To refuse to use products that require me to download an app?

[HandleTheJandal]

Eg bathroom scales - why must I download an app to receive the full data? Can't the data (eg fat percentage, hydration) just flash on the screen as of yore? Then, it turns out that the app requires Google 'location services' be activated - whyyyyy? unless it wants more data from me than I am giving to it?

Totally with you OP, drives me mad

Well you dont have to buy them but you're limiting the technology you use. By having it on an app it keeps the records for you, rather than you having to write it all down and graph it out.

Agree. I don't want to bung up my phone with stuff I'd rarely use.

Eg bathroom scales - why must I download an app to receive the full data?
So that the information you give to the app can be added to that of all the other users of the product and sold to other companies, of course, just like the information gained by the cookies from the websites you visit, only better because it's more personal, and focussed.

When I say "better", I mean it's better as marketable, analysable data. It's not better for you.

Hooray, LucyAutumn, glad it's not just me!

Before too long the kettle will refuse to boil unless we have downloaded the Kettle App and created a profile and Bluetooth-ed to our phone and booted our SO's phone off the kettle ...

True, Nottherealslimshady, re the technology limitation. In my case mostly such features, such as generating graphs, are surplus to my requirements.

@LucyAutumn

Totally with you OP, drives me mad

Me too.

I can get a bit tinfoil-hatty about all this data stored all over the place.

CoalTit, you have hit the nail on the head right there.

Totally with you. There’s big money in big data. No tin foil hat required as I used to work in it.

@Nottherealslimshady

Well you dont have to buy them but you're limiting the technology you use. By having it on an app it keeps the records for you, rather than you having to write it all down and graph it out.

Nope! I can do that myself.

This is the only thing I get tin foil hatty about. All that data about me being shared, sold on, used to promote shit I've never heard of.

It's the same as loyalty cards. Yeah, great idea. Tell a shop of any sort exactly how it can reduce its stock holdings so the majority of the customers are happy most of the time, but anyone looking for something different will always be out of luck! We joined in the blanding out of the High Street... which is why it is now easier to shop online, further fucking local economies!

Surely they do it so the item is cheaper? I have those Renpho (sp?) scales and there's no way the scales could communicate all it does via the app through little display screen it has.

I'm with you, op. I hate the internet of things as this technology is apparently known. As a consumer there is simply no way that having my toothbrush and flat iron (actual examples) communicate with my phone would be helpful in any way. Gimmicky and useless for me, valuable to the company who can use/sell the data

As well as privacy issues, there's just more to go wrong. What happens if your Wifi goes down or you lose your phone?

Just more unnecessary complication of a simple task.

I hate it when I buy or return something in a shop and they need my personal details and email address. And they sometimes seem offended when I decline to give it to them. Just let me buy the top and leave!