IoT news of the week for April 28, 2023

Amazon kills off its Halo band business: Amazon is bowing to the inevitable and killing off its Halo Band fitness tracking business effective July 31. If you purchased a Halo band or Halo-branded devices, including the recently launched Halo Rise sunrise lamp, in the last 12 months you get a full refund. Which is absolutely the right way to handle the end of a short-lived device. If you want to download your health data or photos of you (the app clocked body fat percentages by asking users to take a photo in a swimsuit, which users could delete or store in the cloud), you can do so by going into the app’s settings tab. Otherwise all data will be deleted August 1. This is actually a pretty consumer-friendly way to kill these devices, by refunding money, stopping the subscription charges as of today, and deleting all the consumer data without forcing consumers to do so. While I’m sure many will blame the economy for the end of this program, my bet is that Amazon knew this was a failure from the start given how creepy the devices were and how little trust consumers have in the company. The cynical version of me also wonders if the very features that Amazon included to protect user privacy made the Halo gear less profitable and valuable to Amazon. (Amazon)

Google’s hardware business is not doing well: Google reported its financial results this week, and other than the first-ever profitable quarter for its Google Cloud business, the news was not great. Especially when it comes to the Other Bets segment of the company, which includes the Nest and Google hardware divisions. Google pulled the DeepMind AI division out of Other Bets for the first time this quarter, which cut revenue and makes it hard to compare data from earlier quarters. Google says much of its revenue from Other Bets comes from sales of health technology and internet services (Google Fiber). For the first quarter of 2023, Google reported sales of $288 million for Other Bets and a loss of $1.23 billion. Using a recast version of the financials that take into account the removal of DeepMind for historical comparisons, the loss in the first quarter of 2022 of $835 million was 47% higher than it was in the same quarter last year. Basically those Nest cameras, thermostats, and displays did not make huge dents in Google’s $17.4 billion in revenue for the quarter. (Google)

Well, this is disconcerting: The venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has put out a call to action via a blog post on its site calling for technology firms to “build” in health care. This is part of Marc Andreessen’s realization during the pandemic that Western Society was no longer able to build the infrastructure it needed for manufacturing, etc. While I can’t disagree that we are in a wretched place when it comes to health care, I worry that the solutions proposed by the tech world, and Andreessen’s general dislike of any public solution, will only lead to better outcomes for those who are able to afford it, with the solutions tested “at scale” on those least able to protect themselves from intrusive or harmful practices. And while the blog post seems to recognize that the margins in health care aren’t great (especially when compared with software), the sense of mission will help attract talent and provide some form of fulfillment for founders. Of course, VCs don’t measure their returns in missions, so my bet is the tech companies building in health care that will get funding aren’t going to be those that solve the widespread health care inequities or frustrations facing most of us (e.g., doctor shortages, inconsistent and expensive care, high drug prices for new therapies, etc.). (a16z)

Here’s an interesting app for smart energy fans: Optiwatt, a company that hopes to help utilities build better demand-response programs, has developed a new app that will let users tie their thermostats, including those made by Nest, Honeywell, or Ecobee, to it. The app then shows off consumers’ potential savings when turning the temperature just a little higher or lower. It’s a simple app designed to encourage users to see the real-time costs of a temperature change, something that you don’t always get from a utility. Of course, depending on your income, this information may mean that you’re more likely to crank the AC when it’s hot, because spending an extra $5 is worth feeling a little cooler. And for those who are struggling financially it probably just makes their lack of discretionary income even more apparent. (Optiwatt)

What the heck is happening in smart speakers? You recall a few stories up when I mentioned the dismal revenue provided by Google’s Nest gear, including its smart speakers? That plus the formerly reported estimates that Alexa might cost Amazon $10 billion has everyone wondering what will happen with smart speakers. There’s also the worry about better chatbots built using generative AI. My friend Janko Roettgers has a great look at the situation over on his brand-new newsletter, Lowpass, which covers “the future of entertainment and the next big hardware platforms, including smart TVs, ambient computing and AR/VR.” In his article, he cites a bunch of damning statistics that show smart speaker adoption has probably plateaued, and that most people use the devices for consuming music or basic information (only about a third use them for smart home control). Even Amazon is looking at shuffling Alexa over to the TV, as we learned last week. Note that most of the article requires a subscription, but if you’re into the smart home you should totally get one. (Lowpass)

Siemens released a virtual PLC at Hannover Messe: Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are the brains inside industrial equipment. These dedicated computers take in data from machines and ensure they are running properly. They are embedded computers running proprietary software and are rarely connected to the Internet. They are the core of our water purification plants, our manufacturing facilities, and our utility infrastructure. And they are rapidly getting pulled into the information technology era. This month, Siemens showed off a virtual PLC at the Hannover Messe trade show. The virtual PLC is simply software and can run on whatever hardware meets its computing needs. This turns a dedicated piece of physical equipment into software, with all the benefits and risks that entails. I’ve written in the past about the move to virtualize PLCs, with a focus on startups. That Siemens is now offering one is a huge step in the normalization of OT equipment getting the IT treatment. (Siemens)

Schneider Electric’s sustainability push is good for the bottom line: During its first-quarter financial results call, Schneider Electric’s CEO credited sustainability spending and continued investment in industrial automation for a 16% boost in revenue. The company, which makes gear for both the utility and consumer electrical market as well as industrial automation software and other services, has benefited from customers switching over to its cloud-based software for industrial automation, and from customers buying its smart energy products and services. (Schneider Electric)

Remember that IoT cybersecurity label from the White House? You know, the one we expected to see in April? Well, apparently it’s coming out next month. Yay. (Inside Cybersecurity)