When a company behind an implanted device fails or walks away, support can stop while the device is still in the body. Second Sight’s Argus II retinal implant is the documented case: upgrades ended, repairs became impossible, and users were left with hardware they could not maintain.
Imagine a technology gives you back something you had lost. Sight. Movement. The ability to type a sentence with your mind. You build your daily life around it. And then the company that made it runs out of money, gets sold, pivots to something else, and quietly stops supporting the device that is still inside your body.
This is not a thought experiment. It has already happened, and as brain implants and bionic devices move from research labs toward the market, one question comes with them: what happens when they turn it off?
The bionic eyes that went dark
The clearest case is Second Sight and its Argus II retinal implant. The Argus II was a real advance: a tiny implant paired with a camera on a set of glasses that gave a form of artificial vision to people with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic degenerative eye condition for which there were no other options. It received European regulatory approval in 2011 and US approval in 2013, and more than 350 people around the world had one of Second Sight’s implants in their eyes.
Then the company hit financial trouble. On 18 July 2019 it wrote to Argus patients saying it would phase the retinal implant out to clear the way for Orion, a next-generation brain implant then in a six-person trial, and as Second Sight nearly collapsed in 2020 and later moved to merge with another firm, support for the Argus II withered. Many users found out secondhand that the company had effectively abandoned the device. One user learned of it when he phoned his Second Sight vision rehabilitation therapist and she told him the staff had all just been laid off. Upgrades stopped. Repairs became impossible. People with a working implant in their eye were left knowing that when it failed, that was it. One user in the Netherlands crowdsourced spare parts, from another patient who had stopped using the device and from a doctor with a spare video processing unit, and got a refurbished system working again. Some kept using the device as long as they could. Others weighed having the hardware surgically removed and decided another surgery was not worth the risk, and still have the dead device in the eye.
The consequences reach past vision. Because an MRI scanner’s magnetic fields can interact with the Argus II, MRI providers are instructed to contact Second Sight before performing a scan. When one user needed an MRI in 2020 to rule out a brain-stem tumour, nobody at the company was answering. He had a CT scan instead and, as he told IEEE Spectrum, still does not know whether he has a tumour. In the separate Orion brain implant trial, one of the six participants chose to have that device taken out to have an MRI safely.
The phrase one Argus II user gave a reporter stuck: fantastic technology, lousy company. The technology worked. The company that was responsible for the people who depended on it did not last, and there was no system in place to catch them when it fell.
Why this matters more every year
The Argus II was not a one-off. The same structure is now being built at a much larger scale.
Brain-computer interfaces are advancing fast. Companies are implanting devices that let people with paralysis control computers and communicate using their thoughts. One firm reported 21 people enrolled in its implant trials worldwide as of early 2026, and competitors are running trials of their own. The clinical results are real, and for someone locked out of communication or movement, they can be life-changing. A 2026 pilot randomized trial in people with spinal cord injury found that brain-controlled exoskeleton training improved depressive symptoms as well as motor function and walking, compared with exoskeleton training alone.
Researchers in ethics have started documenting what happens when these devices are switched off or abandoned, and they describe the harm as comparable to losing a sensory organ. When a device becomes part of how you perceive or communicate or move, taking it away is not like a phone going out of date. It is the removal of a capacity you had reorganized your life and your sense of self around. Some former research participants have described exactly this kind of loss.
So the question scales with the technology. The more a device restores, the more is lost when the company behind it walks away. Under the current rules, the risk of a device losing support sits with the person who has it implanted, not with the company that made it.
What ethicists say about responsibility
None of this means the devices are not worth wanting. Many restore real function, and the people who want them have every right to them.
The researchers documenting these cases locate the failure in the system rather than in the technology or the people using it: a company can implant a device in a human body without taking on any durable responsibility for keeping it working. Ethicists are now arguing that companies and health systems have an ongoing duty to maintain the technology they put inside people. That argument is not yet reflected in how most of these devices are regulated.
Questions worth asking before you sign up for anything implanted
If you are ever offered an implanted device, in a trial or on the market, these are fair questions to put to the people offering it. A good program will have answers.
What happens to my device if the company fails, is sold, or discontinues this product? Get the answer in writing, not as reassurance.
Who is responsible for maintenance, repairs, and replacement parts, and for how long? “We intend to support it” is not the same as a commitment.
If the device stops being supported, what are my options, and who pays? Removal is itself surgery with its own risks.
What happens to my data, including the neural or biometric data the device collects? This is a real and separate concern, and it does not disappear when the company does.
Is this approved and funded in Canada, or am I taking on the cost and the risk personally? Much of the most advanced work is happening elsewhere and is years from being a funded option here.
Where this leaves us
The technology is advancing quickly, and the questions are advancing with it. Wanting a device that restores sight or movement or communication is reasonable. So is wanting to know, before anything is implanted, who is responsible for it over time. The Argus II record shows what happens when that question has no answer.
If you are considering an implanted device, the practical step is the list above: ask what happens when support ends, and get the answers in writing before you agree to anything.
Sources: IEEE Spectrum, “Their Bionic Eyes Are Now Obsolete and Unsupported”; Fierce Biotech, “Second Sight’s ‘bionic eyes’ have gone obsolete while still implanted”; Gruica, “The Ethical Significance of Brain-Computer Interfaces as Enablers of Communication,” Voices in Bioethics, vol. 11, 2025; Hu et al., “Brain-Computer Interface-Controlled Exoskeleton Training for Lower-Limb Rehabilitation in Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial,” Annals of Neurology, 2026; The Debrief, “Neuralink Reaches 21 Patients,” February 2026
Frequently asked questions
What happened to users of Second Sight’s Argus II retinal implant?
The Argus II paired a tiny implant with a camera on a set of glasses to give a form of artificial vision to people with retinitis pigmentosa, receiving European approval in 2011 and US approval in 2013, and more than 350 people worldwide had one of Second Sight’s implants. On 18 July 2019 the company wrote to Argus patients saying it would phase the retinal implant out, and as it nearly collapsed in 2020 support withered. Upgrades stopped and repairs became impossible. One user learned of it only when he phoned his vision rehabilitation therapist and she told him the staff had all just been laid off.
Why does an abandoned implant matter beyond the loss of the device itself?
The consequences reach past the function the device restored. Because an MRI scanner’s magnetic fields can interact with the Argus II, MRI providers are instructed to contact Second Sight before performing a scan, and when one user needed an MRI in 2020 to rule out a brain-stem tumour nobody at the company was answering. He had a CT scan instead and, as he told IEEE Spectrum, still does not know whether he has a tumour. Researchers in ethics who have documented device abandonment describe the harm as comparable to losing a sensory organ.
Who currently carries the risk when an implanted device loses support?
Under the current rules, the risk of a device losing support sits with the person who has it implanted, rather than with the company that made it. The researchers documenting these cases locate the failure in the system rather than in the technology or the people using it: a company can implant a device in a human body without taking on any durable responsibility for keeping it working. Ethicists are now arguing that companies and health systems have an ongoing duty to maintain the technology they put inside people, and that argument is not yet reflected in how most of these devices are regulated.
What should you ask before agreeing to an implanted device?
Five questions, and a good program will have answers. What happens to my device if the company fails, is sold, or discontinues this product, with the answer in writing rather than as reassurance. Who is responsible for maintenance, repairs and replacement parts, and for how long. If the device stops being supported, what are my options and who pays, given that removal is itself surgery with its own risks. What happens to my data, including the neural or biometric data the device collects. And is this approved and funded in Canada, or am I taking on the cost and the risk personally.
