Sounds like they should just throw their product in the garbage and save potential customers the trouble.
From an engineering/cost standpoint it sounds great. Buy cheaper LEDS and drive the shit out of them…I mean they only have to last 15 hours…
Oh, woe are us!
Back in the 1970s a college friend of mine studying metallurgy got a summer job at a company that made large tank water heaters. The project they set for him…figure out how to plate a section of the interior tank so it would rust through in 16 years, plus or minus 6 months. You guessed it, they had a 15 year warranty.
Sounds like a great plan for bankruptcy.
Full employment. Everything disposable.
This is the problem with free market capitalism. Planned obsolescence is a scourge, specifically lifespan-limiting design. From an environmental perspective, it is unconscionable.
For the record, light therapy is not woo. I’ve relied on super-bright blue leds for years to get me through dark winter days.
I thought that’s what this was as well, but it turns out it’s for “facial revitalization.” I think that’s more likely woo.
I use a metalhalide lamp. Mere 100 watts do quite wonders.
Oh I see.
Don’t ask for permissions, do it. Whether it is retrieving a recorded file from a Tivo to archive, jailbreaking a phone, disassembling a piece of code, or removing usage metering on “disposable” gear.
The adversaries can buy laws. But good luck forcing us all to actually obey them.
Woo, DRM, Gadgets, targets for snarky responses…
Are they trying to play boingboing bingo?
This device is FDA “cleared.” That means it has been shown to be equivalent to a device on the market before 1976, when medical devices were first put under FDA’s jurisdiction. Or equivalent to a device that has been shown to be equivalent to a device that has been shown to be equivalent to a device that has been shown to be equivalent to a device that has been shown to be equivalent to a device . . . you get the idea. It’s possible the light may have some positive effect, at the right frequency and dosage. But at least the 30 day limit is not dangerous, merely self-serving. I can see limiting the dosage per day.
When I worked at FDA I looked at some disposable interoperative cardiovascular device or other (forget exactly what) that artificially expired in two hours, due to DRM. I objected, on the grounds that it might poop out before the procedure was done. So they increased it to 6 hours.
You can bypass the whole board with a switch, which means there are no special requirements for driving the LEDs.
This has got to be in the running for “most useless application of a microcontroller.”
Not really. A microcontroller these days can be cheaper than a 555 timer, if we count also the passive parts, board real estate, and work with populating the board.
Perverse is the world we live in…
Not much different from client “software as a service”.
This is an unsolicited personal plug for the litebook I use. The original blue one lasted several years before something other than the LEDs failed. I now have the smaller white one. I am convinced that it helps relieve SAD.
Their site is: http://www.litebook.com/
SAD is one thing. Using blue LEDs to “rejuvenate your face” is bullshit. If anything, intense light will age your face, or do nothing.
