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

#201

Post by SwellJoe » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

brbsix wrote: post #159

SwellJoe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's absolutely an issue. And, it would even be OK, for me, to have that be the default, as long as they provide some other means of dealing with the device. WiFi isn't hard, at all. So give me a local web UI, and a way to store things locally or remotely using some standard protocol. That's dead simple to implement, and routers and printers have been doing it for a couple decades. Simply making the device usa…

There are plenty of cameras like what you're describing on the market today. Modern incarnations of the Panasonic Petcam. Search 'WiFi IP camera'. You just don't hear about them because they aren't hyped to high hell like Dropcam.

Yes, I've got a couple. I was sort of changing the subject to other home automation devices, without really being clear about that. Nest is clearly the market leader in the home automation category; at least for thermostats. I'm sure there must be others, but Nest is the only one I see at Home Depot and Lowes. I think they've executed on their plan remarkably well, so taking them on with something that is a much lower margin product (a hardware device that doesn't hold the consumer for ransom for the monthly bill) would be extremely difficult, I think. And, because they do so much of their thinking in the cloud, their devices can be dumber/cheaper. So, they win on two fronts, as long as consumers don't mind being fleeced in this way.

And, yeah, hype has a lot to do with it. How have products like Dropcam and Nest generated so much buzz? I guess people genuinely prefer them, and consider the user experience worth the price (both in terms of money and in terms of privacy and choice).

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

#202

Post by jack-r-abbit » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:49 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…

This is why I have decided against the Dropcam/Nestcam. We currently use the (now end-of-lifed) Logitech Alert system. Each camera has its own storage and you can option to have that offloaded to a network device. The entire system functions without any dependency on their backend. For free you even get live streaming (which does depend on their backend). However, for something like only $80/yr you can also access the video stored on the cameras for playback. And that one fee gets you all the cameras in your network (where Dropcam charges more... and per camera). I guess Logitech could do it cheaper because their backend just connects you to your cameras so they don't have to handle the data storage/streaming. And even though they end-of-lifed it, they still work. I plan to use them until the wheels fall off. Was hoping to switch to Dropcams, until I researched them more to find out they are cloud-only.

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

#203

Post by plorg » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

On the other hand, this seems to provide a really good opportunity to hobbyists, if they can get the ball rolling quickly enough.

If the problem with smart-home devices is their over-reliance on the cloud, the best solution would be to create a self-hosted system. Expensive, powerful, otherwise-bricked devices provide a great incentive to create such a system.

As inspiration I am thinking of the Pogoplug devices that seem to be littered around thrift stores and "sold-as-is" bins. Without a connection to the previous owner they are bricks - the default web interface doesn't even come up if there is a registered user, and they can't be de-authed without the original user signing in. But they have multicore ARM CPUs, a decent amount of RAM, multiple USB ports, and even SATA ports. Canny users have found ways of popping a shell, rooting them, and turning them into home servers to do myriad tasks (there are versions of both Arch and Debian targeted at many versions of the Pogoplug).

I don't own any smart home devices, and I'm sure it would require a non-trivial amount of work to get a self-hosted system running, but it would be great as a platform for hobbyist experimentation. Particularly these Revolv devices which contain radios to communicate on multiple protocols.

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

#204

Post by the_ancient » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #195

the_ancient wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Interesting. The reality is that every connected device has an ongoing cost to the company that sells it. Most consumers probably aren't aware of this. Depending on the architecture, # of users etc this could be some fraction of a cent/month in AWS costs or much more. Should Connected Hardware companies/startups disclose this upfront when making the sale? i.e. say "Your $199 purchase includes a free license to our so…

>>The reality is that every connected device has an ongoing cost to the company that sells it.

Not true, that is only the case for devices where the company wants to have exclusive control over the connection and resulting data, There are all kinds of open devices sold where I can connect to servers run by community, myself, or the company (many provide the cloud service and the device separately, so I buy the device then i have to buy a monthly service as well)

>Should Connected Hardware companies/startups disclose this upfront when making the sale? i.e. say "Your $199 purchase includes a free license to our software for x years."

That should be the minimum disclosure requirement.

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

#205

Post by awqrre » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

fezz wrote: post #53

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.

After Google purchased Dropcam, they censored a thread about it's inability to save video feeds locally.

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

#206

Post by saalweachter » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #119

It is a sad evolution of things. What happens to your Model S if Tesla goes out of business? The whole "remote compute / hosted" thing is a challenge. I hit it recently when I was looking to demonstrate an old game that used to run on Win98 and realized the version on the CD was unplayable and the servers where it originally downloaded the 2 gigabyte "patch" was no longer online. I found an older image of my C drive…

We really do work in an impermanent field. The day we stop pulling weeds it all slowly fades away.

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

#207

Post by mikeash » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #184

imaginenore wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody gives a crap about these semantic games. Nest is owned by Google. https://nest.com/about/

I'm trying to explain (perhaps poorly?) that the change is not simply semantic. No one who is part of Google proper has any say in what nest, glass or those other companies do at this point. None of the culture, support etc... transfers over. The CEOs of these new alphabet companies are free to do as they please. What you're seeing here is this in action. Saying Google are somehow accountable for nest or glass is lik…

In this case, being disconnected is a deliberate choice by Google. If that leads to problems, they're still responsible. You can't just take your hands off something and disclaim all responsibility for what happens afterwards.

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

#208

Post by the_unknown » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #196

voltagex_ wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damnit. If you're going to remove my ability to use it after 18 months, then just sell it to me on an 18 month contract for $20/month and let me decide whether to sign. It's already clear I don't own the hardware, so why not make it official?

It would be tough for a hardware startup to do that, since they must buy the hardware upfront before they ship it to the user (and returns always cost $). What if the manufacturer stated clearly that your upfront purchase includes a free license to the SW for x months?

... then I would fully expect that I can replace their software with that made by others. Then feel free to make a business decision that part of the original product is no longer profitable and you're leaving the marketplace for sw/support - I still won't like it but at least the consumer has options to live with their not-fully dead hardware.

As a consumer - "hey too bad you didn't want to make a business of this but you suckered me in with your shiny new fangled thing and I gave you money for it - I didn't give you permissions to then decide that you didn't make enough money so now you're going to take your ball and go home leaving me with an expensive door stop"

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

#209

Post by makomk » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

ksenzee wrote: post #13

kefka wrote: post #7

Ah. Now we see the end of the beginning of the age of IoT. I have consistently complained that these companies are completely deficient in requiring some cloud service (read: other peoples' servers). And guess why I had those issues? Because they offload all processing to these machines to retain control of them. I am not against companies trying to make a buck. Instead of tying your service that will explode, suppor…

> 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.

It's definitely one of their primary concerns. If they use open standards, then other manufacturers (most likely Chinese ones with access to the latest highly-integrated bargain basement chips) can come in and undercut their pricing. Tech companies - especially VC-funded ones - are very aware of the importance of a moat around their product to stop this from happening. If they can get ongoing monthly revenue out of it now or in the future, even better.

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

#210

Post by JshWright » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

hatsix wrote: post #68

SEJeff wrote: post #23

This is also one of the reasons I've moved most of my "hub like" functions to home assistant https://home-assistant.io/ which is open source 100% https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant I was burned by them buying Revolv, the most promising of all hubs due to having multiple antennas and touted as supporting multiple new protocols via software updates (which never happened post merger).

So... are there any hubs that specifically work with home-assistant? I like the idea of home-assistant, but I've already got a ton of z-wave already in my house.

I am in the very early stages of home automation. I've had a Nest for years, but only last week I installed a Z Wave dimmer (one of the Cooper Aspire series) and set up Home Assistant with with Aeon Labs Gen5 Z Wave dongle[1].

I've been very impressed with Home Assistant. The developer is very active, and happy to discuss development proposals in the project gitter.im chat room.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Aeon-Labs-Aeotec-Z-Wave-Z-Stick/dp/B00...