It’s only the second day of CES 2025, and we’ve already reached the point where it’s difficult to distinguish real products from elaborate pranks. In Case of Death currently leads that race by a country mile.
Produced by Zugu, the product is designed as a kind of dead man’s switch for your digital life. It combines an 11-inch iPad case with a smart ring and an app. All of those are shipped along with a self-destructing 11-inch iPad Pro, which bricks in the case of the user’s death.
Zugu writes:
If a user’s heart rate stops suddenly, and their body temperature and blood oxygen level also drop dramatically, the smart ring knows that its user has died and sends a signal to the In Case of Death app to trigger the ‘Death Protections’ chosen by the user when they first enrolled in the app and set it up.
The company notes that the system knows when you take it off a finger, so it won’t go bricking your iPad every time you need to charge your ring. The case maker is apparently having some fun with such a morbid product, offering up a number of different options in lieu of — or in addition to — tablet bricking.
“Death Protections include Destroy My Browser (which removes it and its history), Nuke My iPad (which erases all its data), Rickroll My Loved Ones (which commands the iPad to play a never-ending loop of the Rick Astley video), and Tweet My Followers,” according to the company.
The standard tweet reads as follows, “Going offline permanently, bestie. Literally. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to my obituary #LastPost #NoFilter #NoHeartBeat #RIPme.”
The system is priced at $1,500. Maybe pick up some screen wipes while you’re at it to take advantage of the free shipping.
Check out more CES 2025 coverage:
- Our ongoing live CES updates
- Nvidia’s ‘personal AI supercomputer’ reveal
- Toyota and Nvidia’s new partnership
- Kirin’s electric salt spoon
- Segway’s two new e-bikes
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Brian Heater is the Hardware Editor at TechCrunch. He worked for a number of leading tech publications, including Engadget, PCMag, Laptop, and Tech Times, where he served as the Managing Editor. His writing has appeared in Spin, Wired, Playboy, Entertainment Weekly, The Onion, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, The Daily Beast and various other publications. He hosts the weekly Boing Boing interview podcast RiYL, has appeared as a regular NPR contributor and shares his Queens apartment with a rabbit named Juniper.
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