If Your Device Requires a “Cloud” Service, It’s Not Your Device

It’s time for a pop quiz. If you purchase a device and its basic functionality relies on a “cloud” service (somebody else’s computer), do you own it?

No, you don’t:

Bricking a device, which usually happens during firmware update gone wrong, is never a good thing. It’s even worse when companies do it to their devices intentionally. According to emails received by users, Logitech will be intentionally bricking all Harmony Link devices via a firmware update as of March 16th, 2018. The bad news was first reported by Bleeping Computer.

According to this Harmony Link review, the device cost $100.00 when it was released. For that $100.00 I’m sure there were a lot of consumers who mistakenly believed that they were buying the device when, in fact, they were merely renting it. Now the owner of those devices, Logitech, is going to turn them off.