Kodak Cherish baby monitors no longer supported 🤬

[jimmiedodger]

Anyone got a Kodak baby monitor? Apparently Kodak withdrew the Smart Home app without warning, causing major issues with the baby monitors. They do not intend to provide any support to people who own these.

Does anyone know if this is actually legal? They sold a product which only functions properly with app support and then withdrew the app? They have been selling them recently!

The camera communicates directly to the parent unit, and this still works to some extent, but it attempts to connect to the (now non-existent) server every five minutes, causing the connection to drop and a loud click in the baby's room, which causes disrupted sleep. There are also features that you can only change through the app, such as turning on/off night mode, so we are stuck in day mode forever now. And we can no longer use the monitor with a new router as you need the app to connect, so we are stuck with our existing router and can't use the monitor at anyone else's house either. And if we accidentally press the reset button on the camera we will never be able to connect to it again!

I did see @Relfm started a thread on this yesterday, but it's in the Baby Monitors topic and I'm not sure many people hang out there. Hoping to find more annoyed people here!

So is it actually legal to sell a £200 product which requires an app to fully function, and then withdraw the app a short time later?

Hive are doing similar with their cameras and will stop supporting them soon. Not sure of the legalities but I’m sure there’s some blurb they’ll have covered.

Hi @jimmiedodger 👋

It's infuriating isn't it?!

That 5 min click started for us a couple of nights ago. It resets the white noise and disturbs our DS - which is what prompted my post yesterday. Surely they could've pushed out some sort of last update that increased functionality of the parent unit before they turned everything off. It all seems so ill-considered and shows what little regard they have for their customers. Gah!

That's terrible! It shows how vulnerable a lot of products we're reliant on will be to similar scenarios.

How long ago did you buy it? Can you return it to the retailer on the basis that it's not fit for purpose?

Unfortunately ours is out of warranty. We even got the charging port fixed in the summer, hoping to avoid having to buy another, so that's additional wasted money.

Currys are still selling them for £120.

@Mumsnet are still promoting them with affiliate links to purchase them 🤔

www.mumsnet.com/reviews/kodak-cherish-c525p

@LoveTheDarts They mention it is being discontinued too! To be fair, at the time of the review, they hadn't turned off the servers.

@mumsnet Please could you take this review down? Or, even better, publish a warning to stop more people buying them? I noticed in the app reviews that some people have obviously tried to install it after it stopped working, so I presume they are new purchasers.

I don't think there is an account called @mumsnet. You could email then or tag in specific staff, or start another thread in Site Stuff

Drives me mad when apps stop being supported

I'd say that there's a Consumer Rights Act case if you've bought it and they then withdrew the app support within a certain period - the period of time is arguable but I'd definitely ask for my money back if I'd bought it less than a year ago, maybe two.

I think the tag is @MNHQ Hopefully they can take their review down, or better yet issue a warning to MNers not to buy them!

We bought ours a couple of years ago too. But we bought something which was expensive deliberately so that it would last for all our children. They didn't sell it as a product which would only last two years. And Currys still selling it now is unbelievable!

We got ours directly from Kodak. I will message them and complain but I doubt I'll get anywhere with it. If I do, I'll let you know.

I wonder if you could get some traction with this by pointing out the unnecessary e-waste angle as well as consumer rights/cost of living aspects. The media does occasionally take an interest in stories like these (often linking them with other similar cases, of which there are many — one of the most distressing being people with now-unsupported medical brain implants).

Fail - they have also withdrawn any means of contacting them...

@DumboHimalayan that seems like a good idea, but regrettably I don't have the time. Life is unbelievably mental at the moment. I'm surprised nobody else has done so however, as Kodak have withdrawn support worldwide.

It's possible people have tried but journos aren't interested at the moment, as they can't find an interesting hook or there's other things going on or something. Or something's been put out but sunk without effect. There's a lot of luck in these things and it doesn't sound like it would be a good use of your time right now to mount a campaign. This kind of thing is infuriating, though, and symptomatic of wider problems in technology with closed systems and fast turnover of new devices.

Hi @jimmiedodger thanks so much for the heads up - we've looked into this and although Kodak say the monitor should still work 'seamlessly' it sounds like that's not the case. We've removed the monitor from our best baby monitors round-up and added a disclaimer to the review.

You need Martin Lewis's SAD FART guidelines (seriously)

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/consumer-rights-refunds-exchange/

Goods need to last a reasonable length of time under Consumer Rights.

Actually could be worth alerting Martin Lewis's team.

I agree - take it to MoneySavingExpert. They love things like this.

It might be you have a claim through Trading Standards.

Thanks @PollyMumsnet , that's great 😃

I'll check out the money saving expert link, thank you!

I am in the same position as you all too! So frustrated that this has happened and with no warning at all!
We have 2 of the monitors and was about to purchase a 3rd until we realised what had happened.
If you need any more emails sending or back up to something you've already started please let me know, I'm more than willing to help and see if we can get anything done about this!

Hiya, sorry to hear this is affecting you too. Unfortunately taking it to trading standards or something is just too much for me to take on at the moment. Sorry!
Also, my husband has managed to work out a semi-fix. He wrote some code of some kind (I have no idea what) and can now communicate with the camera, so we can change the night mode.
The clicking stops if the camera is reset so it's not connected to the router at all, and only paired with the parent unit in direct mode. However, don't do this unless you are sure you don't want it connected to your WiFi, because you won't be able to reconnect now the app's gone.
So basically we can use it in direct mode, but the WiFi functionality is gone, and we can't see video on our phones any more, which is the reason we chose this monitor in the first place. Pesky! In theory it should be possible to get the video on phones without the app, but husband is too busy at the moment to spend time cracking it!

This has sorted my camera. Factory reset of the camera itself so it doesn’t try connect to the internet. It now doesn’t reset every 5 mins and make the loud noise. Much more stable but just a camera to parent unit monitor.

1. Unplug the camera
2. Please make sure the switch is at the

OFF position.

1. Press & hold the PAIR button while plugging it into power.
2. Switch ON the camera
3. Keep on pressing the PAIR button until the camera makes 2 beeps then release the

PAIR button immediately (3 sec apart). You will need to hold it for about 20-25 sec to hear 2 beeps.

1. Release the PAIR button after that.

Camera will start reset-factory process and this takes about 2 minutes

1. Just wait for the camera LED to start blinking BLUE slowly.
2. At this point the reset is done, please repair the camera to PU first.

I dont know if this helps but I bought mine from amazon, in 2019, I just contacted amazon explaining the situation and they gave me a refund for the camera 5 years later. Special occasion they said, but worth a try if you bought it from them.

@KoraPersefone88 well done! Can I ask what did you say to persuade them..? have bought 2 units in the past 5 years from them and having no luck so far

I literally told them the truth. That camera isn't working anymore and the why of that sending them link I found over the Internet, that I contacted kodak but no answer or customer service and they just said we will refund you and they did. Maybe I was lucky who knows.

I've only just realised this isn't working as dug it out for my youngest. Fuming!! 😡