The world is piling up connected IoT things faster than it can keep track of them. From Nairobi to Naples, fridges, meters, and soil sensors are humming data into the cloud. Then, one day, they stop. Not with a bang, but with a firmware expiry.
This is the quiet underbelly of the Internet of Things: billions of forgotten devices, still physically in place but digitally adrift. Unsupported, unmaintained, and unsecured. In the Global South (but not restricted to), where connectivity is more patchwork than pristine, these abandoned bits of infrastructure are not just inconvenient. They are a growing liability.
The promise of IoT – and of AI, automation, visibility, efficiency – is real. But so is its shelf life. In 2023, Sigfox, once a darling of the French LPWAN scene, went into receivership. Customers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America scrambled to maintain devices on networks that no longer existed. Governments and logistics operators who had bet on long-term, low-cost data links were left with hardware still blinking – but with nowhere to send the signal.
In Kenya, smart water meters deployed across rural counties have reportedly failed en masse. Not due to sabotage or lack of need, but because vendors withdrew their support. Firmware updates never arrived.
Local technicians lacked access to diagnostic tools. What was meant to democratise water access ended up generating maintenance contracts and mistrust.
Contrast that with Semtech, whose LoRa-based systems have gained ground in India and parts of Brazil. By encouraging open standards, local integration, and flexible network design, including private networks that don’t rely on distant cloud platforms, LoRa has enabled longer lasting deployments.
Crucially, these deployments can be serviced by local engineers. It’s not just a tech choice. It’s an economic one.
The broader lesson is simple: infrastructure without maintainability is not infrastructure. It’s e-waste on a timer. For markets where capital is scarce and skilled labour even scarcer, short lifecycle deployments are more than a nuisance. They are a strategic error.
The financial case is often ignored. A $10 IoT sensor with no update path might look cheaper than a $30 device with guaranteed support, APIs, and local service partners. But when the cheaper one dies after 18 months, dragging a fleet of assets down with it, what looked lean becomes loss-making. In cold chain logistics, for example, failed real time visibility can trigger an entire shipment’s rejection.
Ask any mango exporter in South Asia or citrus grower in the Cape; they’ll tell you – it’s not the cost of the tag, it’s the cost of the silence.
This isn’t just about quality. It’s about control. Closed ecosystems, particularly those imported into the Global South from Silicon Valley or Shenzhen, often leave local operators with little autonomy. Devices can’t be reprogrammed. Data can’t be rerouted. Support lines are in another time zone, if they answer at all. The result is a kind of digital neo-colonialism and apartheid: technology without sovereignty.
Europe has an opportunity here. With its regulatory push toward right-to-repair, digital product passports, and secure-by-design mandates, the EU could lead a new model: circular, sovereign, and context-aware IoT. That means devices built for dusty environments, variable power, and long-haul connectivity – and not just for suburban smart homes.
It means systems designed to be handed over, not locked down. And yes, it means selling fewer throwaway gadgets and more durable, open infrastructure. That’s not a bug. That’s the point.
Of course, the hype machine won’t slow down. AI will keep grabbing headlines. 5G will keep promising revolutions. But someone still needs to check if the box under the pallet is blinking red, or just dead.
The Internet of Forgotten Things is not inevitable. But ignoring it could be. The next big cyberattack might not come through a laptop. It might crawl through a smart pump in Zambia last patched during the Obama administration.
We should be smarter than our things.
And yes, before you ask, I’ve already taped this article to my fridge. Just in case it starts emailing the neighbours again.
