The June Oven, a pioneering smart appliance built by former Apple engineers, lost its cloud services this week after parent company Weber decided to shut down the app and servers. Users can still use the oven manually, but remote control, software updates, and AI-powered food recognition are gone. Weber told The Verge it considered open-sourcing the technology but declined, citing the oven's integration with its Weber Connect platform.
The Verge notes that June is just the latest in a long list of connected products that have been abandoned in the last two years, including Nest Secure, Belkin's WeMo line, Neato robot vacuums, the Brava smart oven, and Bose SoundTouch speakers. Some devices were saved by local protocols like Zigbee, Thread, or Home Assistant integrations, but most are left in a "zombie state" where basic functions remain while the smart features that justified their price disappear.
The article argues that the root problem is the industry's reliance on cloud servers, which become a recurring cost once a product is discontinued. It calls for consumer protections, manufacturer-built safeguards such as local APIs and physical buttons, and standards like Matter to help futureproof devices. The advice to manufacturers: "design for death from day one."