Companies Might Soon Have to Tell You When Their Products Will Die

Losing access to a device sucks. Whether it’s a laptop still running Windows 10, a router that’s been phased out by your internet provider, or an expensive AI gadget that has suddenly been bricked, it's a bummer to be permanently disconnected from a thing you paid money for. That's where a group of consumer advocates hope to help, by calling on US lawmakers to create policies that support connected products at the end of their lives. Stacey Higginbotham, a Policy Fellow at Consumer Reports and former journalist who covered internet-of-things devices for more than a decade, has been through the dead device gauntlet more than a few times. She’s used every weird, swiftly forgotten gadget since the Quirky Egg Minder—a smart egg carton that was meant to keep you appraised of how many eggs you had, but ultimately failed to capture a market. (Though you can still buy one if you really want to.) Turns out, lots of stuff has gone this route. “I had hundreds—I'm not kidding, hundreds—of device ... Read full article.