I think the problem with a ban is that the creators of AI slop will stop disclosing or tagging it.

Allowing it with tags + letting users filter it out might be the best way to reduce it?

I agree this is terrible, and I encourage people to talk to their older / non technical friends and family

At the same time, that seems like a lot of work on the part of the scammers when the average person wouldn’t know what their local sheriff sounds like. Osceola doesn’t seem like a small town.

The grandparents scam (cloning the voice of a grandchild) is a lot more concerning IMO

Also sound quality and fit, that’s what I’m curious about

Most earbuds are not repairable, and they don’t have replaceable batteries. Eventually the battery capacity drops to the point where you need to charge them too often. These use replaceable and generic batteries from what I heard, and they’re fairly repairable.

• this fits within their niche of ethical electronics supply chains and manufacturing

I’m considering a pair of these for when my current earbuds die, depending on the fit and quality.

I was going to suggest covering them up, as a legal way to turn them off without physically dismantling, since they’re technically not college property. But that’s exactly what the campus staff did and Flock kept coming to uncover them? Lol wtf

I’d bet if this was a larger college/university, they wouldn’t have pulled something like this.

Something good did come out of this. It is a concrete example of how the company will behave if you sign a contract with them. Public officials and administrators will be more likely to care if they risk losing their power like this. It also makes it clear that you’re not paying Flock to “help” your own region, you’re doing it to help people in other regions.

Elgin Community College staff notified Flock in October 2025 that they wanted to cancel their contract and have the cameras taken down. Within a day, Heinrich said, Flock rejected the request and refused to uninstall the equipment on the basis that the company had not breached their agreement.

College officials reached out again in December 2025 and said they would pay for the remaining five months of the contract — they just wanted the cameras taken down.

“We never received a response back from Flock,” Heinrich said.

That’s when things got weird. Heinrich said Elgin Community College staff began to cover the cameras using black trash bags and zip ties so that they would not be able to capture footage. But workers in an unmarked vehicle, which Heinrich assumed belonged to Flock, repeatedly removed the coverings.

This strange dance continued, Heinrich said, until Elgin Community College’s contract with Flock expired in April this year and the company uninstalled the cameras for good.

To be fair, I haven’t used Chromecast in a long time. Maybe even 10 years ago now.

I remember having connectivity issues, where I’d go to pause the content and realize it disconnected again. So maybe the battery drain was because of poor connections, or poorly designed apps

Its nice to be able to use it with a remote instead of fumbling around with your phone.

Also performance, decoding support, not burning your phone’s battery, etc