Some thoughts about the internet of things
While I searched around the internet, checking out activity trackers, I stumbled upon withing. There I found this really interesting internet connected scale with a lot of additional functions. After pressing the order button I thought, moment Joerg, what is this about?
A scale with a lot of sensors, but to make it work you need to connect it with the internet, create an account etc. Just remember your now dead favorite gadget, the Karotz. The Karotz is the successor of the Nabaztag, and you might now think, what is this guy talking about?
The Nabaztag was my start into the internet of things. It was a cute little internet connected Rabit - Shaped gadget with was been controlled by an internet service. If you received a new Email, the rabbit could read it for you, traffic and weather news, the rabbit would inform you. Life was so simple with my little rabbit! Until the company was sold. The new company started the new device, Karrotz, with web cam and other cool new functions, and stopped the services for the Nabaztag. My rabbit was a useless piece of plastic and electronics. But I thought, hey, Nabz was great, lets start with Karotz. And with the end of last year the ‘new’ company has stopped the internet services after three years. Is there not the quote, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me?
There are a lot of cool new gadgets out there, and all of them are mostly connected to an internet hosted service, and depending on the goodwill of the company which is making the gadget to maintain the internet services.
At the moment we have here in Germany a discussion about ‘Planned obsolescence’. Some years ago a TV set was running for 15 years, nowadays you could be lucky if it works for 5 years. But with the ‘internet of things’ this product lifetime could become much shorter.
Does it make sense to by a scale which is depending on a web-service? What about all the other gadgets? If I by now the new UP3, how long will I be able to use this if the company is been bought? I love my electronic gadgets, but sometimes I start to think, a one hundred year old watch will still run in one hundred years, but what about the apple watch?
What do you say?