Smart Home Device Maker Renders Devices Dumb Unless A New Subscription Is Paid For
from the hostage-situation dept
This isn’t going to stop happening unless governments finally get involved to do their most basic job: protect their citizens. This habit among digital and tech companies of selling a thing only to claw back some of the function of that thing after the purchase is both rampant and, frankly, getting ridiculous. It’s bad enough when a company goes fully kablooey, has to shut down all their backend servers and gear, and renders their products useless. That sucks, there are ways around it, and it shouldn’t be allowed, but it’s quite different than perfectly healthy companies selling a product that has features and capabilities out of the box, only to claw back those capabilities and either shut them down or stick them behind some subscription paywall.
And that latter of those examples is what is happening again, this time from Futurehome, which makes a series of smarthome IoT products.
Launched in 2016, Futurehome’s Smarthub is marketed as a central hub for controlling Internet-connected devices in smart homes. For years, the Norwegian company sold its products, which also include smart thermostats, smart lighting, and smart fire and carbon monoxide alarms, for a one-time fee that included access to its companion app and cloud platform for control and automation. As of June 26, though, those core features require a 1,188 NOK (about $116.56) annual subscription fee, turning the smart home devices into dumb ones if users don’t pay up.
“You lose access to controlling devices, configuring; automations, modes, shortcuts, and energy services,” a company FAQ page says.
You also can’t get support from Futurehome without a subscription. “Most” paid features are inaccessible without a subscription, too, the FAQ from Futurehome, which claims to be in 38,000 households, says.
That would be potentially nearly a decade of a bought product working one way, only to have its core functionality tucked behind a subscription paywall on the whim of the company. This is one of those situations that, and I don’t care what country you live in, should elicit the common sense reaction of: this shouldn’t be fucking legal. But, due to the apathy of government and the steady erosion of anything remotely representing true consumer protection, this sort of thing is happening more and more frequently.
And it’s not as though all of this functionality requires support from backend company assets, either. Some do, sure, but some of the features that suddenly don’t work appear to have nothing to do with centralized corporate servers or services.
In response, a Reddit user, according to a Reddit-provided translation of the Norwegian post, said:
I can understand to some extent that they have to do it for services that have ongoing expenses, like servers (even though I actually think it’s their problem, not mine, that they didn’t realize this was a bad idea when they sold me the solution), but a local function that only works internally in the equipment I’ve already paid for shouldn’t be blocked behind a paywall.
So what’s the explanation here? Simple: money! Futurehome recently went through bankruptcy and is blaming that situation for why it needs to suddenly create a cash percolator among the customers that already bought its products with the expectations of the functionality with which they were sold. As always, the company has insisted the subscription fees will allow it to remain solvent and, as the evergreen promise goes, “fund product development, and provide high-quality support.” We’ve seen this movie before and we know how it ends.
As you’d expect, some people are attempting to figure out how to make Futurehome products work without the subscription. Perhaps as a result of that, Futurehome shut down its own user forum in June. In addition, the CEO is complaining about how the company now has to invest time and resources to fight its own customers’ attempts to make the products they bought work like they did at the time of purchase.
Futurehome has fought efforts to crack its firmware, with CEO Øyvind Fries telling Norwegian consumer tech website Tek.no, per a Google translation, “It is regrettable that we now have to spend time and resources strengthening the security of a popular service rather than further developing functionality for the benefit of our customers.”
But is it as regrettable as your own customers suddenly finding out the thing they bought won’t work anymore because your company didn’t business well enough?
Filed Under: iot, ownership, smart devices, smarthub, subscription
Companies: futurehome
Comments on “Smart Home Device Maker Renders Devices Dumb Unless A New Subscription Is Paid For”
I expect this sort of thing from U.S. companies. Does Norway not have better consumer protection laws? I’d expect better from the E.U.
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Norway is not a member of the European Union.
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It’s important that there is an bankrupcy inbetween, this can often but not always involve dissolving existing “burdens” – and I’ve not see details on this.
It won’t help them with newer customers though that depends on whether they sold new hardware after that without subscriptions. I fully expect they ending up having to refund those if that’s the case.
While it’s correct that Norway is not part of the EU, it IS part of the large EEA – which in practice means almost all EU-wide rules apply.
There’s a few specific carveouts (including tolls) and the non-EU countries can take refuse to accept specific decrees but there’s a high threshold and big consequences if used too much.
Which results in Norway AFAIK actually being in the top-5 of countries when it comes to implenting EU rules (including all the actual EU countries) – because most EU countries drag their feet on implementing directives far more than Norway does. And Norway was strong on consumer protection even before EEA so AFAIK it has no carveouts in that area.
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The two things on the FAQ page that give me pause are that some of this money is going towards “product development”, and 50% of the company was rebought by the current owners. Here in the U.S., it’s not unheard of for companies to use bankruptcy strategically.
I don’t know how Norwegian bankruptcy law works, but the fact that original ownership wasn’t zeroed out seems alarming (but maybe it’s fine if Norwegian judges are strict on what qualifies for relief?). “Product development” at least has some theoretical argument for bringing in necessary new revenue streams, I guess, although I’m skeptical.
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From what I can tell they didn’t initiate the bankrupcy, someone they owed money did it because they got tired of not getting paid – the company had a multi-year history of economic trouble and I expect someone finally decided enough was enough.
I can’t find data for 2024 or 2025, but an article mentions they lost 185 million NOK (~18M USD) in 2023 after tax (so real money, not just accounting) – resulting in half the staff being fired and radical cost cuts but they really needed new money (investment) which they failed to find. They were negative in 2022 too but much less, a loss of 13.9M NOK (1.35M USD).
The bankrupcy opened on 20 May 2025, the bankrupcy administrator (not from the company) tried to make a “reconstruction” – this a partial write-down of debts but this requires agreement by the debt owners (similar to US Chapter 11?, would have preserved the subscribers).
On 25 May 2025 reconstruction had failed so it went into liquidation the adminstrator can sell parts or all of to various interested parties. Usually they prefer to sell everything together (again preserving the subscribers) but likely there was NO interest in it if the subscriber rights were included (massive money drain while trying to rebuild) so…
So likely the adminstrator could either sell it this way or not at all – which would have cut everyone off instantly!! rather than a month or two later with a subscription service option.
The highest (possibly only) qualified bidder for the rights to the platform and services was FHSD Connect. If the bankrupcy administrator had issues with the bankrupcy they would likely have tried to disqualify any bids such as this that involved the former owners – but this seems unlikely here since it way too fast for that fight to have happened.
Without getting the actual sale document I can’t be 100% but I strongly suspect they’re in the clear legally to do this (and AFAIK similar procedures exists in almost all countries).
The FHSD Connect company that bough this is 50% owned by the previous owners of Futurehome and 50% by Sikom Connect which is already active in the Smart Home space.
It’s not uncommon for a company with big debts to not be able to get investment which then results in a bankrupcy – and then (usually) one or more of the potential investors makes a bid on it now that it’s not crippled by debt. Sometimes they team up with the original owners since they, well, know the business. Or not if they think they can do better.
Since the former owners ended up with 50% I suspect they came up with at least some of the money. But it’s also possible that Sikom secured themselves preferred shares, in which case they could own only half the company but make all the decision and most of profit.
Yes, this sucks for the users but given the history it likely would have been the same result in most Western countries – having lots of “forever free” subscribers is a massive liability in a bankrupcy. And I’m not sure there’s any sane way to make a law that protects them in a liquidation bankrupcy.
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… nor is this very sketchy business anecdote from tiny Norway sufficient to draw broad conclusions about emerging business practices generally — or to push for strong government action against such.
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Norway isn’t a member of the EU, but it does have pretty solid consumer protection laws. That being said, the legality of this move isn’t really clear. I would imagine many of the customers will report it to the Norwegian Consumer Authority.
“You will own nothing, and if you’re not happy, that’s just too bad — we’ll fight you for control over the stuff you’ve already bought and paid for.”
The line must go up, therefore enshittification must increase. Customer satisfaction? That’s next quarter’s problem.
This is why all of the devices I buy are “dumb”. Kind of like when you place purchases that won’t fit in your trunk on the floor in front of the back seat of the car because they can’t fall to the floor if they’re already there.
Misnomer
Why are devices called “smart” when they are so dumb that they cannot even do their normally assigned tasks without asking for remote help?
So… is it still illegal to break a hardware/software lock if the company doesn’t exist anymore?
That darn Futurehome...
In an email to users, Futurehome pointed out how bricking their devices was all on the users.
“Face it, you f**ked up, you trusted us”
Same thing happened with Sunpower….
Installed Sunpower solar panels about 8 year ago that came with a reporting and monitoring system that worked well at no extra cost. Now they are BK and the backend is toast. No more reporting and monitoring. The entity that took over will now hook you back up to the backend, if 1) you have someone come out and install a new monitoring system for a one time $800 fee and then of course pay a subscription fee for online access.
Sony removing Linux support from the PS3 fifteen years ago, and getting away with it completely scot-free, was when we stepped into the bad timeline.
“Contracts” & Competition are the long standing consumer protections against untrustworthy sellers.
If “Smarthome” nowhere specified its right to a future deactivation of its devices, then buyers have a firm case for legal remedy.
In any event, Smarthome’s trickery will destroy its reputation and future sales– and boost competitors.
breach of contract?
Why isn’t this a breach of contract for which the company can be sued?
But...bankruptcy?
So, perhaps I’m missing something, but doesn’t the article say that Futurehome went through bankruptcy? If it didn’t emerge from bankruptcy, wouldn’t their previous customers be in the same situation (bricked devices) but without the possibility of paying to keep them working?
Maybe there needs to be a larger conversation. What duty is owed by a vendor to keep their products working after the company’s demise? And what’s the best way to enforce that duty?
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Interesting view. It is easy to grumble when things get worse without seeing the bigger picture.
If I read it correctly, though, they included things that don’t need their servers to function in the features that are paid now.
Regardless of the fact that they didn’t plan their business model well enough (unexpected things happen all the time, one can’t always do everything perfectly)
If they don’t have enough money to keep the servers up without subscription, I think that giving the customer the choice of “devices not connected to the central network, but no bill” and “full experience, but you pay, because we need help running the infrastructure” would be a more fair way to treat the people who bought their devices, and I believe the backlash could be less severe, leaving more resources to actually sustain the company instead of hunting down disgruntled customers trying to crack their devices’ firmware.
In this scenario, even a company that would never make it through bankrupcy would leave the remaining devices in operational state.
Since you mentioned the question about what should be done if a company becomes defunct entirely, I have been pondering about the option of releasing the software to the public if that happens. If the company has no hope of ever recovering, they could agree to that, right? Are there any legal things preventing that? I was thinking about it when I read about the emotional support robot getting shut down (an article here on Techdirt)
I have been researching self-hosting options (since I’m getting into DYI electronics and decentralized services lately) and while not everyone has the know-how to do that stuff, open-sourcing the software could open the door for other actors to pick up the bricked devices after the company died. Centralized model of service will always be at risk and the same scenario of defunct devices keeps happening, so we truly need a way to minimize the damage to people.
Just pondering here… I enjoy discussions.
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To be fair, Futurehome wouldn’t be the hill I would die on with this discussion 🙂 I was more interested in the larger point.
Releasing source code to the public domain could be an answer, although, interestingly, someone would need to incur the costs of running the server without revenue for the clients to see the benefit.
I would probably suggest that the source code be placed in escrow so that, upon dissolution of the corporation, it automatically becomes public domain. Because a company on the way to bankruptcy isn’t going to spend ANY effort moving what they consider valuable IP to the public until it’s too late. And from a legal perspective, I’d be in favor of legislation that requires this for any product with a server-side requirement for functionality.
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“Customers who declined to pay lost access to the mobile app (even for local use), along with all automations and the hub’s local API integrations, leaving only basic on-device (physical) control.”
If the company simply cease to exist then the firmware which took away local access would never have been pushed out to the devices.
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As I said in another reply, I’m not pro-Futurehome here. And, to be fair, without digging into their code, the idea that a local API integration didn’t go through a server seems insecure, to put it mildly. I don’t like the idea of an IoT device responding to a port 80/443 request, which would be the case otherwise.
But my comment was more of a thought exercise. What should happen to a company that sold equipment requiring an online service to function completely? Should there be legislation that forces the escrow of the necessary software components with the idea of public domaining them upon dissolution? Not to mention the requirement that any acquiring company either continue support or trigger the public domain clause.
A simple lesson to be learned here-
Don’t expect devices (or software) to make up for the intelligence you lack.
Those who desire artificial intelligence only seek to make up for a lack of the organic variety.
Louis Rossman put out a $5k bounty for someone to restore the old firmware for customers. The Futurehome CEO is now threatening a lawsuit.