Another smart product bites the dust

Another "smart" product is reduced to e-waste because the company behind it goes bankrupt.

This sums up my aversion to anything "smart" at this moment. You buy something but you don't own it. It can stop functioning, it can change at any moment, and also you tie your security to a company that probably does not "take security seriously".

From the article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/startup-will-brick-800-emotional-support-robot-for-kids-without-refunds/

Startup Embodied is closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, will soon be bricked.

We don’t know the exact date when services will cease. It is likely to happen within days.

In addition to the robot being bricked, Embodied noted that warranties, repair services, the corresponding parent app and guides, and support staff will no longer be accessible.

Embodied said it is “unable” to offer most Moxie owners refunds due to its “financial situation and impending dissolution.” The potential exception is for people who bought a Moxie within 30 days. For those customers, Embodied said that “if the company or its assets are sold, we will do our best to prioritize refunds for purchases," but it emphasized that this is not a guarantee.

Embodied advised such customers to contact their lender, but it’s possible that some will end up paying interest on a toy that no longer works.

For Moxie owners, disappointment doesn’t just come from wasted money and e-waste creation but also from the pain of giving a child a tech “companion” to grow with and then have it suddenly taken away.

This reminds me of another article. From The Impending Doom of Expiring Root CAs and Legacy Clients:

The problem was, some TVs are so out of date that they don't have that R5 Root CA installed on them that was issued in 2012! This means that those TVs will reject certificates that chain to that Root CA and as a result, the streaming app stops working on the TV! Here we are in 2019/2020 with a problem that an 8 year old Root CA still hasn't managed to make its way onto a significant portion of 'Smart' TVs.

This means that if a smart TV receives no updates (and they usually don't) then it has a maximum lifetime: when the root certificate inside it expires then all smarts are going away. Even if the box itself is completely functional, as is usual with electronics, you still can't use it anymore.

And that reminds me of a comment:

Tech enthusiasts: "Everything in my house is wired to the internet of things. I control it from my smartphone. My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I give it voice commands via Alexa, I love the future!"

vs

Programmers/Engineers: "I work in IT so my house has mechanical locks, mechanical windows, routers using OpenWRT, no smart home crap, no Alexa/Google assistants, no internet connected thermostats etc".