Network-watching gadget Monitor-IO chooses a graceful, owner-friendly death

Enlarge / The Monitor-IO in its natural habitat, glowing green to let you know that everything is copacetic with the network to which it's connected. (credit: Jim Salter)

Monitor-IO was a gadget that did one thing: live near a router and tell you how its network is doing. It did this both with detailed reports you could access from the local network and with a screen that glowed one of three colors: green for good, purple for problems, and red for dead. It could replace, or at least augment, typing a bunch of IP addresses into a browser and waiting for them to time out.

We liked the device when we reviewed it in August 2018, despite our broad understanding of it as a "butter-passing robot," a device that relays information you could otherwise find out on your own. It had, beyond color-coded awareness, "obvious technical chops and real, careful attention to detail" in how it measured and what it could report. However, we also noted that the $100 price made sense for a small business but "might be a bit steep" for a household on a tight budget.

Monitor-IO seems to have run out of people willing to pay for better network awareness. In an "End-of-service" notice posted on its site, the company cites "rising costs and supply chain issues," among other "numerous headwinds." Faced with no better option, Monitor-IO is shutting down its business and monitoring service on April 15, 2023. (Support will be offered through May 30, 2023.)

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