Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#51

Post by maxxxxx » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:27 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

I bought a Dropcam when they were a new thing. When I realized they did literally everything via a cloud service and would be a brick without that service, I was furious. The incredible arrogance of a company making a webcam that sends your video to their servers, and provides no means to use the camera in a secure/local fashion, was astonishing to me. I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge succe…

I hope there will be a trend where the computing power and storage goes from the cloud back to the customer's site. The internet should only be an addon for connectivity but not be needed for the device to work.

Good old PCs weren't so bad after all. You had all your data and software locally and could do whatever you wanted.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#52

Post by cdr » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #44

xianshou wrote: post #27

Planned obsolescence is extremely prevalent (just see Apple's view on it - http://www.geek.com/apple/phil-schiller-thinks-its-sad-that-... ), and this intentional bricking is a close and sinister cousin. Before the idea of regularly replacing your hardware was so widespread, companies needed to at least pay lip service to the idea of continuing support. Now that it's become the status quo to buy a new phone every two…

That Phil Schiller quote is, frankly, a pretty lousy attempt at establishing that that is Apple's "view" on planned obsolescence. The swipe at Apple in this context is absurd. I have 15-year-old Apple products that are still working perfectly well. I have a 9-year-old iMac on my desk that is still up 24/7. I have zero (0) Apple products that have been unceremoniously bricked by Apple in the way Google is doing to the…

Google has nothing to do with it. Nest is a subsidiary of Alphabet, and even then the responsibility is 100% with Nest and not Alphabet. Tony Fadell comes from an Apple pedigree, if we're blaming one of the two.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#53

Post by fezz » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

jimrandomh wrote: post #41

This is neither the first time Google's done something like this to customers, nor the first time Tony Fadell has been directly involved. When they pulled Google Glass from the market, it was concurrent with moving the Glass team to Fadell's leadership. They didn't go quite so far as to push an update to brick devices, but they left the software in a broken state, and refused to open source their fork of Android so u…

They can easily fix this. If they don't, it speaks volumes about how Nest/Google/Alphabets values customer relationships. Take all the other google services and imagine what would happen if google were just as reckless, especially with long life products like home installed devices.

Home automation installation services or even contractors would also be cautious about Nest.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#54

Post by iamleppert » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

This is the ultimate irony in that the only people I know who are obsessed with controlling things like the light bulbs in their home or regimenting the appliances and other devices to a strict schedule to their exacting demands are having the carpet pulled out from under them. Basically, enter your control freak with a penchant for organizing, classifying and making things that worked just fine before "smart" and "iOT" were mere buzzwords in a drunken dinner conversation with Tony Fadell now told they can't control a thing.

"Sike!" Tony Fadell and the beloved Google had all the control the entire time. As if Google isn't collecting data in the background on when your lights were turned on.

It's one thing if you're a nerd and build your own Arduino home controlled device as a hobby project. But I don't have sympathy for the class of consumers who buys these devices.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#55

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #14

chollida1 wrote: post #3

Wow, this is certainly something to think about in the age of the IoT's. I guess the question should be asked as to where the line is between when a user should and shouldn't expect a device to work. Especially in the coming age of drivers less cars. I can easily see a case where each driver-less car will need to talk to a mother-ship if for no other reason than syncing with other cars around it, getting new GPS maps…

You don't have to imagine, cars are already being remotely disabled on purpose due to late loan repayment[0]. [0] http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-l...

Only for borrowers with poor credit who explicitly agree to such a thing as a condition of getting a car loan, though.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#56

Post by zeveb » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

I think what users actually need is a smart home computer: one device, for the entire family, which provides sits on the Internet and provides secure access to home-network devices (e.g. security cameras, media players) and which gives easier-to-use (albeit perhaps less-secure) access to those things on the LAN. It could use containers to run blobs of code from different vendors. Given modern computing resources, it could actually be the computer, with mom & dad & the kids all using tablets, phones and lightweight network computers as little more than X servers.

In this situation, there's no need to worry about a vendor's servers being shut down: one's own server continues to run, and continues to provide service. One has control, and yet for the vast majority of people who don't care, one needn't think about it until one wishes to.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#57

Post by jimrandomh » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #49

joezydeco wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few thousand very-pissed-off people here and a few thousand very-pissed-off people there... s/people/early adopters/

Early adopters are people too. Of course, that doesn't mean they're not pissed off, so nothing in your comment invalidates the parent's. Edit: I assumed ill intent. Corrected it.

I read that slightly differently; selectively pissing off early adopters is worse, since they disproportionately influence products' odds of success.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#58

Post by joezydeco » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:31 PM UTC

jimrandomh wrote: post #57

scrollaway wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early adopters are people too. Of course, that doesn't mean they're not pissed off, so nothing in your comment invalidates the parent's. Edit: I assumed ill intent. Corrected it.

I read that slightly differently; selectively pissing off early adopters is worse , since they disproportionately influence products' odds of success.

Exactly. Google thrives on early adopters waiting in line for and spinning up their newest shiny thing. Sorry if the sarcasm was lost there.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#59

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

This sort of behavior is going to boomerang back on them; at some point consumer annoyance will force the creation of rules similar to those the FCC promulgates about RF interference for electronic devices.

Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices

#60

Post by ksenzee » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

kefka wrote: post #26

ksenzee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because they offload all processing to these machines to retain control of them. That makes it sound like their primary concern is keeping control of the devices. In reality I think it's just laziness. We all know how much easier it is to support code running on a server than to support code running on hardware sitting on somebody's dusty garage shelf with no internet connection.

> That makes it sound like their primary concern is keeping control of the devices. In reality I think it's just laziness. I sincerely believe that many of these entrants into IoT do want to remain in control of the devices and the users who "rent" said hardware. I've seen laziness in code before. It's usually sloppy, unmaintained/badly maintained, and just messy. These products are polished, just work, and smooth...…

> I'm just an individual, and was able to figure all this out.

Getting something to work one time is not remotely the same task as getting it to work for every user, every time. Getting the setup you described to work correctly is doable. Getting that setup to work for everyone who takes a box off the Home Depot shelf and plugs it in? That's hundreds of times more work. Writing a nice UI is a piece of cake in comparison. I'm still inclined to see laziness here rather than malice.

Not that it matters. The end result is the same either way: devices that spy on you unless they get bricked. I wonder if the 1984 Big Brother webcam had more than a two-year warranty.