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#IOT End Of Life

What happens when an IOT service shuts down.

A big problem with having everything connected is that when a company shuts down their servers your appliances become useless.

If the appliance relies on a server at all to function it should have ways to handle its shutdown.

The solution needs to come from higher up though. The government should force companies producing smart appliances to still provide minimum functionality if the server is not reachable or shut down in the form of manual controls and overrides. Nowadays smart thermostats for example simply don’t let you use it until you’re back online.

I don’t expect to have full functionalities, but for example, a lightbulb should still turn on with the default light settings and a thermostat should have a manual handle to turn it off and on and set the temperature. These features can be completely switched off server side when the the smart device is connected to the server, but should turn on when it’s not. This way you won’t have the problem of erroneous use case, on the other hand you won’t leave your users dry when you shut down.

Such changes will never come out willingly from the manufacturers. Who would bet in their company failing? Even if they thought about it who would waste money and time to develop a failsafe for that ‘unlikely’ scenario?

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Valentino Urbano


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Valentino Urbano

iOS Developer, Swift, Writer, Husband

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