The near-collapse of Brilliant, a manufacturer of high-end smart control panels, serves as a crucial lesson in market viability. In May 2024, the company laid off most of its staff, leaving customers who had invested in its premium-priced ecosystem facing the imminent threat of their expensive hardware being bricked. While the company was ultimately rescued by an acquisition, the incident shattered the illusion that a high price tag equates to long-term stability.

The former CEO cited “the slow growth of the smart home market” as a primary reason for the company’s struggles. This statement highlights a core vulnerability: even well-funded, premium products can fail if their business model is not sustainable. This reinforces the wisdom of building your home on platforms that are either supported by a massive and resilient open-source community such as Home Assistant, or are a core profitable business for a large, diversified corporation. The Brilliant saga proves that in the volatile smart home market, a company’s financial stability is a more valuable feature than any slick interface.

On April 8, 2024, Google committed one of the most flagrant acts of corporate-driven obsolescence. They deliberately deactivated the entire Nest Secure alarm system. This was not a passive end-of-life; it was an active execution, turning millions of dollars of user-owned hardware into e-waste to align with a new corporate strategy. The shutdown also created ecosystem contagion, a devastating ripple effect that crippled a separate product, the Nest x Yale smart lock.

Many owners of the lock unknowingly relied on the Nest Secure hub as the essential Wi-Fi bridge for their device. When Google remotely killed the hub, the lock was instantly cut off from the internet, losing all of its smart functionality. This incident exposes the profound danger of closed ecosystems and their hidden dependencies. The health of a device you rely on daily can be held hostage by the fate of a completely different product in the company’s portfolio. This is a risk that simply does not exist in an open, locally controlled system where components are independent and interoperable.

In late 2023, the Chamberlain Group, maker of MyQ garage door openers, declared war on its most technically engaged customers. The company systematically blocked all third-party access to its API, a move aimed squarely at the open-source community and the popular Home Assistant integration. Chamberlain’s public justification was to cynically frame these users as a security threat, claiming their activity resembled a DDoS attack.

The true motivation was control and monetization, forcing users into Wemo’s proprietary app or paid partner platforms. This overt hostility towards open-source development is a massive red flag for any consumer. It signals a desire for absolute control, which inevitably leads to vendor lock-in and diminished functionality. The community’s response, however, was a powerful affirmation of local control. An independent developer quickly created ratgdo, a small, ESPHome-based device that physically connects to the opener, completely bypassing the MyQ cloud. This incident taught a vital lesson: when a company becomes hostile to its customers, the only way to win is to choose hardware that doesn’t require you to play their game.

The sudden and chaotic disappearance of Insteon in April 2022 became the quintessential cautionary tale of cloud dependency. With no warning, the company’s servers went dark, its executives vanished from public view, and its support forums were disabled. Millions of dollars of user-owned hardware were rendered useless overnight, proving with brutal clarity how quickly a 17-year-old company could evaporate and take its entire ecosystem with it.

While the Insteon story has a uniquely hopeful ending—a small group of dedicated users acquired the company and revived the service—this outcome must be viewed as a rare and fortunate exception. The core lesson remains unchanged. The fact that the community had to rescue the company to save their own hardware is the most powerful argument imaginable for choosing a system that doesn’t require saving in the first place. Any system reliant on a single company’s cloud is built on a foundation of sand.

In the same month as the Insteon collapse, iHome, a brand primarily known for audio accessories, quietly terminated its iHome Control Cloud Service. The shutdown bricked its cloud-dependent smart plugs and sensors. This case highlights the risk of investing in an ecosystem from a company to whom the smart home is a side project, not a core business. When the cost of maintaining the cloud servers became unattractive, the product line was an easy target for discontinuation.

Crucially, the iHome shutdown provided another clear example of the local control lifeline. Devices that had been integrated with Apple’s HomeKit protocol survived the cloud apocalypse. Because HomeKit requires local network control, these devices retained their core functionality through the Apple Home app long after the iHome cloud had vanished. This reinforces a key principle of Intentional Planning: it is wiser to invest in brands with a deep and strategic commitment to the smart home market.

The story of the Wink Hub is an example of Digital Ransom. In May 2020, with only a week’s notice, the company transitioned its historically free service to a mandatory $4.99/month subscription. The ultimatum was clear: pay the new fee, or your Wink Hub and all connected devices would become largely non-functional. The company frankly admitted that its one-time hardware sales model was unsustainable.

The user backlash was furious, with customers accusing the company of bait-and-switch and holding their paid-for hardware hostage. The incident proved that any free cloud service is built on a precarious business model. When that model falters, the company may view its users not as customers, but as a captive audience to be monetized. The Wink Hub, once a promising centerpiece of the connected home, became a digital ransom note, teaching a harsh but valuable lesson about the true cost of free.

The end-of-life for the first-generation Philips Hue Bridge stands as a model for a responsible corporate exit and the ultimate proof of the resilience of local control. On April 30, 2020, Signify ended cloud support for the v1 Bridge, disabling remote access and voice assistant integrations. However, the hardware was not bricked.

Because the Hue ecosystem was designed to function on the user’s local network, the core functionality of the system remained intact. Users could still control lights and scenes from within their home. Most importantly for advanced users, the bridge’s local API remained active, allowing platforms like Home Assistant to continue communicating with it directly. This orderly retreat demonstrates that a company can end support for a product without betraying its customers. By preserving local functionality, Philips Hue respected the hardware its users had purchased and allowed it to have a long and useful second life.

The shutdown of Best Buy’s Insignia Connect platform illustrates the danger of investing in a retail giant’s experimental foray into the smart home. When Best Buy pulled the plug, the consequences were dictated entirely by each device’s architecture. The cloud-dependent Insignia Wi-Fi Camera was bricked instantly. The smart freezer lost its smart features but continued to function as a dumb appliance.

The most destructive failures were the bricking of their smart plugs and in-wall switches. Like the camera, they lost all functionality through the Insignia app. However, a crucial design decision saved them: they were also compatible with Apple’s HomeKit. Because HomeKit operates locally, users who had integrated these devices into their Apple ecosystem retained full wireless control, completely bypassing the now-defunct Insignia cloud. This provides yet another powerful piece of evidence that a secondary, local protocol can act as an insurance policy, preserving the value of your hardware long after its parent cloud has vanished.

The shutdown of the Revolv hub by Google’s Nest division was the original sin of the smart home industry. It was the first time a major tech company deliberately and unapologetically bricked a product its customers had purchased, fundamentally challenging the concept of digital ownership. After acquiring the promising startup, Nest assured users the service would continue. Two years later, that promise was broken.

In a brief announcement, Nest stated that as they were “pouring all our energy into Works with Nest,” the Revolv service would be shut down. The shutdown was absolute. The app would not open, and the hub itself would cease all function. It was a remote execution that instantly transformed hundreds of dollars of hardware into useless plastic. The Revolv incident is the foundational story that makes the entire philosophy of The Thinking Home necessary. It is the ultimate, undeniable proof that if you do not have local control over the brain of your system, you own nothing.