NetGear blinked – will continue VueZone video cloud service

Thank you, NetGear, for taking care of your valued customers. On July 1, the company announced that it would be shutting down the proprietary back-end cloud services required for its VueZone cameras to work – turning them into expensive camera-shaped paperweights. See “Throwing our IoT investment in the trash thanks to NetGear.”

The next day, I was contacted by the company’s global communications manager. He defended the policy, arguing that NetGear was not only giving 18 months’ notice of the shutdown, but they are “doing our best to help VueZone customers migrate to the Arlo platform by offering significant discounts, exclusive to our VueZone customers.” See “A response from NetGear regarding the VueZone IoT trashcan story.”

And now, the company has done a 180° turn. NetGear will not turn off the service, at least not at this time. Well done. Here’s the email that came a few minutes ago. The good news for VueZone customers is that they can continue. On the other hand, let’s not party too heartily. The danger posed by proprietary cloud services driving IoT devices remains. When the vendor decides to turn it off, all you have is recycle-ware and potentially, one heck of a migration issue.

Subject: VueZone Services to Continue Beyond January 1, 2018

Dear valued VueZone customer,

On July 1, 2016, NETGEAR announced the planned discontinuation of services for the VueZone video monitoring product line, which was scheduled to begin as of January 1, 2018.

Since the announcement, we have received overwhelming feedback from our VueZone customers expressing a desire for continued services and support for the VueZone camera system. We have heard your passionate response and have decided to extend service for the VueZone product line. Although NETGEAR no longer manufactures or sells VueZone hardware, NETGEAR will continue to support existing VueZone customers beyond January 1, 2018.

We truly appreciate the loyalty of our customers and we will continue our commitment of delivering the highest quality and most innovative solutions for consumers and businesses. Thank you for choosing us.

Best regards,

The NETGEAR VueZone Team

July 19, 2016