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r0fl • yesterday at 1:48 PM • 7 replies • view on HN

At $299 they’ll sell millions of these in no time

The Apple TV is the same price

iPhones and iPads are so expensive these days that this feels like a steal

I’m buying one for my parents and one for my in-laws for Christmas. Easy $300 gift that I know they won’t have.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who will have that idea


Replies

a012 • yesterday at 2:02 PM

Me too, it’s much cheaper and more convenient than you have to have a dedicated phone that for everyone could use at home.

cromka • yesterday at 3:03 PM

It's crazy that the LG doorbell camera, which is basically a video sensor with a button, i.e. way, WAY less of a hardware, is $249.

Where do they get that pricing from?

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llm_nerd • yesterday at 2:05 PM

>The Apple TV is the same price

This is a funny framing. For those who don't know, the Apple TV 4K debuted at $129 USD. Apple then slightly improved the remote and bumped the price up to $199 USD.

Now today they announced a marginal upgrade -- they added a microphone in the base unit and not just on-demanded toggled on the remote, such that it will always be listening, along with a slightly improved CPU -- and they pumped the price to $299 USD.

So sure, the Apple TV is the "same price", to basically universal derision because they took a successful product and decided to turn it into a shakedown.

And to the root post about how great of a success this will be, virtually an identical top-ranked comment happened in the Vision Pro release. I mean, every flopped product has someone doing the "wow I guess it's going to be a huge success" when people question the point.

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moralestapia • yesterday at 3:04 PM

If I could hack/root these somehow, even just sideload an app of my choice it would be massive for my personal life.

I have a lot of sensors, and always build variations of "a dashboard with a touchscreen" to play with them.

Insta-buy for me :).

artisinal • yesterday at 2:24 PM

I bet the local thrift stores are going to love all the gifted HomeViews they are going to receive in 2027.

SomeonesAccount • yesterday at 1:49 PM

Exactly. Perfect gift

alerighi • yesterday at 3:32 PM

$299 is not cheap, is more than what the phone that the average person has costs (that is not an iPhone). And with a smartphone you surely can do much more things than that object. With $299 you can also buy a tablet, even a decent one, where you can install whatever app you want.

But even if it did cost $10, it would still be a waste of money because you spend $10 on an useless product, you would be better to spend them to eat a pizza, it would be more useful.

What do you use it for? This reminds me of the digital photo frames that everyone had back in the days and that were almost finished in a drawer after 1 month of usage.

A useless device that sits on a table with the sole purpose to waste electricity, that for what it costs these days, better to use it for something more useful.

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