For one thing, companies go under! “Smart” devices are almost universally designed without any fail-safes for this eventuality. Google bricked its first-generation Nest home automation hubs, which were often used to coordinate monitoring, access, and safety at remote weekend places, where they couldn’t be readily replaced; the automaker Fisker went under and bricked all its unsold inventory; and the med-tech company Second Sight went bust and bricked the artificial eyes its customers had wired into their optic nerves.
