IoT gadget maker AcuRite shares reasoning for killing customers’ favorite app
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fellow human
Ars Praefectus
This. I knew Acurite rang a bell, now I remember I threw one of their temp devices in a waterproof box with the sensor dangling into the pool. I didn't even know they have an app because the device only ever talked to a dongle with rtl_433 forwarding to Home Assistant over MQTT.
rtl_433 is fascinating because it'll pick up all kinds of things, from smart hydro and gas meters to TPMS sensors of cars driving by. I can read the temperature of a neighbour's deep freezer
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fellow human
Ars Praefectus
8. Oh well, now that we have it we can use it to justify charging for features that used to be free
9. No one seems to like paying for the features that used to be free so let's stuff our app full of ads
10. Where did all the customers go?
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I'll give you my quick read to save you going back.
Blah blah flexibility.... something something cloud... ah, here it is: "The new app also charges a subscription fee."
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100% about subscription fees. People have to learn to stop buying products and software from subscription fee companies. Let them all die off.
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There are at least two competing reasons why this kind of thing should be disallowed in a regulatory regime, both of which affect society in the long term, and as such justify government intervention.
The first is the most obvious: waste generation. Electronic devices usually have toxic substances in them that need to be kept out of the land fills for as long as possible. Once they're sequestered in a fill, there's a non-zero chance of leachate ending up in the surrounding environment and ground water each year. The more such devices in the landfill, the more likely the containment system breaching from fire, mechanical damage, or unforeseen chemical interactions. When it's at the point where these devices are physically/electronically worn out/non-functional, have recycle programs to reclaim the materials that can be reused. Dispose of the remainder in an inert casing.
The second is a little more nebulous. The right to do what you want with a physical device you own - BUT it's not that simple. You're also buying into an ecosystem as it exists at time of consideration. Changing that ecosystem after-the-fact is tantamount to the concept of fraudulent bait-and-switch. It's not your customer's fault you didn't think out your business plan for long term business sustainability.
I think a compromise entirely feasible. Require companies to create products that can be maintained by the users after those products meet the inevitable point on the curve where a company can no longer afford to support it. Once that point is met, open source all materials needed to keep those products out of landfills. If corporations are loath to do this voluntarily, mandate it via regulatory regime. And by extension, keep those powers-that-be more honest knowing any suspicious stains are going to come out in the inevitable wash.
*Despite what I've said about Vizio TVs, I firmly believe in the right of repair and inquiry. I just don't believe people should buy products, if at all possible, from companies that actively prevent you from exercising that right. If you did, you should have known what was going to happen. You made your bed in their bedroom. Their house, their rules. (As opposed to your house, your rules: You didn't buy their DRM/user hostile policy laden product to begin with, and chose one that honors fair play.)
The first is the most obvious: waste generation. Electronic devices usually have toxic substances in them that need to be kept out of the land fills for as long as possible. Once they're sequestered in a fill, there's a non-zero chance of leachate ending up in the surrounding environment and ground water each year. The more such devices in the landfill, the more likely the containment system breaching from fire, mechanical damage, or unforeseen chemical interactions. When it's at the point where these devices are physically/electronically worn out/non-functional, have recycle programs to reclaim the materials that can be reused. Dispose of the remainder in an inert casing.
The second is a little more nebulous. The right to do what you want with a physical device you own - BUT it's not that simple. You're also buying into an ecosystem as it exists at time of consideration. Changing that ecosystem after-the-fact is tantamount to the concept of fraudulent bait-and-switch. It's not your customer's fault you didn't think out your business plan for long term business sustainability.
I think a compromise entirely feasible. Require companies to create products that can be maintained by the users after those products meet the inevitable point on the curve where a company can no longer afford to support it. Once that point is met, open source all materials needed to keep those products out of landfills. If corporations are loath to do this voluntarily, mandate it via regulatory regime. And by extension, keep those powers-that-be more honest knowing any suspicious stains are going to come out in the inevitable wash.
*Despite what I've said about Vizio TVs, I firmly believe in the right of repair and inquiry. I just don't believe people should buy products, if at all possible, from companies that actively prevent you from exercising that right. If you did, you should have known what was going to happen. You made your bed in their bedroom. Their house, their rules. (As opposed to your house, your rules: You didn't buy their DRM/user hostile policy laden product to begin with, and chose one that honors fair play.)
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Number 8 is usually considered up-front as a way to "offset" the development costs of the app refresh.
"It will cost $50 million to do this app refresh, including $35 million in consulting fees, but we estimate we can recoup $25 million a year through subscriptions, so after two years, it will have paid for itself!"
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Two points that juxtapose:
Eh, if it's so flexible, why can't these be implemented on release?
As a retired programmer, I often heard the stakeholders say some feature was necessary for the minimum viable product (MVP.) So we'd add it! If the new tech is so flexible, why not?
Eh, if it's so flexible, why can't these be implemented on release?
As a retired programmer, I often heard the stakeholders say some feature was necessary for the minimum viable product (MVP.) So we'd add it! If the new tech is so flexible, why not?
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Acurite response TLDR: "No one knows how to write maintainable code anymore, and LLM code agents have only made this worse. Forget about maintaining anyone else's code - that skill was dead by 2010. We have no choice but to start from scratch, because anyone who possibly could have fixed our app is either retired or dead."
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SubWoofer2
Ars Tribunus Militum
It could be worse. Accenture Australia have cost just under A$100m to upgrade the Australian Government's weather web site (Bureau of Meteorology) and have just been awarded another $16m contract.
One member of the Senate has been quoted as saying words to the effect of "Notorious for never going away, once they've got their claws in you".
Is this AcuRite thing a A$100m problem? If so, just goes to show that weather and computers is not easy.
One member of the Senate has been quoted as saying words to the effect of "Notorious for never going away, once they've got their claws in you".
Is this AcuRite thing a A$100m problem? If so, just goes to show that weather and computers is not easy.
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Bough an acurite weather stration, dich the home base and setup an SDR + raspberipi with weewx and home assistant... perfect solution.. while the protocol still open.
been working nicely for over a month.
Weather data.
been working nicely for over a month.
Weather data.
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It's even crazier when you consider the reason for it.
The website didn't have HTTPS enabled, it was HTTP-only. Plus, there were some reported accessibility issues.
So, instead of just turning on HTTPS and fixing the reported accessibility issues, the Bureau of Meteorology called in the contractors, decided to do a full redesign instead, and created a debacle. Clear, unambiguous charts were replaced with "modern" equivalents which obscured information (because contrast and legibility is out of style), and whole sections of the website with un-sexy, but vital, data like rainfall measurements became impossible to find.
When everyone complained, they restored the original website and just turned HTTPS on. Which I bet should have cost a lot less than $100 million.
At the same time, the service decided to rebrand from "The Bureau of Meteorology" (shortened to BoM) to simply "The Bureau". Then they insisted everyone start calling them that.
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Honestly, I get where they are coming from - it's an issue for all gadget makers. Unless you are the size of Apple, Google or Garmin, the ongoing gadget sales doesn't really pay for the ongoing development of the software that such connected gadgets require. Anything as niche as Weather, Running devices or similar have to be walled garden with a premium subscription model in order to finance a developer team and make enough revenue to justify their continued work. Those makers that started early into that market have either gone under or are switching to that model. The new or bigger vendors can work with "look at these shiny features we have, don't you want to subscribe?" while the smaller vendors have to operate with "you must!"
Having said that, is an excellent reason not to buy connected devices in the first place - especially niche ones.
This is so obvious in 2026, this shouldn't be news for anyone.
Having said that, is an excellent reason not to buy connected devices in the first place - especially niche ones.
This is so obvious in 2026, this shouldn't be news for anyone.
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HomeAssistant Green - preinstalled and you just plug it in like any other smart home controller device. Honestly, it just works.
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Honestly, unless she is able to navigate this kind of rug-pulls from companies; along with handling gaping security issues and debugging frequent failures, then yes, I would say she is better off without IoT devices in her life. Unless it's a hobby, most of us are better off without.
I would of course make an exception for things such as medically necessary devices - but those would be managed by a medical provider anyhow. And for not-really-IoT devices such as IKEA switches that only talk locally with a lamp and such.
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The problem is that vendors don't want to do the work to create open and compatible ecosystems. Making something like Bluetooth work was hard, but it added a huge amount of value to the ecosystem and shows that this sort of thing can be done. When you have standards and interoperability testing, there will be competition for zrto configuration local management and consumer friendly systems will appear.
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There is a tailscale addon for home assistant. That's what I use for secure and easy remote access.
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Pretty much any excuse is moot when they’re going to charge to share your data with weather underground.
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I'd kind of lost track of WU after heir acquisition by IBM, I didn't realize that IBM had spun off all their weather assets into a new company. I check weather.com every morning and find it good enough for my purposes. I'd make a guess all the Weather Company sites are using the same data. Not really interested in making weather tracking more complicated than that.
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Gee, Sounds like the initial version of Windows 11. Microsoft is starting to realize they made a mistake. AcuRite may find that they don't have the cash to recover from mistakes like this. I certainly would never buy from them.
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I was just telling my daughter about this app I used to have called MoodAgent. It let me use sliders, one for each mood (happy, angry, etc) to generate a playlist using the MUSIC ON MY PHONE.
Unfortunately they sold the IP to Spotify and took down their servers. The app still works on one of my old phones but only with the songs I mapped before they stopped their service.
Unfortunately they sold the IP to Spotify and took down their servers. The app still works on one of my old phones but only with the songs I mapped before they stopped their service.
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SubWoofer2
Ars Tribunus Militum
You're kidding. HTTPS?
The whole thing has been touted as a national-security level upgrade to prevent malicious foreign attacks. The news media and the government present it as something quite special.
HTTPS? Every IT professional in the country, once they've picked themselves up off the floor from laughing, must be walking up to their Accenture Australia mates and asking, "May I touch you? Maybe some of that magic pixie dust will rub off on me."
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fellow human
Ars Praefectus
It might mean she won’t be well suited to interact with such devices, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she shouldn’t have them. For example smart wall switches and motion sensors she may already have from a security system could enable automatically turning lights off at night and on when entering a room or in an emergency.
The best automations are ones which require no input from the user and those could be ideal for the less technical or able-bodied among us. Though ideally someone who knows about these things and can maintain them should be around.
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" forcing ads onto products, bricking older devices, suddenly charging a subscription fee, killing offline functionality, or releasing a maligned, incapable app."
This is literally the business model of virtually every IoT app.
This is literally the business model of virtually every IoT app.
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Right? Mine changed logo. Still same clunk, missing features like documents on demand, authenticator choice (MFA), etc.
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Gotta +1 to this. I've been using the same Davis setup for two decades, and it's simply rock solid without have to subscribe to anything. The setup has followed me around to three different houses, and the only thing I've had to do in all that time is replace one sensor (temp/hum) that finally gave up the ghost four months ago. Adding extra functionality (like the air quality monitor I added two years ago during wildfire season) is as simple as plugging it into the station or even just an outlet, depending on the addition -- no accounts to authenticate to, no fumbling around trying to get it to recognize the new thing on the network. I recently updated the console to the new(-ish) color version with the touch screen, to make it look more presentable in the house -- but the old console still works just as good as it ever did, and is mounted in the garage so we can get a glance at the weather before we drive out. The new console connected to the weather station via a quick 30 second search for signal, and that was that.
Edit: And to be clear, note that the fact that I could even replace a sensor on 20-year-tech is simply bonkers amazing. No obsoletion here!
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That's right. I'm not just a well of recurring revenue for you to tap anytime you're thirsty.
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I would argue that this is illegal in Europe. Everything sold to consumers must fulfill its ”main purpose” for 3 years or consumers can return it for a full refund. I don’t think this product fulfills its main purpose anymore. I have no idea if it they ever sold these in Europe, though.
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1) No, but it might mean she should avoid buying an Acurite weather station. Or any other IOT device that gives some unknown party possession & control over her data, if she cares about that sort of thing. Or doesn't want to be part of a botnet (since most IOT has garbage security and worse ability for updates). It may surprise you to hear that old people existed before IOT was a thing.
1b) Oddly, none of the people who claim they don't care if their info is shared has been willing to tell me their Social Security and bank account numbers!
2) I'm 70+ too. But I've got an Android phone, at least 1 old laptop now running Linux, probably a half dozen unused tablets, a desktop running W10 and another one running Linux (once I fix the damage an AI "help desk" did), and an elderly 1GHz netbook that's online 24/7 (it's slow, but fast enough to do what it's doing, it even has 2 cores!).
3) But I do not have ANY IOT gadgets other than a Ting power monitor my insurance company pays for (it's on a guest network). I don't trust my own ability to keep them safe, and KNOW most cannot be updated.
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same. I feel like I'm going insane every time I see people talking about running a server to manage their light switches or whatever.
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People like your mother can use HomeKit devices and an Apple TV or Apple HomePod which would work as a server, automations run locally. There are also matter devices, but they’re hit or miss (my window ac only exposes one mode and no fan settings so I have to route it through home assistant then to the Apple TV).
You just want devices that run locally so that say Apple kills Apple home and you have to find a replacement. Because the devices work locally, you don’t have to get new sensors, bulbs, etc.
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When we had a simple one place stop for getting videos (Blockbuster for eg.) all was well. Then came the enshitification of that with walled gardens everywhere. And Pirate Bay rose again to fill a niche. Now we have this sort of thing happening, along with always online TV's trying to lock users into multiple subscriptions.
How long before there is an underground Pirate Bay for TV's or other IoT devices? Where you can buy a small USB dongel for your brand of whatever and a quick boot hacks the firmware and gives you back control.
How long before there is an underground Pirate Bay for TV's or other IoT devices? Where you can buy a small USB dongel for your brand of whatever and a quick boot hacks the firmware and gives you back control.
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This is a better user story than any that got written in the design process
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EO Charging, a UK company, did the same thing with their (my) EO Mini Pro 2 electric car charger: they dropped the app after I’d had the unit 2½ years. The charger could originally be controlled remotely, programmed to turn on/off to take advantage of off-peak rates, etc., now it’s just a dumb always-on outlet.
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I've been using a RatGDO (Rage Against The Garage Door Opener for those wondering) for about 2 years and it has worked absolutely flawlessly. Of course it may depend on what GDO and wall switch you have, but overall, I highly recommend it.
I had the Chamberlain home-bridge for Homekit which they discontinued, I went without until I stumbled across RatGDO which is far better than that and has been completely reliable.
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