Cool. Now you will be expected to replace your smoke alarm, thermostat, and security system on a 6-12 month cycle like they already expect you to do with your telephone. Anybody willing to invest in smart windowpanes? Attic stairs as a service? Is there any way that we can rent people's own hands back to them? Some sort of a glove that analyzes everything you touch and only pays taxes in Ireland?
Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
161–170 of 325 posts
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies sunset SAAS products (with subscription fees, one time setup fees etc) all the time when the cost to support them becomes too high, growth stalls etc. Clearly Alphabet/Nest could have done a better job of customer service and offered users a partial refund or discount on a replacement product. That said, is it realistic to expect a company to support a software service indefinitely (when the business case n…
> when the business case no longer makes sense Doing this kills ALL future business of this type. Who would buy such a device knowing this could happen? Unless they don't plan on making consumer appliances anymore.
I'm not saying it's an ideal outcome for a company to sunset a product, but why is the consumer expectation so different for pure software vs a connected hardware device (i.e. software + hardware)? Consumers experience sunk cost when any product gets sunset, whether it's hardware or not.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#163I wish Synology would get on the stick and and make/acquire a Dropcam-like device for their NAS products. Why would Synology, a maker of mass storage appliances, head off to the topsy-turvy world of consumer products? Look at their software offerings that run on their hardware. DS Note, an Evernote/OneNote competitor? They have put a non-trivial amount of work to produce it, and it's good enough I use it in lieu of a…
I run MotionEyeOS on a raspberry pi and store my images and video on a NAS. Doesn't have to be a Synology.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#164I wish Synology would get on the stick and and make/acquire a Dropcam-like device for their NAS products. Why would Synology, a maker of mass storage appliances, head off to the topsy-turvy world of consumer products? Look at their software offerings that run on their hardware. DS Note, an Evernote/OneNote competitor? They have put a non-trivial amount of work to produce it, and it's good enough I use it in lieu of a…
Don't people already do this with Synology NAS boxes? Just a normal IP camera, writing to storage and with remote access set up it should work. Not consumer plug and play, but I swear I've read about people doing this...
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#165This 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…
I know almost nothing about the inner workings of Google or the Nest team, and yet I regularly hear about Tony and what a piece of work he is. If someone like myself, only casually acquainted with the organization, hears so many bad things about Tony, how does he still have a job? Forget his apparent management incompetence, at this point it's just bad PR for Google.
> how does he still have a job
There is a lag between management incompetence and revenue.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#166I 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…
Welcome to your next fridge.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the business case no longer makes sense Doing this kills ALL future business of this type. Who would buy such a device knowing this could happen? Unless they don't plan on making consumer appliances anymore.
I'm not saying it's an ideal outcome for a company to sunset a product, but why is the consumer expectation so different for pure software vs a connected hardware device (i.e. software + hardware)? Consumers experience sunk cost when any product gets sunset, whether it's hardware or not.
Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time. In the case of electronics I would hope they last a significant amount of time. If my hardware can work still at least give me a way to write my own code for it or use it as is with the "cloud" portions disabled/removed. If I get a new cell phone my old one doesn't need to become a paperweight because the carrier isn't pushing out updates. I can still use it as is or update it myself.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> when the business case no longer makes sense Doing this kills ALL future business of this type. Who would buy such a device knowing this could happen? Unless they don't plan on making consumer appliances anymore.
I'm not saying it's an ideal outcome for a company to sunset a product, but why is the consumer expectation so different for pure software vs a connected hardware device (i.e. software + hardware)? Consumers experience sunk cost when any product gets sunset, whether it's hardware or not.
Mostly it is because "Connected to the point of bricking" is very new.
Most "connected" devices simply have lesser or limited functionality when services they are connected to disappear.
It also comes down to Ownership. When I buy a device I expect it work until it gives up its electronic ghost. When I subscribe to a service I expect it to work for the month I paid for.
Ofcourse I would have never bought that hub in the first place because I require my products at a minimum to have a open API that can be used for Compatibility later.
Wall Garden should be resisted by consumers, it is sad most people do not even look at that, hopefully cases like this will push consumers to DEMAND manufacturer have open and inter operable systems
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#169>1 points by tomc1985 10 days ago | parent | on: OneDrive reduces free tier from 15GB to 5GB >Never trust the cloud, it will always stab you in the back... eventually Posted this before, got downvoted... ...posting this again, and will probably get downvoted again... Seriously people, suck it up and run your own shit if it matters at all
You can do that if you have unlimited time. Eventually there's just too much "own shit" to take care of, if you keep adding all kinds of services. This is quite familiar to me, having run a bunch of email/web/container/database/file servers for personal use. After a while, it's pretty tempting to just trade money or privacy for time and convenience.
Hence the "suck it up" part. Find the time.
Re: Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices
#170It's interesting how so many people think this is a new problem because of IoT. This problem has existed for years with games. If you had a game that had to be online to play, and the company decided to stop running the servers, you were screwed. Sure, sometimes people reversed engineered it, and while the company usually didn't care, it was technically illegal. We need some laws to protect consumers, that either say…
> We need some laws to protect consumers, that either say that they must release their API if they're going to shut down, or at least make reverse engineering the system legal.
The EFF proposed making a DMCA exemption for reverse engineering game server functionality when the official servers have shut down, making the game useless. And of course the industry (with a little help from the MPAA) has fought it tooth and nail:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/04/publishers-fight-to-bl...
Apparently "hacking" abandoned games encourages hacking in general, and, as in the classic orphan work argument, allowing reverse engineering for all abandoned works would rob publishers of the revenue for the tiny, tiny portion of them that they may (or may not) re-release some day.
The Librarian of Congress gave limited approval of the proposal, allowing circumvention of the case you mentioned, where an online check is required just to play local single player, but not anything else. Creating a new multiplayer server, for instance, is still illegal.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/11/u-s-govt-grants-limite...