Sevenhugs Smart Remote products discontinuation

Sevenhugs manufactured and marketed a set of Smart Remote products with the unique ability to change the displayed controls based on what room you were in, or what device you were pointing the remote control at. Their technology used three UWB transmitters to help the remote identify its position with your home or room. Configuration of the remote was performed through a cloud-connected application users would install on their smart phone.

Background

In 2020 Qorvo acquired Sevenhugs, a manufacturer of Smart Remotes with location-sensing capabilities. Shortly after being acquired, Sevenhugs announced discontinuation of their Smart Remotes and, subsequently, a loss of capability for users to configure or reconfigure the remotes they purchased from Sevenhugs. It appears that Qorvo may have acquired Sevenhugs (aka 7hugs Labs) solely for their UWB location awareness technology potentially with the intention of shutting down the Sevenhugs product line.

Sevenhugs produced three Smart Remote products between 2016-2021; Smart Remote, Smart Remote X, and Smart Remote U. These products ranged in cost from $99-$400, depending on when and where they were purchased.

Discontinuation of all products

Beginning June 1, 2021, Sevenhugs discontinued sale of Smart Remote products by authorized resellers. At that time, they announced that existing products would function until June 1, 2022, after which "Your Smart Remote will no longer be able to control your devices and services."

Later Sevenhugs refined their announcement to outline the real implications of the discontinuation:

What Works / Does Not Work After June 1, 2022

Software Update and Support

• Smart Remote will be unable to upgrade to the latest software update
• As a result, if your Smart Remote is not on the latest version (v0.76.3), you won’t be able to (and shouldn’t try to) update after May 31, 2022.
• Important: Do not reset your Smart Remote. This will remove your configurations, and without the Mobile application, it will render your Smart Remote unusable.

Mobile Application

• The mobile app is no longer available on the Apple App Store and Google Play App Store.
• If you have previously downloaded it, you will still be able to use it but with limited functionality.
• This means that you are no longer able to add a new device, or remove existing devices on your Smart Remote.
• You will not have access to any device configurations (change name, create/change groups or scenes, change carousel display order, etc).
• Finally, you will not be able to create a new Home (Smart Remote configuration) or add a Smart Remote to an existing Home (configuration sharing).

Compatibilities

• Infrared Compatible Devices:
  • Infrared devices fully installed and configured on Smart Remote before May 31, 2022, will continue to function as usual.
  • Important:  Adding, removing or modifying IR devices is no longer supported.
• Bluetooth Compatible Devices:
  • Devices fully installed and configured on Smart Remote will continue to function as usual unless 3rd parties update their user interfaces (see below). This assumes you don’t need the App to update or reload your Smart Remote configuration.
  • Important:  We cannot guarantee that you will be able to control these devices in the future. These compatible devices rely on interfaces of partner devices. These partner interfaces (API) may change at any time and break the ability for Smart Remote to control these devices.
• Wi-Fi Compatible Devices & Services
  • Devices fully installed and configured on Smart Remote will continue to function as usual unless 3rd parties update their user interfaces (see below). This assumes you don’t need the App to update or reload your Smart Remote configuration.
  • Important:  We cannot guarantee that you will be able to control these devices in the future. These compatible devices rely on the interfaces of partner devices. These partner interfaces (API) may change at any time and break the ability for Smart Remote to control these devices.
  • Important:  Sonos and Spotify need specific cloud-level service management and will no longer be compatible with Smart Remote. You will not be able to control them.

Sevenhugs' response

After initially announcing the discontinuation of Sevenhugs cloud services there was some dialog with customers about the possibility of opening up the platform so users could set up their own server to use with the mobile application to manage their remotes, but this was short-lived. Their response eventually was adjusted to include "As of May 31, 2022, all configurations have been deleted and Sevenhugs cannot facilitate the open sourcing of our server infrastructure."

Consumer response

Some of the 6,178 backers on the original kickstarter project for Sevenhugs Smart Remote have been commenting or asking about the open source option momentarily floated by Sevenhugs. No response from Sevenhugs was observed at the time of creating this article.