[Wavytone]

I’ve seen ads for quite a few fully integrated automated small scopes that are imaging-only, but one thing stands out - they are totally incapable of being upgraded later on.

Typically operated from a properietary smartphone app, with an all-in-one scope+mount +camera. All the ones I’ve seen admittedly are very small about 3-4” aperture - backpackable even, but that also means pretty limited as to what they can do.

Low cost yes, but throwaways nonetheless. Target market is kids and beginners.

Meade and Celestron are also aware a significant percentage of scopes are sold to users who are keen at first but don’t want something that takes half an hour to assemble and another half hour of fiddling before it’s ready to observe. Most of these are used perhaps a half a dozen times at which point the owner loses interest or decides it’s all too hard and it spends the next 20 years in storage until someone rediscovers it. This imho was the target market for the Lightswitch and CPC scopes.