because they just couldn't be bothered.

The Aurora store is such a blast too, the area is something to witness right around sunset.

I've talked about this with some liquor store owners in SF and also a couple that has a "cute things for your home" store. For small stores it's easier to deal with this because they, let's say, try to proactively stop theft. Big chain stores just usually have some kind of dumb policy to not do anything even though they are legally allowed even in cities like San Francisco that are notoriously anti-big-bussiness in the street. The word spreads around.

For example the spike in theft on Wallgrees in SF did start when they changed their policy about a year ago. Before they changed it I saw the store manager in the Wallgreens on 23rd and Mission literally kick the shit out of people that were trying to walk out with merchandise without paying.

> That one had installed a makeshift rig of steel bars in front of their stock, and a rep had to physically follow me to the register and watch me pay for it.

Had a similar experience recently in a Home Depot when buying a power drill. The rep took the drill and handed it to the cashier and I didn't physically touch it until it was paid for.

How does one rob a chainsaw without anyone noticing?

I hate that noise. Especially since they place them on aisles with expensive items, which are the same aisles I end up spending the most time comparing the different tools. Make me feel like I can't move for fear of being beeped at.

Makes sense that they do it if shop lifting is as big of a problem as this article suggests.

The stores in "bad parts" of town have the cages, and sometimes service to match.

The "good parts" of town - no cages in sight and you can grab what you need.

It's sad.

I wonder at what point the insurance cost starts to outweigh just paying for more staff to provide a higher-touch experience for certain categories.

But then, I get the impression that supermarkets are saving on staff by using self-checkout, at the risk of increased casual theft.

Would be nice to see more jobs rather than more insurance pay-outs though.

The entire store is the warehouse. There’s nowhere for them to put it that’s easily accessible to the staff but not to customers, except maybe in a locked cage on the floor.

You never knew any middle class or upper middle class kids who shoplifted?

This reduces poverty to greed, which is insulting to those in need, rather than helpful or hopeful that there are solutions other than blind levelling.

This. I was excited seeing the headline, but disappointed it only applied to purchasing from Home Depot.

The easiest way would be to implement the smart gun tech for tools. Keep the paired bracelet at the counter, then the user can wear it when using it. If the bracelet isn't in range, then the tool won't work.

I'm guessing people wouldn't be very happy with this user experience though. Cost for biometric implementation would likely be cost prohibitive.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Power tool DRM would, inevitably, be used in an anti-consumer fashion.

The toolmakers have already done this: https://onekeysupport.milwaukeetool.com/en/knowledge/ios-too...

Future Headline "Construction halted across US as hackers prevent power tool usage"

Honest question - where do professional tradesmen buy their tools?

Mechanics (auto, airline) don't normally go to HD or Lowes - they buy from SnapOn, Cromwell, or Mac - all three send salespeople in large box trucks full of tools to work site. And all three offer credit and payment plans. And when tools break, those trucks come by with replacements.

Reading the headline, that's actually what I thought it was going to be.

i wrench in a shop all day long, and let me tell you what works. Pink tools.

My pocket knife is hot pink, my socket wrenches are dipped pink, and most of my powertools have a flair of pink somewhere from a can of Krylon. Pink is natures danger color for the average nail swatter pounding monster energy and fried cake from the 7-11 at 4 AM. my job boxes are covered in unicorn stickers and rainbows.

That's what I thought the title was referring to and my initial thought was it would be brilliant to "lojack" your power tools.

My Makita batteries have an anti-theft feature built-in that offers a way to disable the battery after a certain date or number of hours or days. You have to plug the battery back into a special terminal to "recharge" the day or hour timer or to set a new lockout with a PIN. It comes with warning stickers you can put on your batteries. The system is mostly just meant to prevent workers from borrowing equipment for weekend side jobs or keeping batteries after the job is finished. It doesn't actually stop someone from stealing them (or even the tool the battery goes with) but hopefully they read the sticker and realize that it's not worth stealing what will soon be a worthless battery. I've never used this feature but it's a neat system. Sometimes the tools themselves have anti-theft tags inside that will set off sensors but I don't know if anyone actually uses that outside of the store you bought the tool from.

I was actually relieved to find the opposite, that this only concerns the store until it goes out of the door.

There was a story the other day that Office 2010 was no longer activating in some regions because the activation servers just aren't there anymore. The downside of having an iphone-esque "activation lock" is that you could be left with a 10yo drill that isn't permitted to turn on because the activation servers have been abandoned - and any sensible workaround negates its use as a theft deterrent.

it's not only your opinion, it's an actual fact.

these are called deterrents. same as cctv and other tech. they're not bulletproof, their aim is to make life harder for the perp.

If the alarm goes off just hold up any piece of paper that looks like a receipt and keep walking. That's what I do when I'm not stealing anything at least, but nobody's ever stopped me to find out.

I used to wear a fleece-lined sweatshirt that would set off the sensors at Barnes and Noble every time. I checked all over for the anti-theft sticker and had washed it multiple times but it must have been inside the jacket.

>and they hand it to you

This involves paying someone to be the "they" to hand it to you and companies don't want to pay employees if they can possibly avoid it.

The way you describe and the way this process actually works, in my experience, are two different things.

I'll take the "reason I only buy razor blades online" as an example. I knew my Gillette was really dull and that I'd been out for going on a week, but kept forgetting to pick some up until I stopped at Walgreen's on the way home. I went to the aisle with the blades and was met with a card, instead of a set of blades. I took said card to the register. Walgreens is so slow; I swear the operate on one employee except when the Pharmacy is open. I get to the front, have the card and a now-annoyed cashier.

Three people behind me, she gets on the speaker and calls for assistance, has me step aside and starts ringing up the person behind me. Three people go through the register when Mr. Break comes up to the front to retrieve my item. He grabs the card, looks dubiously at it, says something quiet to the cashier and disappears. Two more customers later, he's back.

"We're out of this one."

"There were several cards there."

"We're supposed to get more in, today."

So I left. About a week later I remembered to order a few hundred dollars' worth online.

In defense of your post, I've seen it work. Except this last holiday season -- mostly due to the restrictions placed on them by the state I live in -- my local Microcenter usually handles this well. If I've happened upon a sales-person, the item I want is taken to the front/locked up before I get there so at least when I'm checking out, I'm not also waiting on someone to find the thing[0].

[0] That ... on one occasion ... ended up being purchased by someone else since I was visiting the store with my boss from out of town and we ended up spending a solid 5 hours there one afternoon.

> As you say they went of on customers all the time, so she or a coworker would be ready with a box chocolates and an apology.

You have been randomly selected to receive a door prize! We just need to confirm your receipt first…

What you're describing sounds awfully familiar, except for the "loot the place", our store was in Madison Heights, MI, which had/has a large Korean population nearby so it wasn't unusual to have days where it felt like we were being "mobbed by non-English speaking Asians[0]", but I'm not aware of that being used as a distraction at the store I worked at in the 90s -- interesting.

Internal fraud was incredible. One day just about the entire warehouse staff and I want to say a third of the floor staff was fired. If memory serves, the warehouse manager discovered that a large number of specialty "Made for Compaq/Dell" RAM by one of the major RAM vendors had its "COST" value set very wrong (to like $5.00 or something like that). The price paid by employees was whatever IMS said "COST" was. So a $350 memory chip could be purchased for $5.00 by an employee. After figuring it out, of course, he shared the knowledge with other members of staff who participated, as well. Dad always said "if it seems too good to be true, it is", so that -- alone -- was enough to keep me from making that mistake.

The other scam I recall them running was taking items home that were supposed to be destroyed per agreement with the manufacturer. It was very strange coming to work one day and finding out about half of the staff I used to work with was let go for fraud...

[0] We had this one local gentleman who was notoriously frustrating to handle. He'd come in with a million questions, spoke very poor English very quickly and became frustrated to the point of yelling, I think, "F** YOU" at me/storming off when I told him I was having a difficult time understanding ... due to an ear ache (didn't even mention said English; I was pretty good at understanding thick accents, normally).

[1] Not as great as it sounds -- I doubt it was "invoice cost", but if it was a PC/laptop/anything terribly expensive, it was frequently higher than the price of the item.

A few years back I purchased a deer rifle from a local sporting goods store and when I got home I realized they had forgotten to remove their trigger lock. It was about a 30min drive back to the store so I just picked the lock and tossed it aside. Naturally, the next day the store calls looking for their lock and they are very adamant I should return their equipment, but they were less inclined to actually drive over to my place and pick it up.

Sure? The problem isn't that security is integrated into the way the store works, the problem is that security is making things harder for the customer. The proposed solution reworks the store, true, but it does so in order to maximize convenience for the customer.

We used to attach the little tags to people's clothing, especially customers who were very difficult[0].

I'm not sure who pointed it out, but we learned that simply pushing on the top of the "tag" would keep it from triggering the alarm. A few years later, the boxes started showing up with the tags on the inside (that was nice; we no longer had to tag those boxes before stocking them).

I still wonder, though, if they served any purpose outside of frustrating legitimate customers. I get that they are supposed to serve as a deterrent to casual theft, but when the cameras came in and we started bringing the cops by almost every day for theft, it was clear that the alarm system was serving very little useful purpose.

[0] I was 16 at the time!

That's funny when putting it through the lens of the store I worked at. Our door greeter was a 70 year old frail woman who was a little out-spoken. I can actually see her running out the door after a shop-lifter, but I can't see it end well. (I'm just not sure for whom)

Fry's had a cage behind the registers with all their small expensive parts like CPUs and RAM.

At Costco you don't even have to tell a store associate. They have a stack of cardboard posters with the item on it and you take that to the register

It's not just paying the person to get your product after you pay for it; they also need to rearrange their space to store those things (many which are bulky) towards the front of the store. Locked cases are an in between step, need a person to help, but don't need a dedicated space at the front.

Toys'R'Us also did that with their larger-ticket items, such as bicycles.

Almost certainly it will, likely starting with the high end contractor line of tools.

I think most stores with construction materials will allow the "pencil and paper" purchase flow, because it's needed for purchasing big/heavy stuff or buying in bulk. You give the note to the clerk, pay for the stuff, and arrange delivery.

>But, I have seen places where you just take a piece of paper to the checkout rather than the tool itself.

How is this not the solution, and more technology is? The local hardware store has cardboard slips you take to customer service for high-end/expensive tools, they then ring you up and you walk out with your newly purchased tool.

They've done that since the 90's. It's not that hard to figure out. Why does every problem need a *TECHNOLOGY* solution? I'm genuinely confused by all of this.

>> But, I have seen places where you just take a piece of paper to the checkout rather than the tool itself.

That's how we bought video games in the 80's from Toys R Us.

Just wait until government and industry lobbyists get their hands on it. The powered PEX expander or wire terminal crimpler will need someone who's in the database as having the proper license in order to enable it after you buy it. You cross state lines and your tools won't work because you won't have the valid license. You try and use your tools near the property line and it won't let you because the DB has the wrong coordinates and thinks you're trying to work at the facility next door and you need to be in the union to do that. Of course the company will sell you the unlocked version of the $200 tool for $3k. If you bring too many power tools from different owners to a the same place and that place isn't in the DB as having a building permit the building inspector will show up with some thin veneer of parallel construction.

(Hopefully pressure from the low end tool manufacturers who try and compete on value keeps these kinds of things from happening.)

> Higher torque settings or speeds could be unlockable features.

Diabolical. “Scan this QR code to watch an ad and unlock 30 minutes of 3x speed!”

Yeah. I was desperately trying to be charitable, but I suspect you're correct and this is the motivating reason.

> My sci-fi brain is imaging motors with wacky windings that need specially PWM'ed streams of electricity to spin effectively, etc...

After having recently read too many military sci-fi novels in short succession[0], I started to think how warring alien species would secure their military hardware against reverse engineering. I came to a similar conclusion - there would likely be a whole field of making every possible bit of a device coupled with every other bit, kind of like homomorphic encryption, but done with atoms and fields instead of bits. Like you said - windings that only work if you PWM the voltage precisely, perhaps according to some algorithm that compensates for those windings being scrambled, softly shorted, and otherwise smeared across half of the device's interior surface. Etc. Impossible to fix, but also impossible to figure out without original schematics.

And yes, the way the market is heading, I suspect we'll start doing this to ourselves to secure sales and protect IP.

--

[0] - The Expeditionary Force book series.

> I can see the totalitarian-minded mining this for a revenue opportunity to create an exciting new era of subscription-based power tools.

Think bigger. Power tools that phone home describing their use and location, all tied to an individual via credit-card checkout (or face recognition) and/or warranty sign-up.

It's probably best to think of the modern world as being constructed with the substrate of a Las Vegas casino.

Could this also give unions control over what tools are approved for use on specific jobs or in specific regions? Or be used to detect when a union worker is doing a job they are not allowed to do? This is a thing. I had to "look the other way" when a person was sanding some wood, as if I cared. There was a specific union that was supposed to do the sanding and this was preventing the framer from completing their job.

> Of course, it would also require cooperation from the tool manufacturers concerning warranties and to to accommodate their product-design to a process like that

I understand they're already involved - you can't just add an electronic kill switch after market, it has to be built into device, or else it would be too trivial to bypass.

Most tools are battery operated these days. The batteries have a computer in them. You could have it refuse to deliver power if the tool isn’t properly activated. Similarly, the vario-resistor in the trigger could be replaced with a computer.

That's a good point, thanks! Solving it by adding weight-equivalent dummies would further complicate this idea.

yup. they are installing trackers and justifying it with nearly inconsequential losses. patriot act all over again.

Can absolutely confirm that these numbers are negotiable. If you have any amount of scale, ask your processor (places like Stripe or Authorize.net or PayPal for online CC processing). Just bringing it up with sales or customer service, without even having a competing offer, might well get you a "gimme" amount off the public figure. And do shop other providers, if you're processing even tens of thousands a month they might make you a better offer than what you're getting and than the public prices.

I agree that there are a number of sources of possible error, from the retailer to the reporter that is summarizing from a much larger report.

That said, the computation of 'shrinkage' has been defined as MSRP of products that are stolen and/or damaged, divided by the gross sales of all products. The number captures "lost" revenue.

My nephew, who is working at a large nationwide retailer and has access to all of this data for their stores, has told me in the past (and I presume it is still true), that the largest component of "loss" experienced on the retail side is through employee theft, either directly, or by assisting a partner to evade the payment systems. The smallest portion of this loss is from people who come into the store and take merchandise without paying for it.

The "interesting" thing about that story, is not that it makes it harder to sneak out a tool, but that it requires a register transaction for that tool to work. Combined with inventory management of that tool, internal theft rings are uncovered because the employee facilitating the theft has to use their register to do so. But the stores won't tell you that of course.

Just like back in the day getting out of a Fry's Electronics was like being released from a SuperMAX prison lockup with all the gates and checks and re-checks. They too were much more worried about employee theft than individuals stealing stuff.

It's a power tool, why does it need any silicon at all?

Obviously the primary current path of battery -> trigger -> motor isn't going to be able to be routed through any integrated circuits. So I have a hard time imagining that this won't be trivially bypassable.

They already don't mechanically fit any batteries but the OEM's.

The lock-in is real.

I get the impression there might be a hurdle with building regulations.

You'll start to see some people deliberately powering on their tools to make it look like they're working.

You can just test if it works when picking it up

Thanks (& to kotaKat). That sounds like good news.

Would be great to have a neighborhood "lending library" for tools.

It won't happen. We're indoctrinating the young early with Spotify, Netflix, etc. It'll just be normal to pay the electricity bill, the music/movies bill, the Internet bill, the tool bill, etc.

Yeah I agree

So California

~$3 million out of ~$4 billion profit just in the first quarter of 2021 is still not worth this.

Something like an app almost everyone uses?

Have you used a lot of power tools? Because power tools get beat up and every anti theft mechanism I’ve experienced becomes the weak point of tools. Back in the late 90s Milwaukee started putting key locks in the saws. My dad constantly have his saws “repaired” cause the lock would slide closed and be unable to function, he started taking them apart and removing the mechanism. That’s anti consumer. If it will be the reason your tool stops working, it’s anti consumer. If the lock ever turns on when you don’t want it to, it’s anti consumer.

Also, Home Depot calls out on their repair site that they do not repair Bluetooth enabled devices, that’s anti consumer.

If the lock is effective, then you are definitely going to have cases where a paying customer receives a tool that is locked or re-locked itself.

The organized groups on the other hand now just have a slight inconvenience (at worst, until they reverse engineer the electronic locking) where they have to open and bypass the lock before they re-sell the tool. Power tools aren't complex enough to be able to make them impossible to bypass without the theft still being profitable.

That is going to be the single biggest point of failure. This is going to sky rocket tool costs and require specialized equipment to diagnose and repair. They’re are not integrating it in the motor. They will get sued big time for faulty motor failures.

You can disable it, and anyway a phone is a different sort of product. It's a computer product with a local interface (making this stuff easy to administrate) and is usually a lot more costly.

I think what the parent is expressing is that they don't want this kind of functionality in everything, requiring constant management of all the DRM in all kinds of everyday items. Too much of a hassle for little benefit.

Better way to keep tools for a long time is not to borrow your tools.

Pretty much. Even outright police abolition doesn't propose simply shrugging our shoulders and ignoring crime, for that matter, just that we should figure out how to address crime with institutions whose central paradigm isn't threatening and committing violence. That's a tall order, and I gather there's plenty to criticize in the movement, but most arguments against it come across more like arguments against Thanos snapping all police officers out of existence.