Dead IoT products still live on retail shelves – Stacey on IoT | Internet of Things news and analysis
Connected products aren’t like traditional gadgets, which may last long after the original manufacturer goes defunct. In many cases, a connected product dies when its company does. This is inconvenient, but not surprising. It’s even becoming a somewhat accepted risk of using these products. What’s unacceptable is that the retail channels where consumers can buy these products haven’t adapted to the connected era.
I was in Target’s Open House in San Francisco last week when I came across a Hiku kitchen magnet for sale. The Hiku is a connected device that was released in 2016; it lets you say a product name or scan a UPC code to add that product to a shared grocery list. It was an Amazon Dash Wand before the Amazon Dash Wand existed, and without being tied to Amazon’s ordering system. But back in May, Hiku sent a letter to users saying it was shutting down the service at the end of the month. Well it’s July and while the Hiku service is still up and running, no one should spend $50 on a device that could be turned off at any moment.