Comment by developer786

A classic example of this is the Google Nest Learning Thermostats Version 1 and 2. With a decent bounty, these £220 ($400+) devices have been given a new lease of life by the team behind:

https://nolongerevil.com/

Repurposing bricked Nest Gen 1 & 2 thermostats with custom software. Giving old hardware new life through open source innovation. No Longer Evil is a right-to-repair firmware and cloud replacement for Nest Thermostats that frees your device from Google’s cloud dependency. By flashing custom firmware, your thermostat will operate independently and connect to No Longer Evil’s platform (or your own self-hosted server), giving you complete control over your device data and settings.