It seems like almost every day we hear a story about a company forcibly discontinuing use of a product while it still has meaningful life in it, or changing its business model to more effectively exploit its loyal customers, or simply folding and leaving folks who paid good money for promised functionality with nothing at all. Humane’s $700 AI Pin is perhaps the most topical, as it will reportedly be intentionally bricked this month, despite an acquisition by HP. Spotify’s Car Thing is probably the best-known example of late, with another unilateral shutdown in 2024 despite the company celebrating its first annual net profit that year.

Table of Contents

• Broken Bots

• The Internet of Dead Things

• Remedies for Repair

• Waste Not

• Help Us Hack

• Ask Make: Beta

Broken Bots

We’ve been focusing a lot on robots and AI for an upcoming issue of the magazine, and came across this story about Moxie, an AI-powered robot for kids, whose abrupt shutdown left not only disappointed customers out of hundreds of dollars, but distraught children in peril of suddenly being without their plastic pal for weird capitalist reasons that they probably don’t (and shouldn’t have to) understand. In this case, the startup seems to have attempted to do the right thing, releasing an open-source solution for keeping their bots alive, even as the company crumbled, but this is definitely more of an exception in these types of stories than the rule.

The Internet of Dead Things

So what could be done to better serve digital device devotees who part with hard-earned cash and take a leap of faith to fuel these companies’ (often ultimately self-annihilating) aspirations? For over eight years, I’ve been involved with Rebble, a group formed in the crucible of the Pebble’s fiery ashes, which has now been keeping these smartwatches ticking for longer than the company that made them. And with the PebbleOS source code being released by the company that acquired the company that acquired (not a typo) the remaining IP, 2025 is shaping up to be the most exciting year for indie wearables in at least a decade. But we got lucky, building on a strong community formed during Pebble’s first lifetime, and having strong advocates who were able to properly prepare and advocate for the sharing of the original source – what chance do other orphaned devices without such an incredibly lucky streak stand?

Remedies for Repair

I recently spoke to Stacey Higginbotham at Consumer Reports about an effort to build longevity into connected devices, starting with a letter to the FTC, suggesting five ways that the obsolescence issue might be somewhat remedied:

· Disclosure of guaranteed minimum support time on product packaging

· Requiring continued core functionality even without an internet connection or updates

· Encouraging tools and methods for reuse after support ends

· Allowing groups like Rebble to provide continued operability, thus keeping products out of landfills, instead of spitefully preventing modification and reuse

· Educating manufacturers on how to design products for longevity

Waste Not

I’ve also been talking to Stephanie Markowitz at PIRC about how open-source communities like Rebble can help keep electronics hardware out of landfills, given that e-waste has become the fastest-growing waste stream in the world. Even as iFixit share their victory in having right-to-repair bills introduced in all 50 states, there is a long way to go in the first for what’s right for our beloved devices. I’m not sure what the answer is, but an enlightening recent lunch with Right to Repair author Aaron Perzanowski has me wanting to go back to his last chapter for clues.

Help Us Hack

While we might not all have Aaron’s legal expertise at our disposal to help understand the fight, it’s within everyone’s reach to get involved, join or build a community, and take back our Things! And to that end, please join us at our second Rebble Hackathon this weekend if you would like to see what it feels like to breathe new life into these beloved devices, or even just cheer along from the sidelines!

David Groom, keeping wearables out of the landfill, one at a time!

Ask Make: Beta

Please try out the beta version of our AI conversational search: Ask Make:, which uses AI trained all the content we have on Makezine.com. It’s distinctly different from a search engine. It will try to answer a question with a few paragraphs and then provide links to the sources it used. Like a lot of AI out there, proceed with caution. AI expertise can be wrong!

You’ll find it linked off the black nav bar or directly at this URL:

Try it out and let us know about your experience via our Discord: https://discord.gg/mpBkj2hhJ4

— Dale

Make Things is a weekly newsletter for the Maker community from Make:. This newsletter lives on the web at makethings.make.co