Latest news with #DesignedtoLast
WIRED
13-03-2025
- WIRED
Companies Might Soon Have to Tell You When Their Products Will Die
If everything's computer, it would be nice to know how long computer last. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Losing access to a device sucks. Whether it's a laptop still running Windows 10, a router that's been phased out by your internet provider, or an expensive AI gadget that has suddenly been bricked, it's a bummer to be permanently disconnected from a thing you paid money for. That's where a group of consumer advocates hope to help, by calling on US lawmakers to create policies that support connected products at the end of their lives. Stacey Higginbotham, a Policy Fellow at Consumer Reports and former journalist who covered internet-of-things devices for more than a decade, has been through the dead device gauntlet more than a few times. She's used every weird, swiftly forgotten gadget since the Quirky Egg Minder—a smart egg carton that was meant to keep you appraised of how many eggs you had, but ultimately failed to capture a market. (Though you can still buy one if you really want to.) Turns out, lots of stuff has gone this route. 'I had hundreds—I'm not kidding, hundreds —of devices that have died over these decades,' Higginbotham says. 'I have lived through hundreds of poorly thought out, poorly executed IoT products that have come into the market, failed and then left a trail of e-waste and unhappy consumers behind them.' Higginbotham helped put together a new joint report by the consumer advocacy groups Consumer Reports, US PIRG, and the nonprofit Secure Resilient Future Foundation. The report suggests language for potential legislation that it hopes will be picked up and championed by lawmakers at the state or federal level. The Connected Consumer Products End of Life Disclosure Act, as they call it, would require device manufacturers to indicate how long they plan to support the devices they sell, and give users fair warning when their devices are headed toward the end of their lifespan. It's a problem that some consumers will be more familiar with than others. The US Federal Trade Commission, in response to a public letter put out by US PIRG, reviewed the websites of 184 products and found that 89 percent of them did not disclose how long the manufacturer intended to support its product. Lucas Rockett Gutterman, director of PIRG's Designed to Last campaign, says that legislation like this could affect more people than just the early adopters of out-there gadgets like the Quirky Egg Minder or the recently deceased Humane AI Pin. It would apply to people's phones, laptops, fitness trackers, fridges, stoves, printers, microwaves, cars—nearly every device in your house, office, and driveway that can (or probably will someday) connect to the internet. 'I mean, President Trump just said it,' Gutterman says, referencing the US leader's reaction to seeing the dashboard of a Tesla during a recent publicity stunt at the White House: ' 'Everything's computer.' That's true, it is all computer.' When the online services that power a connected device go away, either because a company collapses or just stops supporting certain products, those devices can wind up bricked and broken. They can also remain mostly functional for years, even if the user doesn't realize that software support has ended. That means devices may no longer have access to regular security updates, which can make them vulnerable to cyberattacks or use as an insidious node in a wider botnet of zombie devices. The proposed act would require companies to disclose a 'reasonable' support timeframe on a product's packaging and online where it is sold, letting users know how long they can expect a device to have access to those connected features. It would also require companies to notify customers when their devices are approaching the end of their support lifespans, and inform them of what features are going away. Finally, there's the cybersecurity angle, which would require internet providers to remove and exchange company-provided broadband routers from consumer homes when they reach their end of life. 'The cybersecurity piece really coalesces around the requirement that internet service providers that lease or sell smart connected devices to their customers take responsibility for managing end-of-life devices on their networks,' says Paul Roberts, the president of the Secure Resilient Future Foundation (SRFF), an advocacy non-profit that focuses on cybersecurity. If the router-specific thing feels a little out of left field, that's because Roberts says it is a deliberate two-pronged approach. 'Those are two somewhat distinct issues, but they're all part of the bigger problem,' Roberts says, 'which is putting some guardrails and definition around this smart-device marketplace. Saying to manufacturers, there are rules you need to abide by if you want to sell a smart connected product. It's not the wild west.' Roberts hopes that if the law gets support from lawmakers, and is eventually turned into real legislation, it will create market incentives for companies looking to make more secure software products, similar to how seatbelts and airbags became widely accepted in motor vehicles. However, it's less clear whether that legislation will ever get any traction at the federal level in the US in a political climate dominated by wanton, whirlwind deregulation. While the European Union has led the way on regulation about product repairability, and end-of-life treatment for vehicles and e-waste recycling, the US hasn't made similar moves. 'We are in a place where the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are not really going to do anything that's pro consumer,' says Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategies. 'I don't see any real appetite for regulation.' Sag also feels there's a possibility that such legislation has the potential to dampen the thirst for innovation that drives startups. If companies know they have to support a product for a set amount of time, it could limit the kind of risks they're willing to take. 'I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing,' Sag says. 'I just think there's a lot of startups out there that aren't willing to take on that risk. And I think, because of that, it could impede innovation in some ways.' Higginbotham is far less worried about this. She points back to her vast collection of dead devices—what has amounted to a veritable pile of e-waste. 'I don't know if that really counts as innovation,' Higginbotham says. 'We need to recalibrate our default setting based on the last decade and a half of experience. Maybe you don't have to just throw a bunch of stuff out into the ether and see what sticks.'
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WIRED
28-02-2025
- WIRED
So You Bought a Humane Ai Pin. Here's What You Can Do Next
Humane's Ai Pin stopped working today, turning the year-old wearable—which cost millions to build—into a paperweight. Here are some alternatives if you'd rather avoid the e-waste. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED As of today, the Humane Ai Pin is dead—less than a year since its launch. Following an acquisition by HP, Humane shut down many of the core features of the artificial intelligence-powered wearable and deleted user data, rendering it useless. Yes, some functions remain, like checking battery life (useful!), but you can't access the voice assistant. If you spent $700 on the Ai Pin, you might be wondering what you can do now. These are the risks of being an early adopter, but not getting a refund on a device bricked before the warranty is even up feels like a rip-off. Humane sold roughly 10,000 units, though daily returns were outpacing sales at one point, so there are even fewer Pins in the world. Still, that's thousands of effectively useless devices. It's a blip in the amount of e-waste generated in a year around the world—already at a crisis point—but Humane really should have offered a more responsible approach with the Ai Pin's demise. There might not be a way to get your money back, though, if you bought the pin in October of 2024 (for some reason), you might fall under the typical 120-day window to issue a chargeback with your credit card. There are some alternative options, however. Let's explore. File a Complaint With the FTC Killing a product consumers have spent money on is 'unfair and deceptive.' That's what Lucas Gutterman told WIRED via email. He's the campaign director of the Designed to Last campaign at Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). 'When we buy something with advertised features, we should get what we pay for, and when we get ripped off the law should protect us,' Gutterman says. 'I urge everyone who purchased a Humane AI Pin to file a complaint with the FTC so they can step up and protect consumers.' Photograph: Federal Trade Commission Last year, a coalition of groups like US PIRG and Consumer Reports sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agency to address 'software tethering,' described as the use of software to control and limit the function of a device after someone buys it. The FTC subsequently conducted a study that attempted to determine software support commitments for more than 180 products, only to find that 'nearly 89 percent of the manufacturer's web pages for these products failed to disclose how long the products would receive software updates.' Humane's warranty states that the 'software and software functionality' are excluded, which is often the case on many connected products. But the study also noted that it's deceptive if manufacturers market a device's features but then fail to provide software updates to maintain those capabilities—it may violate the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, which was enacted in 1975 to protect consumers from unfair disclaimers in warranties. 'Without transparent labeling of length of software support, or by taking away key features that were advertised, manufacturers might be violating the FTC Act by deceiving consumers," Gutterman says. "Paying for a $700 product that's supposed to work, and then being told it will suddenly stop working, is a 'harm consumers cannot avoid,' although it's one that Humane could have humanely avoided before they shipped e-waste-to-be." You can file a complaint with the FTC here. Pressure Humane to Open Up the Software Sometimes, when companies stop delivering updates to products and shut down core features, a devoted community comes to the rescue to revive or maintain capabilities of the product (or mod it to do something else). We've seen this time and time again, like with the iPod, the Game Boy, or even the Pebble smartwatch. The Humane Ai Pin may not have enough doting admirers up for the task, but this process would be made simpler if Humane released the keys to the software. Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, says Humane should follow Pebble's lead and open the device up. Either that or we'll have to wait for someone to find a vulnerability and jailbreak the Ai Pin to write custom software for it. Humane did not respond to our request for comment. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. What could you do with this little wearable pin? Wiens had some ideas. 'You could just use it as a Walkie-Talkie. … A pin that talks to the internet, has a camera and microphone, sounds pretty cool. It's like a Star Trek communications pin." Dispose or Disassemble It If you want to just get rid of the thing, Wiens says to make sure you remove the battery first and then take it to an e-recycler. We also have a detailed guide on how to responsibly dispose of your electronics. Make sure you do the same for the other accessories that came in the box, though you can easily repurpose Humane's nifty charging adapter and the nice braided cable. Alternatively, you can use a service like Grid and have the company deconstruct and frame the Humane Ai Pin, so you can hang it up on the wall and remind yourself every day of the $700 you lost. I know it's a little hard to think about spending more money on this wearable, but at least it'd look cool. You could turn your Ai Pin into a 'unique framed artwork' and commemorate the $700 you lost. Photograph: Grid Grid accepts custom orders, so I asked the company if it would consider the Ai Pin. The answer is yes—for a cool $90, which includes design, materials, and shipping. 'We have carefully examined the structure of the Humane AI Pin and can confirm that we are able to provide a deconstruction and framing service for it. If anyone is interested in preserving their AI Pin as a unique framed artwork instead of letting it go to waste, they can definitely reach out to us.' You can email support@ to inquire about this custom request. Use It as a Paperweight or Keep It Safe The Ai Pin is more than up to the complex task of weighing down paper! Photograph: Julian Chokkattu It's not the heftiest thing in the world, but the Ai Pin can do the complex job of a paperweight. Or you can keep it in the box and put it away somewhere safe. In 50 years, you'll accidentally find it in the attic and then you can tell your grandkids how this little gadget was once—for a fleeting moment—supposed to be the next big thing.
