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Smart Scale Goes Dumb As Under Armour Pulls the Plug On Connected Tech (arstechnica.com) 133

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Today's example of smart stuff going dumb comes courtesy of Under Armour, which is effectively rendering its fitness hardware line very expensive paperweights. The company quietly pulled its UA Record app from both Google Play and Apple's App Store on New Year's Eve. In an announcement dated sometime around January 8, Under Armour said that not only has the app been removed from all app stores, but the company is no longer providing customer support or bug fixes for the software, which will completely stop working as of March 31.

Under Armour launched its lineup of connected fitness devices in 2016. The trio of trackers included a wrist-worn activity monitor, a smart scale, and a chest-strap-style heart rate monitor. The scale and wristband retailed at $180 each, with the heart monitor going for $80. Shoppers could buy all three together in a $400 bundle called the UA HealthBox. The end of the road is nigh, it seems, and all three products are about to meet their doom as Under Armour kills off Record for good. Users are instead expected to switch to MapMyFitness, which Under Armour bills as "an even better tracking experience." The company also set the UA Record Twitter account to private, effectively taking it offline to anyone except the 133 accounts it follows. Current device owners also can't export all their data. While workout data can be exported and transferred to some other tracking app, Record users cannot capture weight or other historical data to carry forward with them.

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Smart Scale Goes Dumb As Under Armour Pulls the Plug On Connected Tech

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  • by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @10:43PM (#59643228)

    Meanwhile my "digital" health-o-meter that I got.. somwhere... sometime.. just keeps working. I feed it a pair of AA batteries maybe once a half-decade.

    IDGI *scratches head* I think we've reached Peak Convenience or something.

    I know! We've jumped the shark! Again!

    • Now we need some kind of digital Shark Jumping apparatus.

    • I bought a digital Weight Watchers branded scale at the second hand store for $8, something like 10 years ago, and it still works great. If I ever replaced the batteries it has been too long to remember. Glass top, looks nice. Rubber feet are still attached.

      In the past when people talked about wanting networked appliances, they meant their own network. There might actually be a huge latent market there.

    • Re:*yaaawn* (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @04:10AM (#59643628)

      IDGI *scratches head* I think we've reached Peak Convenience or something.

      Given how some people are about to be inconvenienced it's clear we haven't. Also we have a long way to go on the convenience road. The key thing here is that these systems need to be decoupled from their dependent services. Convenience is a selling feature (see TV remote as the most overt example) as is access to data.

      We shouldn't need to settle for dumb just because some idiot companies can pull the plug when they feel like it.

      Sidenote: I wonder when the last of these items was on sale. The EU regulations require a device to function for 2 years, be that against warranty defects, provided consumables, or continued service. I hope it's under 2 years, and I hope Under Armor gets punished as a result.

      We shouldn't sacrifice convenience, we should punish companies that don't hold up their side of the deal.

  • by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @10:46PM (#59643238) Journal

    So a company sold a device and provided software to access that device, not a license. All they have to do is make sure that customers that purchased the product have a means to access all metrics the device records. The market will take care of any UI issues people find from a forced migration as long as how data is transferred to and from the devices are open sourced.

    Anything short would appear to be contrary of the UCC regarding the warranty of merchantability. Perfect fodder for class action litigation.
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uc... [cornell.edu]

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @11:50PM (#59643326) Homepage

      Sony smart now stupid TVs are the best example of this. Bunch of aps to start with and they just killed them all off because sucker time to buy a new TV. Pretty disgusting by Sony to turn it's smart TVs into stupid TVs just like that no fucks given. I'll expect it would be long until Sony kills all of it's apps on it's old model smart TVs, perhaps just display an ad, time to buy a new Sony TV.

      • They pulled the same shit with their fucking Blu-Ray players. Promised a bunch of "smart" apps that made it more of a STB, but a year later, no apps. Then they came out with "next year's model" that had all that but FUCK ME for shelling out $450.00 for their current Piece of Shit and now UNSUPPORTED Blu-Ray player that all that was promised for, and the price paid accordingly when the other Blu-Rays by other companies were selling for HALF that or less.

        I will NEVER buy or recommend ANYTHING by Sony EVER A

        • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

          As heretical as the notion may be, it's actually possible that I know what I'm doing when I painstakingly build my own devices ;).

        • by c-A-d ( 77980 )

          My parents gave me their old Sony 46" TV. It supposedly has smart apps. They've never used them. I've never used them. The ethernet cable has never been plugged into it.

          Admittedly, it starts up a lot faster than my older dumb Sharp 42" did.

        • by bjwest ( 14070 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @02:56AM (#59643538)
          Dude, if your TV looses it's smarts and the picture's still good, buy a Roku. I have a 2019 Sony and I use a Roku in stead of the built in crap anyway.
        • by Calydor ( 739835 )

          If you bought or recommended anything by Sony after the rootkit fiasco in the early 2000s you were part of the problem. Or after removing the Linux booting capabilities on the PS3. Or any of all the other underhanded crap they've done and gotten away with over the years.

        • Why does anyone pre-order or otherwise buy things based on future promises? That just seems like a good way to lose your money.

        • I will NEVER buy or recommend ANYTHING by Sony EVER AGAIN. FUCK THEM.

          Most people got to that stage with the Sony rootkit.

      • by antdude ( 79039 )

        It's not just Sony. Vizio and others too.

  • by NothingWasAvailable ( 2594547 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @10:46PM (#59643240)

    Maybe what's needed is a law that requires any "abandoned" API for hardware be open sourced. Or perhaps a law that's similar to automobiles, where there's a required period of time that the hardware's cloud data connection must be supported.

    • !! No! They're NOT abandoned -- Oracle owns all, Each and Every One (Think of a gluttonous Tiny Tim ... "My Precious...")

      I think this is an implementation of one of those lessons you always hear about: Let's remove all of the warning labels and let nature take it course." I think that losing $80-$400 MIGHT be is enough of a sting that people might remember that next time. (Yeah, I'm that naive.)

      "My Phone Is Pure Stand-Alone, Self-Contained Magic!" Yeah, let's not mention the cell phone plan, the c
    • This. So much this. (Saying this as someone who has bought hardware that was then orphaned by its makers, rendering it useless despite the fact that it would have otherwise just stayed working had they not intentionally broken it or the means to access it).
      Key thing there is hopefully -API-, not the full device firmware which may contain proprietary binary blobs that you can't legally distribute.
      Providing access for the API it communicates with can obviate that, can't it? All people need to be able to do
    • by robbak ( 775424 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:32AM (#59643366) Homepage

      Many countries have them. These products require the online services to function, so if those services fail, so does the product. It is no longer 'fit for the purpose for which the product was sold', and so the consumer is due a full refund, regardless of when the failure happened. Normal wear and breakages are the only exemptions.

      And this refund is due from the retailer, and it is then the retailer's job to sue the manufacturer or wholesaler - so any click-wrap legalese doesn't affect this, because the agreement aren't between you and the retailer.

      This means retailers need to start getting smart about selling these 'smart' products, or they could be left holding the bag.

      • I have no problem making "if our business model to spy on your activities fails, so we will brick your device rather than just walk away" an illegal sham business model.

    • Or people need to be better educated about what they're buying and do their homework. A similar coming "catastrophe" is all those cheap RGB smart light bulbs that have been sold over the last couple of years. They all have to have internet connectivity to work and all commands pass through the mothership in the cloud. When that mothership disappears, everyone is going to have some very expensive dumb lights.

      On the other hand, those of us who spent more on the Philips ecosystem have lighter wallets, but a

  • by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @10:57PM (#59643258) Homepage Journal

    you'll have your data at least.

    but lets face it. I doubt many people were actually using it. seeing the dropoff stats would be interesting.

    • This is what I came here to say. See GDPR Right of Access [gdpr-info.eu]. If everyone in Europe who had one of these things exercised their rights this would cause Under Amour a lot of hassle and they might just find it easier to allow everyone to export their data.

  • And I have no plans to buy any of this Internet Connected Junk.

    If you bought them, submit a reverse credit card payment.

  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Tuesday January 21, 2020 @11:45PM (#59643316) Journal
    Why do you all keep buying these 'Internet of Things' pieces of shit, so that in a year it can all get abandoned by the manufacturer, turning it into useless e-waste? I'd bet that 99% of all these 'Internet of Things' devices don't need to exist at all. Why the hell do you need an internet connected bathroom scale? For that matter why do you believe that having some shit-ass company like who makes FitBit and what-not tracking your every move and having all this Very Personally Identifiable Information about your Very Personal Body is somehow going to make you more physically fit and not as fat? Rhetorical question IT WON'T you're just being 'The Product' again just like what Facebook does to you.

    Throw all that shit in the e-waste bin. Get your dumb asses to Bed Bath and Beyond, or at least Target or Walmart, and get a normal not-connected-to-anything digital scale for your bathroom. Enjoy it working for the next 10 years at least, and not a single fuck needs be given.
    SImilarly take your so-called 'fitness trackers' and toss them in the e-waste bin, too; no one who matters to you gives a shit about how many 'steps' you take every day. Really think you need to know what your heart rate is? Are you training for a marathon? Serious athlete? No? Just don't want to be a fatass anymore? Yes? Here's your fitness advice from someone who has been there and isn't a fatass anymore: Get the fork out of your mouth, push away from the dinner table. That's the most important thing you can do to not be a fatass anymore.
    "But Rick, I want to be more than just 'not fat' anymore, I want to be HUGE and BUFF and have sixpack abs!"
    LOL that's nice, good luck with that, for real. But you don't need 'fitness trackers', or 'Internet of Things' crap to do any of that. Never did, never will either. Do the work. That's the only thing that counts. The rest is shit-ass companies convincing you that you need this useless tech, when in reality they're just conning you into giving away Even More Very Personal Data on yourself; stop doing that. Just move your ass more, eat less, you'll eventually stop being fat and stop being weak. There's more to it than that in the details but that's the kernel of truth in it.
    Can't get yourself to Just Do The Work? Still convinced you need all these stupid-ass tech toys? Get over it.
    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @04:14AM (#59643630)

      I'd bet that 99% of all these 'Internet of Things' devices don't need to exist at all

      Neither does the TV remote, yet it's one of the greatest success stories of consumer convenience.

      It seems in your rant you have forgotten that people buy things to make their life easier and rather than attack said people, how about attacking the corporations who pull the plug on perfectly functioning hardware instead.

      Here's your fitness advice from someone who has been there and isn't a fatass anymore: Get the fork out of your mouth, push away from the dinner table.

      That's not fitness advice. Your recommendation has nothing to do with fitness, and very little to do with many indicators of health. You're demonstrably unqualified to give such advice much less put it in bold.

      • by nagora ( 177841 )

        It seems in your rant you have forgotten that people buy things to make their life easier and rather than attack said people, how about attacking the corporations who pull the plug on perfectly functioning hardware instead?

        Maybe because that's not how it works? You change companies' behaviour by not buying their shitty products, then the company changes or folds. That means the consumers need to stop "falling for this shit" as the OP said.

        I don't know what system exactly you think is in operation, but ranting at a company while they continue to make profits has zero effect.

        • Exactly. How many times does someone have to get snookered before they stop falling for the same scam? "Oh no we won't pull the rug out from under you like {company X} did, we promise!".
        • You change companies' behaviour by not buying their shitty products, then the company changes or folds.

          No. Americans think they change American company's behavioirs like that. The rest of the world has consumer protection laws. See for example Microsoft laughing in consumer's faces in the USA when their XBoxes were red ringing after a short time, while in the rest of the world governments forced them to offer replacements even out of warranty.

          • by nagora ( 177841 )

            You change companies' behaviour by not buying their shitty products, then the company changes or folds.

            No. Americans think they change American company's behavioirs like that. The rest of the world has consumer protection laws. See for example Microsoft laughing in consumer's faces in the USA when their XBoxes were red ringing after a short time, while in the rest of the world governments forced them to offer replacements even out of warranty.

            Well, I agree that consumer protection is valuable because it creates a cost to the company up-front, which is not the case if you simply walk away from them. But most consumer protection has a limited duration and in a case like this I think it would be hard to make it stick.

            And the point still stands: if a company dicks you around, even if you get your money back, why would you use them again?

      • "Neither does the TV remote, "

        He did say 99%.

        "That's not fitness advice. "

        He does have a kernel of truth there.

        • He did say 99%.

          And he's still wrong. Nearly all IoT devices are for convenience, and consumers abjectly love convenience and pay for convenience.

          "That's not fitness advice. "

          He does have a kernel of truth there.

          No he doesn't. What he did was give advice on how a subset of people lose weight. Losing weight and being fit are not the same thing, though fit people are rarely overweight. Telling people to just eat less without combining advice on what to eat or how to look after their body is a fantastic way for a thin person to need a triple bypass.

      • Sounds to me like more than a little righteous indignation. A bigger and bigger percentage of people in this country are becoming 'obese' every year and you can't say it's some sort of virus or 'their genetics' or anything external. You can somewhat blame the food industry for pushing unhealthy, too-calorie-dense garbage food, and by the way people have too many 'conveniences', and when you add all that up you get people who are too fat. Being an ex-fat person I'll say what I want, and by the way I didn't h
        • Being an ex-fat person I'll say what I want

          You may continue to do so, and I will continue to call it out to the world as bad advice. You seem to be concerned with only your fatness and somehow think that has to do with health or fitness. If that's the way you want to live your life, good on you. At least you're not obese.

          But you did not provide health advice. You did not provide fitness advice. And you continue to equate your waistline with fitness which has lead you to give bad advice to others, others who may actually be interested in being health

          • You sound like every unapologetic fatass I've ever heard on the internet or in real life, and I don't see you posting any 'advice' yourself, you're just hacking on me. Crab mentality, perhaps? Are you one of the HAES people?

            Know what I do with my spare time? I race bikes. You think I'm some fatass or I'm weak and diseased and be able to do that? Don't you think just perhaps I know a thing or two, have been there and back, and maybe, just maybe I know what the hell I'm talking about? Or are you just looki
    • Here's your fitness advice from someone who has been there and isn't a fatass anymore: Get the fork out of your mouth, push away from the dinner table. That's the most important thing you can do to not be a fatass anymore.

      As a medical treatment, that statement has a 98% failure rate, and would be categorized as snake oil.

      • Bullshit. Dietary intake is the most important aspect of losing excess weight. Regular exercise alone won't do it, but it does help accelerate the process. Count calories and macros, limit carbs (no, I did not say ELIMINATE carbs, I said LIMIT carbs, to more like 30-40% total daily calories) and incorporate a modest caloric deficit and you will lose weight. Continue to update your TDEE in line with your current weight as you become lighter and you'll continue to lose weight. Laws of thermodynamics and all t
    • ... You just gave me a great idea! I'm going to create a iot smart-fork to let you know when you've eaten enough food! Six-pack abs here I come.
      • They've almost beat you to it. All it'll take is dumbasses' 'smart refrigerator' being linked to their insurance company, and they'll be getting notices in their email or on their phones telling them to stop buying the icecream and other fattening crap they buy or their rates will go up.
    • Oh and by the way whoever the hell modded me as 'funny' should bugger off. I'm dead serious whether you like it or not.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      I'd bet that 99% of all these 'Internet of Things' devices don't need to exist at all

      Actually most IoT devices have nothing to do with consumers and are very valuable to their users. Your definition of 'IoT device' is far too narrow, they include things like:
      field moisture monitors
      tide meters
      John Deere tractors (really)
      fish ladder counters and game trail monitors
      smart streetlights that also monitor parking space utilization
      earthquake monitoring and warning equipment
      forest fire detectors
      and millions of factory automation devices

      • I stipulate that when we are discussing "Internet of Things" on Slashdot we are discussing consumer items not 'industrial electronics', and that stipulation being made I assert again: 99% of all so-called 'IoT' devices are crap.
        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Well, even if you manage to impose your own private definition on the entire rest of the world you're still wrong, as the wearers of insulin pumps and pacemakers will attest.

          • Those don't need to be internet connected either, and in fact would be better off if they weren't, at least some too-edgy script kiddie with an exploit can't kill someone by fucking up their medical device over the internet 'for the lulz'. Just STFU.
  • Can't wait to see what the marketeers come up with next once term "smart" becomes sufficiently toxic.

  • While it is all nice to complain that the devices will no longer function as sold, one wonders what the warranty period was for these devices? That is, if the last such device was sold in January 2019 and was warrantied to work for 1 year, then one should not be surprised that one year later the device/service is no longer available.

    The expectation that the devices/services would work "forever" is a comment on the stupidity of the buyers of these sorts of products.

    • by wgoodman ( 1109297 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:36AM (#59643442)

      So when the warranty on your car ends, you're fine with it immediately destroying itself?

      • That is quite a leap of stupidity. It may very well continue to work past its warranty period, however, the manufacturer clear does not have that expectation. Nor should you.

        • That is quite a leap of stupidity.

          Pot. Kettle.

          It may very well continue to work past its warranty period, however, the manufacturer clear does not have that expectation. Nor should you.

          A scale should work as a scale for as long as its sensors and display works. THAT is a reasonable expectation. You can find scales from the Eisenhower administration that still perform their intended purpose, and it's a reasonable expectation that a device serve its core intended purpose for far longer than the duration of its warranty.

          If UA doesn't want to offer its online services to old devices anymore, fine. Let it continue its life as a garden variety digital scale, or ideally, provide an E

    • by jrumney ( 197329 )

      In countries with strong consumer law, warranty periods are nothing more than a fiction the manufacturer tries to pass off on tose ignorant of their rights. If a product can be proven to have failed prematurely due to the manufacturer's negligence, as opposed to the customer's abuse or normal wear and tear, then a strong consumer law puts the manufacturer on the hook for it.

    • The product died in 2017 (they stopped selling and updating it). Now they decide to just pull the plug on remaining infrastructure.

  • 1) Who was stupid enough to buy this crap?

    2) Who didn't see this coming?

    The answer to both questions involves the exact same people, desperate to buy the New Shiny so they could brag about their $180 bluetooth scale.

    • 1) Me, though I bought the Nokia and it still works fine.

      2) I do see it coming, but fortunately I'm not poor and won't tear my hair out over spending $100 or so on a scale I got several years use out of.

      You must surround yourself with weirdos if people are 'bragging' about something literally above homeless level income can walk into a store and buy.

      Reminds me of weirdo rap music where they say shit like "I see you over there with your Gucci purse, bitch I have sneakers that cost 2X that!". Apparently 'new

      • You must surround yourself with weirdos if people are 'bragging' about something literally above homeless level income can walk into a store and buy.

        1) Aren't we all, in some fashion, surrounded by weirdos? If you go outside or to a mall or store or school or work, you'll be surrounded by weirdos. In my personal life (friends, family) not so much, but frankly none of us are really normal. And to be honest, a little weirdness is fine with me. Weirdness is like garlic, a little bit is fine, but too much is always way too much.

        2) People will brag about *anything* they think will get them attention, from the shoes they wear to the size of the crap they took

        • to the size of the crap they took this morning.

          Now I feel personally attacked. Were you the guy behind me in the elevator this morning or something?

  • And the Internet Of Trash strikes again. Or is it Internet Of Targets?

    • Or is it Internet Of Targets?

      As an nmap aficionado I love the Internet Of Targets angle.

      It reminds me of the old saying "The S in IoT stands for Security".

  • by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @12:11AM (#59643352)

    "Users are instead expected to switch to MapMyFitness, which Under Armour bills as 'an even better tracking experience'."

    "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."

  • The scale and wristband retailed at $180 each, with the heart monitor going for $80. Shoppers could buy all three together in a $400 bundle called the UA HealthBox.

    My 25+ year-old dumb scale keeps working just fine. I step on it, a few seconds later it beeps and I step off and look at the numbers. But perhaps a scale linked to a watch is good for people that, for some reason, can't look down and see the numbers on the scale and/or remember things like numbers. P.S. I also don't wear a watch.

  • switch to MapMyFitness, which Under Armour bills as "an even better tracking experience."

    Better for us, or for them?

  • by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @07:03AM (#59643818) Journal

    At least when Pebble went broke they were kind enough to provide one last firmware update that allowed their watches to be configured to talk to other servers.

    And so the community created Rebble, and it was a relatively simple process to point your watch at their servers, and things were good again.

  • That's what you get for exercising!
  • While my digital thermometer stays in the drawer in dire need of fresh batteries, my "analog" (i.e. thermal-powered) kitchen thermometer does the job just fine.

    Yes, I can afford fresh batteries, but I can't afford the time. Sometimes the simple things really are better, for those of us who want something that just works.

    Computers are great for those things which can't be done by simpler devices. I just don't understand the apparent need to complicate an otherwise simple device.

  • "While workout data can be exported and transferred to some other tracking app, Record users cannot capture weight or other historical
    data to carry forward with them"

    So this is a GOOD thing, right? Make it much harder for the insurance companies to collect telemetry on YOU to jack up your rates and deny you coverage, of course without your knowledge.

    Make an open source app, save all of the log data to a plain text file, even have some fancy graph thing to show that data in an easy to read fo

    • Oh yeah, it sucks you can't get all of the previous log data before the shutdown, but this is another hard lesson on why it's best to keep this stuff completely in your possession and under control. E.T. no phone home.

  • "Today's example of smart stuff going dumb comes courtesy of Under Armour, which is effectively rendering its fitness hardware line
    very expensive paperweights. The company quietly pulled its UA Record app from both Google Play and Apple's App Store on New
    Year's Eve. In an announcement dated sometime around January 8, Under Armour said that not only has the app been removed from
    all app stores"

    Except the more questionable .apk download sites to side load the software. Of course, iOS users are SOL. Do

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