By Your $299 smart home hub still works perfectly—its circuits are fine, its Wi-Fi connects, its hardware hasn’t failed—but the company that made it just shut down the servers, and now it’s a useless brick. This isn’t hypothetical: Google did exactly this to Revolv owners in May 2016, permanently bricking fully functional hardware with a software killswitch. Eight years later, with 62 million tonnes of e-waste generated annually and only 22.3% properly recycled, software abandonment has become an environmental crisis hiding in plain sight.
The problem is straightforward: companies discontinue products by shutting down cloud services, rendering perfectly functional hardware worthless. The solution is equally straightforward: mandate open-sourcing of software when hardware reaches end-of-life. What’s missing is the political will to close a regulatory gap that’s costing the planet billions of dollars in preventable waste.
The E-Waste Math Nobody’s Tracking
Global e-waste hit 62 million tonnes in 2022, growing by 2.6 million tonnes annually, on track for 82 million tonnes by 2030. The recycling rate isn’t improving—it’s falling from 22.3% to a projected 20% by decade’s end. This waste carries a $78 billion annual price tag in externalized health and environmental costs, plus $62 billion in lost recoverable materials.
Software abandonment is a measurable contributor to this crisis. When Microsoft ends Windows 10 support, an estimated 400 million PCs could become obsolete overnight—not because they stopped working, but because they stopped receiving security updates. Moreover, smart home devices, wearables, and IoT products follow the same pattern: hardware outlasts software support by years, sometimes decades.
The environmental cost is compounded by what happens next. Devices with perfectly functional circuits, displays, and sensors end up in landfills because the companies that made them decided cloud services weren’t profitable anymore. We’ve normalized this.
Three Fates: Shutdown, Hostage, or Miracle
When companies abandon hardware-dependent software, products face one of three outcomes—and only one leaves customers whole.
The worst case is complete shutdown. Nest’s Revolv hub exemplifies this: on May 15, 2016, Google didn’t just turn off API access—they remotely disabled the hardware itself. App and hub both stopped working. Owners who paid $299 were left with nonfunctional plastic. One owner captured the sentiment perfectly: “Google is intentionally bricking hardware I own.” Nest offered “case-by-case” compensation after PR backlash, but the precedent was set: companies can remotely kill devices you purchased.
The subscription hostage is slightly better. In 2020, Wink gave users one week to subscribe at $4.99/month or lose functionality. This contradicted original packaging that promised “no monthly fees or subscriptions.” Without paying, users kept limited local control of lights and locks but lost remote access and voice assistant integration. It’s your hardware, but the company controls the features you already paid for.
The miracle is community rescue. When Fitbit acquired Pebble’s software assets in December 2016, the smartwatch company’s hardware users faced abandonment. However, the community prepared. Developers archived web and development assets, coded replacement cloud infrastructure in two weeks, and eventually got PebbleOS source code released on GitHub (with help from a team inside Google). Today, over 177,000 devices connect to Rebble’s community-run services, with 9,000 users paying voluntary subscriptions. Pebble is called “the most successful hardware company failure in history” for a reason—but it’s the rare exception, not the rule.
Right to Repair Doesn’t Go Far Enough
The European Union leads on right-to-repair legislation. Current rules mandate 5 years of software updates and 7 years of spare parts availability after a product stops selling. Manufacturers must provide access to repair software, firmware, and technical information. They cannot restrict third-party repairers from software access. France goes further: planned obsolescence is a criminal offense punishable by two years imprisonment and €300,000 fines.
Here’s the gap: all these laws regulate product support during the product’s life. None address what happens at end-of-life. Companies can still legally shut down cloud services that render hardware useless. They can brick devices remotely. Software abandonment is perfectly legal under current frameworks.
We have the regulatory precedent to mandate software support while products are actively sold. Extending that mandate one step further—requiring hardware EOL open source release—is a natural evolution of existing consumer and environmental protections.
A Workable Policy Framework for Hardware EOL Open Source
Mandatory open-sourcing at EOL is viable with a framework that addresses legitimate business concerns while protecting consumers and the environment.
Start with 90-day notice before shutdown, giving communities time to prepare. On the end-of-life date, companies release source code for firmware, backend services, and APIs under permissive licenses like MIT, Apache, or BSD. Before release, they sanitize code by removing API keys, credentials, and secrets—standard practice when open-sourcing any codebase.
Exemptions handle edge cases: code containing active trade secrets used in other products gets a pass, as does code dependent on third-party licensed IP. Furthermore, companies facing security breaches can shut down immediately rather than waiting 90 days. If a company provides an alternate compatibility path (like releasing a local-only firmware), they’ve met the spirit of the requirement.
Enforcement slots into existing frameworks: right-to-repair legislation, consumer protection agencies, environmental regulations targeting e-waste prevention, and class action lawsuits for violations.
The counterarguments don’t hold up under scrutiny. Property rights concerns fade when products are already discontinued—there’s no competitive harm to dead products. Security risks are addressed through sanitization, and community security fixes beat no fixes at all. Implementation costs are one-time expenses for already-discontinued products. And innovation isn’t harmed because the mandate only applies after companies stop supporting products voluntarily.
Why Legislation Is Necessary
Voluntary open-sourcing has failed. Pebble’s community rescue succeeded only because developers anticipated the shutdown, worked frantically to build replacement infrastructure, and got lucky with eventual source code release. Most abandoned products don’t get that treatment. Revolv users got “case-by-case” compensation—corporate speak for “we’ll settle quietly with whoever complains loudest.” Wink users faced a subscription shakedown. The pattern is clear: companies default to abandonment, not graceful handoffs.
Market forces aren’t correcting this problem. A decade of smart home device shutdowns hasn’t changed industry behavior. The e-waste crisis is worsening, not improving. Recycling rates are falling, not rising. Developers on Hacker News today are discussing this exact issue—212 points, 55 comments, strong support for mandatory requirements. The community knows what’s needed. We just need policymakers to act.
The environmental math alone justifies intervention. At 62 million tonnes annually and growing, e-waste is one of the fastest-growing solid waste streams globally. Software-driven obsolescence is a measurable, preventable contributor. When companies remotely brick functional hardware or force subscription paywalls on products that promised free service, they’re externalizing environmental costs onto society. France recognized this when it criminalized planned obsolescence. Consequently, it’s time to extend that logic to software abandonment.
Developers should advocate for this in right-to-repair legislation discussions. Policymakers should add EOL open-source requirements to existing frameworks. Consumers should demand it from manufacturers before purchase. The regulatory infrastructure exists—we just need to close the gap.
