Technology has begun to overtake nearly every aspect of modern life, with self-driving cars, smart-phones, -watches, -refrigerators and more. With more gear comes more problems. Old technology and obsolete units are filling up landfills and recycling plants at an increasing rate. Now, with Wowza’s ClearCaster and Logitech’s Mevo end of life announcement these pieces of hardware will only be adding to the problem.
Recycling is good in theory, but in practice, it is really only moderately effective when done correctly. The recycling is often being done at unregulated plants in impoverished nations. To make matters worse, manufacturers create units designed to fail or discontinue working hardware in favor of their latest product, forcing consumers to discard the now obsolete technology that was a useful piece of equipment and look for new solutions. The Wowza ClearCaster and the Logitech Mevo are two shining examples of products made obsolete in our ecosystem.
Wowza ClearCaster – End of Life
Wowza Media Systems is a “streaming solutions provider [with] more than a decade of experience” (https://www.wowza.com/company/wowza-history). We started using them in early 2018 when they released the ClearCaster. In the beginning, we loved the Wowza ClearCaster. It did what it was made to do, and it did it extremely well. Not only that, they had true tech support – you could call a number and reach a real person. We were also on the cutting edge when they launched, so we had a direct line to engineers for bug fixes and tech issues.
About 3 years into having the ClearCaster, a subscription was required to use the hardware. While this was not ideal, the subscription continued to allow us to use the ClearCaster as intended and to receive support and upgrades. The real issues arose when Wowza announced on January 25, 2023 they would be ending all support and functionality for the Wowza ClearCaster effective December 31, 2023.
Wowza ClearCaster
The Wowza ClearCaster was “purpose built for Facebook” (https://www.newscaststudio.com/2018/03/14/facebook-live-wowza-clearcaster-streaming/). The hardware encoder was able to send one stream to three locations, in multiple protocols, per unit, circumventing a cloud distribution product. The ClearCaster natively did this over an internet connection allowing it to integrate seamlessly into any production workflow as the final step to the viewers.
The ClearCaster was able to cut down on latency and provide a more secure data transmission connection when compared to a cloud distribution service. It worked as intended extremely well.
For the first three years of the ClearCaster’s life, the piece of hardware was a standalone encoder. No subscription software needed. That changed when Wowza announced you would have to purchase the Wowza ClearCaster Cloud Orchestration Service to use the ClearCaster as originally intended. Don’t worry, if you didn’t purchase the orchestration service, you could still use the hardware; but without the orchestration service, users were limited to one 1080p60 RTMP stream output per unit.
Moving to a subscription-based model for hardware was frustrating, because it restricted the original capabilities of the hardware that were native to the device. We continued to use the ClearCaster with the orchestration services, because it was reliable and better than other encoders out there at the time, but this marked the start of the end of life for the ClearCaster.
End of Life
Fast forward to January 25, 2023, and Wowza announced that they are:
“…ending support for Wowza ClearCaster devices (“ClearCaster”) and the Wowza ClearCaster Cloud Orchestration service (“ClearCaster Service”). For this reason, ClearCasters will no longer operate and access to the Service will no longer be available after December 31st, 2023. Any license granted by Wowza related to software on a ClearCaster will permanently terminate on December 31st, 2023 and Wowza customer and technical support related to ClearCaster and the ClearCaster Service will no longer be available after December 31st, 2023. ”
– Wowza
This was a seismic shock to us. We rely on the Wowza encoder to make our last step in our broadcasting workflow and have been paying over $700 per year per unit to use the product. Now, seemingly out of nowhere, Wowza is ending support for a crucial piece of hardware providing lackluster alternatives. In their announcement about the ClearCaster end of life, they provide a list of other hardware encoders and how to find the right fit. The list provides an underwhelming variety of encoders, most of which require a cloud service to make the final step to consumer facing platforms.
We will miss the ClearCaster
The best part about the ClearCaster was the ability to output multiple streams in multiple protocols directly to consumer-facing platforms at an affordable price point. When they added the orchestration service subscription, the value of the ClearCaster diminished slightly due to the increased cost but remained a powerful device for any workflow. Now the piece of hardware will become entirely obsolete come December 31, 2023. We own two.
As a user, we are burdened with discarding the now expensive technology that we counted on and finding a new solution. Wowza created an amazing product filling a need in the industry to then require its users to move on after a fairly short lifespan of the hardware. Unnecessary upgrades compound the growing issue of electronic waste when there was no need for ending support in the first place. The ClearCaster could have lived on as a solid piece of hardware; however, it will live on as a solid piece of waste.
Logitech Mevo – A Slow and Painful End of Life
The Mevo camera is a portable HD camera originally created by LiveStream.com to be used in tandem with the LiveStream Studio software. It integrated extremely well with the program and offered the ability to crop into the frame without losing quality. We used it out in the field as a static livestream camera and loved it. We loved it so much we continued using the Mevo through its different iterations and upgrades truly believing it was the perfect mobile camera solution for livestreaming outdoor sporting events.
The Mevo Decline
As the livestreaming industry grew, LiveStream.com was acquired in 2017 by Vimeo, a video hosting platform. Vimeo continued to develop and grow the LiveStream Studio software and support the Mevo camera. Vimeo, being a video hosting platform, did not have the full capability of maintaining camera production and support and sold the Mevo camera to Logitech in 2021. Logitech, the manufacturing giant that produces numerous computer accessories, would surely be able to handle production of the Mevo and not end of life it, right?
Right—if that meant a slow and painful decline in quality. We have had many iterations of the Mevo over the years and have sworn by them, but our opinion has changed recently. With one of our cameras, the connecting port on the Mevo, a USB-C port used for charging and network connectivity, broke. This should not be a big deal. Our expectation was we would send it back to the manufacturer for repair or order a replacement part and fix it ourselves. Wrong. When we reached out to Logitech to repair our Mevo, we were informed that it could not be repaired and is now at another end of life piece of hardware.
Can’t Repair the Mevo – Now what?
At the price point of $399, one would think that if something broke it could be repaired. If it was out of warranty, our expectation was for paid repair support. Similar items in price, like a TV or Chromebook, can be repaired if one of their components becomes faulty. Portable equipment is bound to have some wear and tear throughout its lifetime and replacement parts are integral to customer loyalty and longevity. Businesses and hobbyists will be priced out of using products if they become obsolete after minor wear and tear. Mevo cameras are currently designed to fail and are destined for the trash. We find it hard to believe there isn’t a market for paid repair on these cameras.
Here in Boulder, Colorado, we are required by law to dispose of electronic waste through specialized waste management facilities. While we would like to be able to have paid repair services for our equipment, we are currently left with two end of life Wowza encoders and a handful of Mevo cameras that are out of commission or soon will be in the case of the ClearCasters. We could either box them up and put them on our shelves or send them to an e-waste management center for recycling.
One hidden cost of recycling electronics is the price of dropping off the e-waste. To recycle our gear in accordance with the law, we must pay a waste management fee, and a price-specific fee for each item. This brings another barrier to entry when it comes to recycling. It costs us money to recycle something that we would have been happy to spend on repairs.
E-Waste Recycling
Recycling old electronics and repurposing them is better than sending them straight to the landfill, but does it actually work? One of the benefits of recycling old electronics is the reduction in mining of virgin resources. When electronics that are at the end of life are recycled their circuit boards, copper wire, aluminum housings, magnets, and precious metals—gold and silver specifically—can be reclaimed, smelted, and repurposed. Through this process and “you could get 40-800 times more gold and 30-40 times more copper from 1 ton of circuit boards than from mining 1 ton of ore” (https://www.cjdecycling.com/e-waste-recycling/) which ultimately decreases the need for mining virgin ore.
Mining ore and refining the ore comes with its own set of complications. The process is expensive, both in cost and land, and is extremely wasteful. Veins of ore are hidden in beds of rock requiring mining operations to decimate large swaths of land to potentially find a fraction of ore. These ores are normally deep underground requiring massive earthmoving operations to retrieve them, leaving land uninhabitable and barren. There’s also toxic leaching that occurs as wastewater from the operation seeps into surrounding land and pollutes nearby watersheds.
Effects of E-Waste Recycling
While we all would like to believe that recycling is popular and effective, the WHO states that only 17.4% of e-waste produced in 2019 reach formal management or recycling facilities, with the rest being illegally dumped in overwhelmingly low- or middle-income countries where it is recycled by often-untrained informal workers. As the amount of e-waste increases ton over ton, year over year, it is expected for less e-waste to make it to a formal management facility.
In the informal reclamation process workers “are at risk of exposure to over 1,000 harmful substances, including lead, mercury, nickel, brominated flame retardants, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” according to Marie-Noel Brune Drisse, a WHO author. She also states that “a child who eats just one chicken egg from Agbogbloshie, a waste site in Ghana, will absorb 220 times the European Food Safety Authority daily limit for intake of chlorinated dioxins” (https://www.who.int/news/item/15-06-2021-soaring-e-waste-affects-the-health-of-millions-of-children-who-warns). With more than 80% of e-waste being dumped in lower-income communities, vulnerable populations are forced to live and work among these dangerous toxins.
Recycling in theory is an amazing process; however, in practice it leads to the exploitation of vulnerable nations and people.
Conclusion
Technology will only continue to consume our lives and newer shinier products will continue to be released. Recycling old, unused electronics may make you feel better about discarding these technological paperweights, but it is not a beneficial solution. Toxins released through recycling pollute our waterways and degrade our health. Many of these issues are above the consumer level, leaving consumers confused and frustrated with their limited options.
Wowza’s ClearCaster and Logitech’s Mevo are prime examples of products destined for trash that could have been salvaged at the manufacturer level. Consumers rely on manufacturers to make good products that last and are effective. It becomes infuriating when equipment is given up on and forces consumers to find new solutions and discard old units. Manufacturers could help fix our waste problem if they stopped making newer technology obsolete after a few years and instead focused on maintaining quality craftmanship and long-term maintenance.
Just our two cents on some frustration we are experiencing with technology we use regularly. It’s always sad to see a good piece of hardware meet its end of life. What do you think?
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