The smart home graveyard is getting crowded

The June Oven, a high-end smart countertop oven built by former Apple engineers with a camera, built-in scale, and automatic food recognition, recently lost its cloud services after parent company Weber shut down the app and servers. That left owners with hardware that still bakes but no remote control, updates, parts support, or smart features - and Weber declined to open-source the software because June’s IP is tied into its Weber Connect platform. June joins a long list of discontinued, cloud-dependent gadgets - Nest Secure, early Nest thermostats, Belkin WeMo, Neato vacuums, Brava, Logitech Pop, Bose SoundTouch, Sengled bulbs - many of which now function only in a degraded “zombie” state rather than as the connected devices buyers paid for.

The response proposed is threefold: legal protections that force manufacturers to provide local APIs before killing cloud services; better product design that allows full or partial offline operation (physical controls, local protocols); and consumer caution when buying cloud-first devices. Local standards and ecosystems such as Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, and Home Assistant can preserve functionality and have rescued some products in the past, while open-sourcing or community buyouts have revived a handful. Manufacturers still monetize clouds and sometimes block third-party access, so consumers should prioritize devices with local control, physical buttons, and offline capabilities even if cloud features add convenience.