MTN Weekend: When your smart home needs a corporate lawyer
In October 2025, owners of Eight Sleep’s connected bed systems reported being unable to adjust temperature or elevation. Some beds were reportedly left too warm or stuck in an inclined position (Image: Businesswire)
Your fridge probably does not need a corporate lawyer yet. But if it depends on its manufacturer’s cloud servers, perhaps it should have one on standby.
A traditional appliance comes with a reassuringly simple arrangement. You buy it, take it home and expect it to keep working until something physical breaks. A connected appliance introduces several additional parties to the contract: an app, a user account, remote servers, software updates and, quite possibly, another technology company providing the cloud infrastructure.
The appliance may be in your kitchen, bedroom or hallway. Part of its brain is somewhere in a data centre.
That arrangement works nicely until one of those parties leaves the room.
When the cloud disappears
In January 2026, Belkin shut down cloud servers for many of its Wemo smart-home products. The Wemo app stopped working, along with remote access and integrations with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
The affected range included smart plugs, light switches, a baby monitor, heaters, an air purifier, a coffee maker and a Crock-Pot. Devices that had already been configured with Apple HomeKit could continue operating through Apple’s system. Thread-based Wemo products were not affected.
Other products lost their connected functions, although a device’s basic physical controls could still work. The switch had not worn out and its internal electronics had not necessarily failed. What disappeared was the remote service that enabled the app, account and device to recognise and communicate with one another.
A cloud-controlled product typically sends an instruction from the app to the manufacturer’s server. The server authenticates the user, identifies the associated device and sends the command back through the internet. Even if the phone and appliance are sitting on the same Wi-Fi network, their conversation may take a long virtual detour.
Turn off the server and the device can become remarkably unresponsive to a human standing two metres away.
When the bed stops taking instructions
Permanent closure is only one risk. Sometimes the cloud merely has a bad day.
During a major Amazon Web Services outage in October 2025, owners of Eight Sleep’s connected bed systems reported being unable to adjust temperature or elevation. Some beds were reportedly left too warm or stuck in an inclined position.
It is a memorable way to discover that sleeping horizontally has become a cloud-dependent service.
Following the outage, Eight Sleep introduced a Backup Mode. When its cloud infrastructure or the user’s Wi-Fi connection becomes unavailable, the app can communicate directly with compatible beds over Bluetooth. Owners retain manual control over temperature, elevation and alarms. Data can be stored on the device and synchronised when the connection returns.
Some advanced features still require the cloud. Eight Sleep says its Autopilot system relies on remote processing to analyse sleep phases and make automated adjustments. In Backup Mode, users regain essential controls but lose some of the intelligence they paid for.
The internet may make an appliance clever. Losing it should not prevent the owner from performing the product’s basic job.
Local control changes the relationship
A locally controlled device processes commands within the home, either on the product itself or through a nearby controller. It may continue working when the internet fails or the manufacturer closes its servers.
Cloud processing offers real advantages. Manufacturers can provide remote access, synchronise devices and run demanding software without placing an expensive processor in every plug, speaker or toaster. It also creates a continuing dependency between the product and the company that sold it.
Matter and Thread are often presented as answers to smart-home fragmentation, although they solve different technical problems.
Thread is a secure, low-power Internet Protocol-based mesh network. It enables compatible devices to communicate across the home without relying on Wi-Fi for every connection. A Thread border router connects that network to other Internet Protocol networks, such as the home’s Wi-Fi or Ethernet network.
Matter operates above the networking layer. It gives products from different manufacturers a shared way to describe functions and exchange commands over technologies including Thread, Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
Neither logo guarantees that every feature will work without an internet connection. A manufacturer may still require an account during setup, run advanced functions in the cloud or add proprietary services on top of the standard.
“Works with everything” makes better packaging than “basic functions should survive our corporate demise”.
Bose offers a more graceful exit
Bose provides a more constructive example of what can happen when a connected product reaches the end of cloud support.
The company closed its SoundTouch cloud service in May 2026, affecting speakers first introduced in 2013. Presets, Alexa commands and browsing music services through the SoundTouch app stopped working.
The speakers did not become expensive ornaments. Bose updated the app so setup, volume control and speaker grouping could continue locally. Owners can still play audio through Bluetooth, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, auxiliary inputs and, where available, HDMI or optical connections.
Bose also published its SoundTouch application programming interface documentation, allowing independent developers to build compatible tools.
There is still a catch. Bose says SoundTouch products will no longer receive security or software updates and recommends keeping them on a secure private network. Local control can preserve useful hardware, but unsupported connected devices may eventually present their own security questions.
Europe rewrites some of the terms
The EU Cyber Resilience Act introduces lifecycle obligations for products containing connected hardware or software. Manufacturers must address vulnerabilities and provide security updates during a declared support period.
That period must normally last at least five years and reflect how long the product is expected to remain in use. Products expected to be used for less than five years may have a correspondingly shorter support period. Manufacturers will have to tell customers the end date at the time of purchase.
The main requirements apply from 11 December 2027. Reporting obligations for actively exploited vulnerabilities and serious security incidents begin on 11 September 2026.
The Act strengthens cybersecurity support, but it does not require every cloud-based feature to operate indefinitely. A product could remain physically sound while losing the online service that once made it useful.
Consumers must therefore conduct some surprisingly corporate due diligence. Before buying a smart appliance, check whether its basic functions work without the internet, whether it supports local control and how long updates are promised. Look for an offline mode, open standards and a credible end-of-service policy.
If those answers are impossible to find, the product may be less an appliance you own than a service temporarily allowed to live in your house.
Your fridge can probably manage without legal representation. Reading its terms and conditions on its behalf would still be prudent.