I know I use a computer to write stuff and I have an air filter to breathe stuff (hopefully mostly air), but my technological literacy ends there. Normally, I'd have no concept of how a hacker would reverse engineer the artificial bricking on an air filter with their phone and allow it to work smoothly again. My dumb little brain would never think to convert the… tag UID to byte array…convert that to decimal… find bytes in the correct order… something about a serial number and an app… put the phone on the filter…hit send…? That last step is particularly incomprehensible.
Anyway, unethical.info released a comprehensive guide on how to bypass the artificial bricking of most Xiaomi air purifiers. As per usual, there was nothing actually wrong with the product, it was designed to fail at a certain point, guaranteeing the need for consumers to buy the manufacturer-approved replacement part or the product in its entirety again. From a consumer angle, making a product with a built-in end of life seems, uh, like a bad business model. Who would want to buy something that's predetermined to die frustratingly early, for no earthly reason? Turns out that this is a great model for manufacturers, who are guaranteed continued business from their deliberately faulty products.
People with brains like the author over at unethical.info are vital to consumer's right to fight against planned obsolescence. Without them, I'd be exasperatedly buying another brand new air filter and shaking my fist in the air.
Or, if you're lazy and/or don't understand byte…password… stuff, flamingo.tech can make you a sticker that has the same function. Ingenious!
The choice is yours, buy a whole new air filter, learn to code, bro, or fix it with a sticker.
