Lee Robot Moxie © Embodied
This is a case that seriously questions our increasing dependence on the Internet for our everyday things. At the beginning of December, startup Embody delivered some terrible news to its customers: due to the closing of its financing round, the company will be closing its doors and shutting down the servers that bring its star product to life. There are: Moxie, an $800 robot that supports the emotional development of children ages 5 to 10;
The case caused an uproar among Embodied users and advocates of open source and the right to repair. The gadget is practically nothing more than an empty shell equipped with a Wi-Fi chip to receive instructions from the cloud, with the end of servers meaning the certain death of the tiny robot released a few years later. A chemically pure example of planned obsolescence and problems associated with our connected products.
To make matters worse, Embody indicates on its homepage that it cannot”No promises“For a possible refund, this product is not able to ensure maintenance and indicates in black and white that”Moxie relies on the cloud to provide its functionality and cannot be replicated locallyThat was without counting the persistence of a few code fans.
Self-Host Compassion
As the media notes. Fight for repairs.After the company’s closure was announced, former Embodied engineers immediately began developing an open-source program to replicate Moxie cloud functionality natively.
“The idea is to develop a native application (“OpenMoxie”) that you can run on your computer.“, then points to the CEO of Embodied.”These community solutions allow you or the technical skills you know to maintain core Moxie features, develop new features, or your This will allow modification of how it works to better meet needs.“
If, for the moment, OpenMoxie is not yet officially available, the little robot has already received an update to prepare for the software transfer. Update that all users are encouraged to download as soon as possible, as this will also disappear once the servers are down.
All that’s left is for parents who have yet to announce the sad news to teach their kids the basics of self-hosting. What hasn’t been done so that hopefully one day the pixels in the robot’s eyes won’t be popping out one by one.
Sad exemplary behavior
If the case perfectly illustrates the problems associated with our dependence on the cloud, especially because it touches our hearts directly, Embodied’s behavior in this situation is tragically exemplary. Other companies with much better financial and human resources don’t always try to turn to the benefits of open source or self-hosting.
For example, Spotify shut down its CarThing project last December, leaving thousands of streaming devices unusable and headed for the dumpster. without offering any alternative to keep the device alive. And if other stories are similar to Moxie’s, like the one with the Rebble Collective that gave Pebble watches a second life, they’re pretty (too?) rare.
Cloud version software obsolete
These beautiful stories should not be the trees that hide the forest. If many companies allow themselves to send fully functional silicon into the trash, it is because the legislative framework around these devices is minimal, if not non-existent. Right-to-repair advocates and other sustainability advocates have long called for guarantees on update times for long-linked devices, or an obligation to publish source code after support ends.
In France, the sustainability index is the first step towards regulating these practices. The law also condemns planned obsolescence.”Any technique, including software, by which the marketer aims to make it impossible to repair or reset a device.But here, the intent of the approach to capability is always complicated, especially in the case of a cloud-dependent device that, by definition, depends on outsourced resources to ensure its operation.
What the Moxie case illustrates well is the threat to the planet of connected devices without guarantees and a long-term vision. In short, obsolescence of software in the cloud version.
