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[–] 2 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

There have been some attempts at something along those lines. They usually end up with the company going bankrupt, the servers being turned off and the toy turning into a paperweight.

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  • [–] 1 point 18 hours ago (1 child)

    I have no evidence to support it, but I feel those two things are linked. Everything I described can be run on a smart phone so the only reason they need a server that can brick the device is to use it to harvest data. In which case, the toy is second to the spyware and probably deserves be bricked.

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  • [–] 1 point 17 hours ago

    Even putting a cheap smartphone SoC would take the gadget out of the kind of price range people are prepared to pay for a toy. And yes in products like this the hardware is usually subsidised and ultimately paid for with data harvesting.

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