Viewed from the very narrow perspective of tech and related services that were discontinued, deprecated and disconnected, 2025 was pretty quiet. But not silent: 10 events stand out for me as a loooong-time observer and participant in the industry from the perspective of having a notable impact or representing the end of an era.
For comparison, in 2022, we lost some big names, like the iPod, Google Stadia and Internet Explorer. This year seemed to have fewer high-profile goodbyes and a lot more nostalgia and changes symptomatic of larger trends.
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Watch this: RIP to the Tech That Died in 2025
The Humane AI wearable when it was new.
Humane AI pin
I was baffled by the excitement around the Humane AI pin, a wearable AI voice chat device: It may be because I’ve seen so many of these one-trick ponies come and go, most replaced by multifunctional gadgets. In the case of the pin, which lasted only around a year, the fact that it wasn’t very good compounded the problem. While HP bought Humane AI lock, stock and chatbot in February, the driver was the technical talent, operating system and patent portfolio; a revival of the hardware is unlikely.
Micron Crucial DDR5 in 2024 just before the AI boom.
Micron forgets Crucial consumer memory
Memory manufacturers are flocking to high demand, high margin, AI-friendly high-bandwidth memory thanks to the seemingly deep pockets of popular AI companies that need data centers yesterday. Given there are only really three significant manufacturers — SK Hynix, Micron and Samsung — when Micron announced it was pivoting away from consumer markets in November, the end to these days of impossible-to-find, impossible-to-afford memory for PCs seems further away than ever.
The home screen of the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, running apps from the Amazon App Store.
Amazon fires its Android App Store
Amazon has always had a laser-sharp focus on the bottom line, which includes driving buyers toward its own-branded products. It took that to a new level in August, shutting its store for general Android apps and switching to apps intended to run solely on its own Fire devices, which run a custom version of Android. The store lasted a relatively long time, though, 14 years from its 2011 launch.
Nest Learning Thermostat second generation.
Google Nest Learning Thermostat dumbs down
Google’s lobotomy of the first two generations of the OG smart thermostat in October provided us with yet another object lesson in 21st-century planned obsolescence. The hardware is fine, just old by tech standards: Nest Labs launched it in 2011, and Google bought the company in 2014. But by disconnecting it from the app (euphemistically referred to as “ending support”), it loses a lot of the features you bought it for, like remote operation and notifications, as well as discontinuing security updates — essentially encouraging people to upgrade.
DJI Mini 2 flying free.
US grounds DJI drone imports
One of the major drone manufacturers — it’s probably the most well-known — now numbers among the products you’ll have trouble buying here in the US, thanks to a ban on imports of all foreign-made drones that went into effect in December. You can still fly ’em and buy ’em, you’ll just have a problem finding ’em.
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