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Awair dropping support for Glow and Awair v1 devices
7 points by andrewgioia on Oct 18, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments
Awair[1] sent this email out today, announcing a formal end-of-life for their Glow, Glow C, and Awair v1 air quality devices. The app had been on something less than life-support for years, but it's even more frustrating that they won't even work come November.

I used to recommend this company and have a number of their devices, one of which I only bought a few years ago.

Full email:

--- Dear Users,

Thank you for your long-term support of Awair devices! We wanted to update you with information on the future of our device support.

Awair has made it possible for you to know what’s in your air since 2013. Some of our oldest devices (Glow/Glow-C/Awair V1) are no longer able to update firmware, and so we will be sunsetting these oldest devices starting on November 30, 2022. What is sunsetting? In short, your device will lose app support and the ability to connect to Awair's Cloud services. It will still continue to measure air quality, provided it is onboarded before this date and is not factory reset. The air data will only be accessible via the device's front screen (if it has one). Additionally, the Hobbyist API will no longer be serving any requests.

In appreciation for your support over the years, we’re working on a new upgrade program that allows our legacy device users to purchase a brand new Awair Element at a discounted price to keep you up to date with your environment. The Element contains upgraded sensors and, unlike the Glow devices, includes PM2.5 and CO2. If this is something you’d be interested in, please let us know at the link below and we’ll send you information once this program is finalized:

Legacy Device Upgrade Program Interest

Awair is experiencing healthy growth that puts an additional workload and cost on our platform. In order to scale our core functionality cost-effectively, we are prioritizing our resources into scaling our core services that are supporting the functionality. Regrettably, we are currently unable to put our resources into fixing the following features of the Awair Home App, so we will be temporarily removing them until a new version of the app is available for release:

    Logging into app using Google Sign-In
    Push notifications system
    Integrations with IFTTT, Google Home, Ecobee, Sensi, and SmartThings
    Amazon Alexa in-app controls (can still be controlled through Alexa device itself)
If you have any questions on the future support of your device or have any trouble accessing the Upgrade Program Interest form, please reach us at https://go.getawair.com/e/968753/2022-10-18/337cd/92328830?h=7zeUSUku18SP6vKHTwjE6u4uubkTPuVFczVZlNvjZ-Q so we can work with you from there!

Breathe easy knowing that you’re tracking the invisible.

The AWAIR team ---

[1] https://getawair.com




The phrase "are no longer able to update firmware" is just a BS phrasing to make it sound like it is the fault of the device, rather than just a decision to render the device useless.

Glow C was released just a bit more than three years ago. I know that's forever in technology, but for a physical consumer device become a paperweight that quick is still pretty bad.


Sonos tried to do something similar, and they were "hammered" by owners. So instead of doing similar sunsetting on Sono's legacy devices, they came up with two app versions, one for legacy and the other for newer models. And guess what, the firmware updates on older legacy devices automagically started to, continue to work.

AWAIR could have done something similar if really looking out for their customers. Shame.


I've found that it's a large hassle to setup these devices on a new WiFi network, and now it's going to be bricked completely. I wonder if in general it's better to just get dumb LCD devices that don't need to connect to Wifi.


I don't follow the "are no longer able to update firmware", what does that even mean? Also calling those devices "legacy" just seems to fit their needs and not their users' (I have both Glow and Glow C devices).


Ah, the advantages of the cloud devices. I guess my next device monitor will be fully offline


Is there a fully offline alternative that is anywhere near as accurate?


After some research, no :( Well, not for me. There currently seems to be a gulf between "you don't own your data" and "you have to solder a bunch" options.




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