The Cloud is killing your tech

The Cloud might be a good thing but it is also a bad thing. Especially with dedicated tech like Universal Remotes, Online radio streamers, and Slingbox. Heres why Cloud based products are bad 


Exhibit #1 The Slingbox betrayal

Slingbox was a streaming box that can stream your DVD player, Cable box and in some models relay over the air tv to your computer or mobile device!

It was a free service being selfhosted within the box itself with the first generation boxes like the so called Slingbox Classic and Slingbox HD

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Slingbox HD Unit (i have this unit!)The Original Slingbox 2005

Slingbox has introduced mandatory account creation and Cloud server requirement in 2014 with the M1 model. and things where good Until November 9, 2020 when Sling Media the creators of the Slingbox announced that all Slingboxes had been discontinued, and that the Slingbox servers would close on November 9, 2022. and you think they would just open source the server software to the public.

But no they betrayed the loyal user base by intentionally bricking Slingboxes in response to a community effort to save slingboxes with a self hosted server called Slinger they did it exactly 1 day before the official server shutdown. A true slap in the face to the community. Some say that the bricking update server might still be up

As for Sling Media they rebranded to sling TV a pay iptv streaming service like comcast and dish. It is currently a shell of its former self

Exhibit #2 The Logitech Squeezebox phoenix

The Logitech Squeezebox was a line of Network Music Players With a long history!

In 2000 in the hight of the Internet Radio boom. Tech company Slim Devices was founded in 2000 with its first product SlimServer a program to Stream music to various computers but its first major device they released was called the SliMP3 digital audio receiver in 2001 Although it was very basic for todays standards like it only plays .mp3 files and only has ethernet. It was sucessful enough to get a new model created 2 years later becoming the name we know of today the Squeezebox. 7 more models where released after the first Squeezebox was released.

Slim Devices was acquired by logitech in 2006 who expanded the range with more models Until 2012 they also added more features like adding music streaming services like Pandora Internet Radio, Napster (post peer to peer) Last.fm and Sirius Satellite radio. They even put in a local option in the form of the rebranded SlimServer now called Logitech Media Server At the time

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Slim Devices SliMP3
pre logitech Squeezebox1
Later Logitech squeezebox touch (2010)

In January 2024 Logitech announced that they will shutdown the mysqueezebox.com servers in February 2024 but unlike Sling Media and the Slingbox's Logitech Released the source code for Logitech Media Server and even posted instructions on how to set it up Logitech Media Server would later be renamed in November 29, 2024 with version 9.0 as the name today Lyrion Music Server. It is still going strong to today with new community made applications plugins and updates

Its like a phoenix rising from the ashes

Exhibit #3 The Sad demise of Harmony remotes

NOTE this part is coming soon because this is just happening. I am going to wait Until things die down to document




Now you know the dark side of cloud based products

Only when we host our own cloud free of big companys. Then we can be free

Spread this knowledge and be alert on your devices because one day they might be shutdown