Our bad: Wink bricks hubs and asks customers to send them back

Follow Us

"We’re writing with some unfortunate information about your Wink home."

It's not the kind of email you want to get about your super-smart connected home device, but last night thousands of Wink customers received a rather disturbing email from Wink Inc.

The email arrived with the phishy-looking subject line, "ACTION REQUIRED: Your Wink Hub needs to be replaced." It was not, however, a scam or piece of junk mail Wink Hub owners could ignore

See also: This is your future smart home — and no, it doesn't look like 'The Jetsons'

"Your Wink Hub is now so secure that it is unable to connect to the Wink Servers," the email explained. Apparently a software update broke the connection between Wink hubs around the country and Wink servers, essentially turning them into useless bricks. When Wink Hubs work properly, they let consumers control a wide variety of connected smart home devices like Schlage locks and Cree Connected LED lights through an app and from anywhere in the world — where there's an Internet connection. Read more...

More about Wink, Quirky, Tech, and Gadgets