When the Cloud Rains on Everyone's IoT Parade
Dark Reading, Tuesday, January 6th, 2026
What happens to all of those always-connected devices when the cloud goes down? Disruptions to sleep, school, and smart homes, just to name a few issues.
Cloud outages mounted over the past year, disrupting everything from finance and food delivery apps to travel systems. In an era of smart devices, people struggled to scroll social media, shop online, or even adjust their thermostats. Disruptions to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cloudflare, and Azure left people wondering: Why do so many things need to be connected to the Internet to work?
The AWS outage in mid-October lasted nearly 15 hours, and an onslaught of delays and disruptions swiftly followed - due, in particular, to Amazon's share of the Internet of Things, with products like Ring and Alexa. The daily routine many people depended on was suddenly and significantly interrupted in ways they did not expect.