Truly a “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” moment.

We live in an unprecedented time where American technological hegemony is being rejected globally, but especially in Europe. People want performant, durable, respectful software offerings, and are increasingly looking away from the Valley and the Street for answers.

So let’s jump on board with becoming part of the extended American surveillance state! Yee fucking haw.

Yeah, this pretty clearly isn’t intended to block bots lol

I’m just guessing here, but it’s probably for battery management and wireless charging, which are tricky problems you’re not gonna solve with a 555. I generally trust EEs to not put MCUs where they aren’t needed, so this must have been the cheapest/easiest option.

The incredibly silly true answer is that the software industry’s love for “deploy early, deploy often” has led to all embedded devices shipping with over-the-air (OTA) update support even when it barely makes sense. The earliest units of a given product run will ship with a minimally viable product build that has lots of bugs, but solid OTA.

Fun anecdote: I had a TV backlight die after about 3 years, and the root cause was a shitty embedded app that incorrectly regulated the voltage for the LED strips.