Those IR and other gadgets attached to those crappy phones are useless while any phone upgrade or change means this thing is worth nothing and we have to buy another one or pray that sometime they make it software compatible maybe if possible and there is no physical limitations.
Crappy phones?
are useless
I've already found a significant heat leak in my house with mine. I quickly eliminated a non-functioning IR LED in a remote controlled device because I could see the LED flashing in IR. (Verified by using a scope on it to see there was actually a signal across it). I was able to see the batteries in a TV remote were still good enough to light the IR LED. Random stuff I've done in the month I've had it. It's also interesting just to look at stuff in IR. You learn things you never even thought about. Sure, I could have done all this with an E4, but I wouldn't have likely had that
on me, which is ultimately the point of the device. Expensive toy? Sure. Useless? Not so much.
Remember it wasn't too long ago when phone makers were surprised by the popularity of regular cameras on phones. After all, stand alone cameras were so much better, and they were so nice and compact, etc.
It's probably too much to hope for, but I would hope that a surge in popularity of cheap portable IR devices would eventually make them standard issue on smartphones.
change means this thing is worth nothing
You can say that about the phone too. No one is making you upgrade. I know a guy who still uses his iPhone 3 because it's
fine for what he uses it for. I had a Razr for 6 years and went through 3 batteries. At the time,
that was fine for what I used it for. I'm happy committing to having my iPhone 5 for another two years.
I recall having set criteria for what I wanted in a mobile computing device back in 1980. The iPhone 5 meets or exceeds what I came up with in almost every category. The iPhone 4 did.
Crappy? They're bloody Marvels.
Louis CK's cogent take (WARNING: naughty words):