Is IT hardware/firmware quality going down? No way to contact any technical personnel. Only way is to go through RMA process even for software bugs.<p>A few unfortunate stories:<p>High end Dell P3424WEB monitor with integrated webcam. Webcam stopped working (still recognized, but USB device fails to start), newer firmware mentioned something about webcam stability improvements. Firmware update stops at half completion with "Error", only option to try again. Dell solution: replace monitor.<p>Lenovo N27p monitor with DCI-P3 or sRGB color profile and brightness set to 30%. Monitor defaults to full brightness after power off/sleep while menu does not reflect that and shows brightness at 30. Full brightness is much too bright for use not in full sunlight. When you change brightness in menu to 29 or 31 it drops to correct brightness until restart of the monitor. Other color profiles keep brightness after restart correctly but only DCI-P3 provides correct color saturation. No firmware update available.
YES :-(<p>I had high hopes for SmartHome / IoT automation. But gave up the never-ending whack-a-mole experience. I know some folks enjoy futzing with HomeAssistant. But I just wanted to get stuff working and not have 20+ apps on my phone to control things.<p>I recently bought a new cheapish SmartTV because my old dumb TV stopped receiving programs off the air. Was very careful to avoid connecting new TV to internet, etc. Using it via STB/PVR.<p>In my experience "smart" devices make heaps of dumb mistakes and every update makes it worse. Obviously enshitification by MBA types - make people chuck stuff out and buy the latest even more kludgy product.