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Logitech-Harmony-Hub

Yesterday, we reported on Logitech'south bone-headed decision to pull all support for its Harmony Link organisation in March 2022 . The issue was exacerbated by Logitech's baffling decision to offer only Harmony Link customers with an existing warranty a free upgrade to the Harmony Hub, while giving earlier customers a 35 pct purchase price on an upgrade to the same.  None of this went over well with customers who had perfectly functional hardware already and weren't interested in replacing it.

At present, Logitech has pulled something of an about-face. The company now promises that at some point between now and March 2022, information technology will provide a free Harmony Hub to existing Link owners. If yous already redeemed your 35 per centum discount on the Harmony Hub, the full amount of your buy volition be refunded and you volition still receive the detail.

HarmonyHub

Showtime of all, it'south good Logitech is taking a ameliorate approach to this state of affairs; offering customers a free upgrade is a better resolution than suddenly turning off their old hardware. Just there's a larger overarching issue at stake here that Logitech's offering of a free Harmony Hub really doesn't address: When is the hardware you purchase actually yours?

In its FAQ, Logitech writes:

We fabricated the business concern decision to stop the support and services of the Harmony Link when the encryption document expires in the jump of 2022 – we would be acting irresponsibly by continuing the service knowing its potential/future vulnerability.

That's a valid business. Security issues within the IoT are legion and consumers need solutions they tin can trust. The problem is, security systems also need to ultimately exist answerable to the finish user in cases where the company in question isn't interested in maintaining the product. Terminate-user communities take been created to perform this chore effectually routers and phones in many cases. While their work has never been perfect (being open-source doesn't magically brand projects free of security flaws), there needs to be a way to either deploy additional security systems in place of certificate-based security or to allow an exterior group to run projects.

In an interview with Wired, Rory Dooley, caput of Logitech Harmony, stated: "You're e'er learning. The all-time way of learning is when you stumble, every bit nosotros did here. Having an easy path for the customer that's using a product and using a service is the right way of looking at this. We didn't wait at it that fashion, unfortunately. And we've learned from it."

But Dooley seems to be learning the wrong lesson. The lesson hither is not that Logitech has to have a path forward for all customers in perpetuity. At a certain point, in fact, information technology would become economically infeasible to continue giving an expanding client base an upgrade to the latest and greatest model but because they endemic the previous ane. And while I genuinely give Logitech credit for its prompt response to customers, kick the can downwardly the road doesn't solve the fundamental ownership outcome. And then long equally Logitech or whatever other visitor has the correct to brick your hardware at a moment of their choosing, it isn't even your IoT device. You lot've paid a $100 to $300 fee (possibly more than, depending on configuration options) to rent hardware that could literally be worthless in six months. And since total compatibility for IoT and smart dwelling house devices is even so more than an aspiration than reality, you could find yourself redeploying an entirely new system to replace it, with no guarantee it'll fare better than the first.

Whatever company that wants to actually popularize IoT would practice well to pay attending to issues like this. Customers certainly will. People may not understand device security, but they can certainly figure out that paying $100 to $300 for products with a ii-4 yr lifespan is a much worse deal than doing things the old-fashioned way.