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Comment by _fat_santa | Hacker News Reader

I bought a Hisense TV a few years back and when I set it up, I could not proceed without downloading the companion app. I was curious so I called support and told them that I didn't have a phone and asked how I could activate the TV.

Support had no answer for me other than "well you need the app". When I told them I didn't have a phone to install it on they just said "no that's not correct, you must have a phone..."

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This should be an accessibility complaint under the ADA. That should be a big money settlement.

There are numerous disabilities that would cause someone to not have a smartphone capable of running an app. Hell, even addiction to social media or porn could satisfy

Lawsuits only cover actual damage. If you actually did have a phone, their decision to require one caused no harm to you, even if you pretended it did.

You should have told them the required phone was missing from the box.

Same with any prepay SIM I'm aware of, to activate it you need a phone because why would anyone ever use a SIM with anything that isn't a phone, like an e-book reader for your elderly mother to read her romance novels on?

And before anyone asks, the reader takes a full-size SIM, the phones take nano-SIMs, and you can't restore it back to a full-size SIM with a shim because the reader won't allow it to be inserted, it just gets mangled as you push it into the slot.

"I have a PinePhone with phosh, which is neither Android nor iOS — where can I get the app?"

Obviously, it still won't get you anywhere except maybe hasten the return as it is not compatible to your environment.

> so I called support and told them that I didn't have a phone

Did they ask what device you were calling from? :)

Given how few people have landlines they probably thought you were trying to prank them.

You can borrow someone's phone or only have a dumbphone.

Of course those are possibilities, as is having a landline. People pranking tech support lines is also a possibility and I suspect a more common one.

More common is companies "pranking" their customers by adding unnecessary smartphone requirements.

If they are concerned about customers pranking support about not having a smartphone they can easily preempt that by not adding a smartphone requirement in the first place.

I am not arguing in favor of corporate apps or smart TVs (which I would not want to buy either). I'm just looking at things from the perspective of the unfortunate person doing tech support, not their corporate overlord.

> "no that's not correct, you must have a phone..."

Well, I guess they were right if you were lying.

That doesn't justify assuming that everyone must have a phone, nor does it make it okay to enforce that people must have a phone to use their goddamn TV

Just because you can call doesn't mean you can install an app, plenty of people use dumb phones

This is a better excuse

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