[farzadb82]

As someone in a different thread put it "It's not so much about the cost of the device as much as it's about the time invested in setting things up".

It's very poor form to sunset a product without offering users (your early adopters none the less) a easy migration path to another product. Had there actually been data standards for setup and captured data, I'd expect the ability to export my setup and data so that I can use it to configure an alternative product.

[danso]

Oh no doubt, I think these instances are poor form, and in this young age of IoT, companies as big as Nest/Google should bend over a bit backwards for early adopters when it comes to sunset period and possibly even rebates...if nothing else than to treat them like loss leaders.

But later on, as always-on-devices are the norm...I do think it'll be more acceptable -- with the appropriate regulations and consumer protections -- to kill a device at the end of the cycle instead of designing it to operate as a zombie, in the same way that users accept that MMOs and other multiplayer-heavy games are heavily dependent on company servers...though in that case, it's easier to design a game to allow non-official servers so that the community can carry on after the official shut-off...but that's where the analogy of video game == important home device ends, of course.