Consumer IoT is in trouble because normal people can't be expected to manage a house full of smart things or keep track of their bugs and looming obsolescence
@gassee https://mondaynote.com/... Don Clark / @donal888 : The inimitable Jean-Louis Gassee warns of the software issues at the heart of home IoT @gassee https://mondaynote.com/... Stephen Shankland / @stshank : @DylanLJMartin @TechmemeChatter Heck, tech giants can barely maintain their software for more than a few years even when they're generating billions of dollars in profits. Dylan Martin / @dylanljmartin : I came across a company at CES that promoted itself as a privacy-first smart home brand with an edge computer that can process everything locally. I asked them if the edge computer could still work if the company ever shut down, and they gave me such a sour look. https://twitter.com/... Kontra / @counternotions : “Imagine what marketers—and government agencies—could do with such information...There is no could, it will happen, there's too much ‘stored value’ in these network of connected devices, the appetites will be too strong” (The move slow & ponder edition) https://mondaynote.com/... Jan-Piet Mens / @jpmens : “The Sonos story gets better (meaning worse)” https://mondaynote.com/... @sebvalic : “You come home at the end of the day and your smart lock tells your phone or watch to wait because it has to download and install new software.” When all you really need is to relax, especially from tech. Great article by @gassee https://mondaynote.com/... Les Vogel / @lesv : I would argue non-technology companies creating devices is giving us the Internet-of-Malware. Devices that still work, but aren't supported provide an easy target. https://twitter.com/... John MacFarlane / @johnlmacfarlane : The parade of people who just can't be bothered to read/think just continues for Sonos. Sonos started this dumpster fire with poor customer empathy and coms but the meme just lives on. @gassee - you can gift a Sonos to friend anytime. You just won't get the recycle discount. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Jean-Louis Gassee's warning about software rot in consumer IoT lands on a floor he had already walked: two weeks earlier, the CES 2020 show notes catalogued exactly the kind of gadget categories he now argues ordinary households cannot maintain. The same show produced a telling data point — a privacy-first smart home brand demoing an edge computer that processes everything locally, yet could not promise the device would keep working if the company itself shut down.
The arc behind the piece runs longer than one trade show. Back in 2016, Monday Note flagged Amazon Echo standing apart from the typical cheap consumer-electronics IoT approach precisely because of these industry missteps, and critics have since tied Sonos' update and support decisions to customer backlash over communication. What Gassee adds is the structural diagnosis: even giants generating billions in profits struggle to maintain software for more than a few years, so smaller device makers have no realistic path to honoring long-term support.
First-order effects
- Buyers of cheap connected devices — not the vendors — absorb the maintenance burden: tracking bugs, applying updates, and facing obsolescence, with smart locks reportedly delaying entry while downloading updates.
- Vendors making longevity claims get stress-tested immediately: the CES edge-computing brand had to concede its privacy pitch collapses at end-of-support, and Sonos' support decisions continue to provoke allegations of poor communication.
Second-order effects
- Local processing becomes a competitive differentiator rather than a niche stance — the privacy-first edge computer exists because cloud-dependent rivals cannot credibly promise uptime beyond their own corporate lifespan.
- If Stephen Shankland is right that even profitable tech giants barely sustain their own software, then non-technology companies building connected devices are structurally exposed to insecure products susceptible to malware, pushing buyers toward platforms with integrated accountability.
Third-order effects
- Belkin's move to brick Wemo devices shows where the accountability vacuum leads when abandonment goes unpunished — five years after Gassee's warning, customers who paid for connected products still have no recourse, which invites eventual regulatory attention to end-of-support obligations.
- The market likely consolidates around either vertically integrated platforms (the Echo model) or genuinely local architectures, because the middle ground — cheap cloud-tethered gadgets from companies without software discipline — is the segment Gassee identifies as unsustainable.
The trend: Consumer IoT is splitting between disposable cloud-tethered gadgets that rot on the wall and platforms that either integrate software stewardship or push processing to the edge, with vendor abandonment — not hacking — emerging as the category's defining failure mode.