"I opened it expecting to see a map showing where my moped had been taken, but instead, I got a message asking me to renew my premium plan to access that feature. OK... I didn't even know I was on a premium plan (I later learned that it was free for the first year of usage), but anyway, I noticed a 'Security & Anti-theft' button, so hopeful again, I clicked on that only to find out once again that 'Lost mode' was also paywalled."
"So kind of desperate, I paid... and guess what now? The GPS data had stopped being collected the moment my subscription expired weeks earlier, so it was all for nothing."
A stolen electric moped owner discovered that critical anti-theft features in the manufacturer's app were paywalled. The tracking and lost mode functions required a premium subscription that had expired without the user's knowledge. After paying for access, the owner found that GPS data collection had already ceased when the subscription lapsed, rendering the paid feature useless. This experience reveals a troubling trend in consumer IoT products where essential security capabilities are monetized rather than included as standard features, leaving users unprotected during critical moments.
Read at Medium
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