☠ The Cloud-Death Registry

Spotify

What died: Device remotely bricked by vendor decision — "discontinued and no longer operational"

Owners were left with: $120 of e-waste; refunds offered until Jan 24, 2025 after legal pressure and a class action

Vendor shipped a kill switch to hardware people paid for.

Sources: [1] [2]

Chamberlain Group

What died: Third-party/local API access deliberately blocked as "unauthorized usage" — broke Home Assistant and Homebridge; HA removed the integration Dec 6, 2023

Owners were left with: Garage openers that only talk to the vendor's ad-carrying app

Not death by neglect — death by policy. Openness removed on purpose.

Sources: [1] [2]

Amazon

What died: Entire health platform; devices and app non-functional from August 1, 2023

Owners were left with: Refunds for purchases in the prior 12 months; all devices dead regardless of age

Big-tech attention span vs. a health tracker you strapped to your body.

Sources: [1] [2]

Insteon / Smartlabs

What died: Cloud service and app went dark overnight, no warning or announcement

Owners were left with: Local scenes kept working; app/remote control dead. A user group later purchased and revived the service (late 2022)

Company went silent without telling customers; devices half-alive. Partial resurrection by the community.

Sources: [1] [2]

Samsung

What died: First-gen hub (2013) retired; after June 30, 2021 it could show devices but no longer control them

Owners were left with: Buy a new hub and re-pair everything

Platform migration with hardware casualties.

Sources: [1] [2]

Wink

What died: Free service — announced May 6, 2020 with ONE WEEK's notice that a $4.99/mo subscription was now mandatory; deadline slid to July 27 after outrage

Owners were left with: Pay monthly for hardware they owned, or lose app, API, and voice control

The ransom model — hardware held hostage by a dying company's pivot. Hackaday called it "extortion as a service."

Sources: [1] [2]

Sonos

What died: Software updates for 'legacy' products (ZonePlayers, Connect, first-gen Play:5, CR200, Bridge); originally a whole-system penalty, softened after backlash

Owners were left with: Working premium speakers frozen out of updates and new features

Planned obsolescence by update policy on audio gear people paid four figures for.

Sources: [1] [2]

Petnet

What died: Feeders started failing February 2020; by late April the company announced shutdown, furloughed staff, and closed offices

Owners were left with: $130 feeders that need a dead cloud to schedule meals — with living animals on the other end

Cloud dependency with pets attached. Company blamed COVID; its office had been empty since the previous October.

Sources: [1] [2]

Google / Nest

What died: Third-party integration API — no new connections after Aug 31, 2019; existing ones died on account migration

Owners were left with: Broken automations across thousands of setups as accounts migrated

Not a brick, but a mass integration kill that stranded ecosystems. Google softened the deadline after backlash.

Sources: [1] [2]

Lowe's

What died: Entire platform shut down after failing to find a buyer

Owners were left with: Refund program for connected devices; first-gen gear mostly landfill

Retailer exited smart home; platform sunset with refunds on March 31, 2019.

Sources: [1] [2]

Jibo Inc.

What died: Servers shut after company failure; the robot announced its own death to owners and did one last dance

Owners were left with: An $899 robot that said "I've really enjoyed our time together" and went quiet

The most poignant entry — hardware that eulogized itself.

Sources: [1] [2]

Revolv / Nest (Google)

What died: Entire hub bricked — total shutdown of cloud service

Owners were left with: A $300 paperweight; Nest offered refunds after public outcry

The canonical case. Alphabet's Nest division permanently turned off all Revolv hubs on May 15, 2016.

Sources: [1] [2]