Ex-Microsoftie’s $700 smart lock surprisingly fails to reach the market

We wrote in September 2017 about the Juicero-like Otto smart lock, launched by a number of ex-Microsoft and Apple employees, that was meant to set a new high water mark for price and quality for smart locks.

CEO and ex-Microsoftie Sam Jadallah’s  high-end door lock would have offered key-less entry to authorized users identified via Bluetooth with apps on the phones of users. Users would simply have to press the single button to gain entry, and unauthorized users would be kept out by the marine-grade 316 stainless steel construction of the $699 replacement lock designed to be no larger than the mechanical deadbolt it replaces.

At the time we noted a real risk of the device going the Juicero route, and it seems today that prediction has turned out correct.

In a blog post, Jadallah revealed that the company has run into funding issues after a failed acquisition prevented them from raising more money, and he noted: “Otto will not ship next month and it may never ship.” The company will “evaluate [its] options” for moving forward in the coming weeks.

Fortunately, no actual products were shipped, meaning users are not stranded with useless locks without the necessary cloud back-end, but the failure of the company illustrates that we are still very much in the wild west area for Internet of Things devices.

See our earlier article to see what might have been here.

Via the verge