I absolutely hate when networking equipment forces you to use an app to set it up, and the app doesn’t do anything that a website couldn’t do.
I encountered this with some solar equipment from Enphase (IQ Gateway, which all the inverters connect to). The installer had to set it up using wifi and an “installer app” before I could connect it via Ethernet cable or access the (local!) web UI.
On the flip side, I have to give Enphase a shout out for having a fully-featured local web API running on the device itself. I’ve had Home Assistant polling it every second for years (to pull data about solar generation per panel, total power consumption, grid import/export, etc) and haven’t had issues. With so much stuff being cloud-reliant, it was a good surprise.
I absolutely hate when networking equipment forces you to use an app to set it up, and the app doesn’t do anything that a website couldn’t do.
but the website wouldnt demand 87 permissions and have the ability to silently upload all your contacts and god knows what else to a secret server for advertisement and identification/tracking purposes.
Which is why every company uses apps… even if those apps are just a website wrapped in a app container. because you are the product. not the device you are using.
I absolutely hate when networking equipment forces you to use an app to set it up, and the app doesn’t do anything that a website couldn’t do.
I encountered this with some solar equipment from Enphase (IQ Gateway, which all the inverters connect to). The installer had to set it up using wifi and an “installer app” before I could connect it via Ethernet cable or access the (local!) web UI.
On the flip side, I have to give Enphase a shout out for having a fully-featured local web API running on the device itself. I’ve had Home Assistant polling it every second for years (to pull data about solar generation per panel, total power consumption, grid import/export, etc) and haven’t had issues. With so much stuff being cloud-reliant, it was a good surprise.
but the website wouldnt demand 87 permissions and have the ability to silently upload all your contacts and god knows what else to a secret server for advertisement and identification/tracking purposes.
Which is why every company uses apps… even if those apps are just a website wrapped in a app container. because you are the product. not the device you are using.