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

#271

Post by eldenbishop » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 11:55 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #131

roel_v wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of smart home devices that work without any form of internet connection. Have been for 20+ years, too.

There's "smart", as defined 20 years ago...which is timers, complex schedules, etc. And, then there's "smart" as we define it today, which is WiFi, browser or app-based UI, etc. I'm unaware of a Nest competitor that is not tied to the cloud-based service of the provider. I am not super attuned to the market, however. Things have likely (hopefully) changed since last I researched things like Nest a year or two ago.

Apple HomeKit works without cloud services. It is entirely local with your phone, mac, iPad etc directly interacting with the devices. I'm sure some of the individual devices from partners may leverage cloud services but I have yet to purchase a device that requires it. The only "cloud" aspect is if you want remote access to your devices an AppleTV can act as a proxy/gateway that let's you control your device from the internet rather than the local network. The eco-system is a hot mess at the moment but the basic design is well thought out.

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

#272

Post by chris_wot » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 11:59 PM UTC

jdmichal wrote: post #221

simoncion wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone like myself, only casually acquainted with the organization, hears so many bad things about Tony, how does he still have a job? Vivek "Vic" Gundotra did serious damage to Google's corporate image and was seriously reviled within Google, yet he stuck around for years . It's possible that Google upper management thinks that Fadell might be able to pull off a bet-the-company move. Gundotra was tasked with t…

> Or, it's possible that Google was contractually obligated to keep Gundotra around for a period of time, and is under the same obligation with Fadell. I can't believe that they would have so much negotiating power that there's no way out for Google. Even if it's moving them to be the VP of janitor closets.

At this level, there are a few issues:

1. potential reputation and organisational damage that such a person can bring to an organisation without carefully managing the situation;

2. in a company as big as Google (and frankly, one that is doing as well as Google!) it may take quite a lot of time to truly uncover the damage that a person is doing to an organisation, especially if that person is on good terms with upper management;

3. At a high enough level of management in a big enough company, lawyers and professional negotiators can wangle some amazingly good terms into the manager's contract. This can make it exceptionally tricky to remove this person quickly, or even move them sideways (if you move someone sideways, then you change their authority on a variety of things, which almost certainly changes their job description and thus their contract. This goes double if you demote them, even for the same money).

I can't speak for anything going on at Google of course, but I guess I can speculate that it might have been a combination of all three of these things. Which is utter speculation, so feel free to duly assign it the value that you feel it is worth :-)

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

#273

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:12 AM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #234

the_unknown wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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 b…

I agree that it's annoying when a company sunsets any product (HW, SW or other), but why is it so much more annoying when it's a hardware product? Is it because you still have the physical thing? Most SAAS products have upfront/monthly costs, and when they fold consumers lose these sunk costs, but nobody is writing medium articles about that...

[deleted]

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

#274

Post by knughit » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

outside1234 wrote: post #262

deelowe wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If this is so true, then why don't the complete the task and spin the company off and hold a controlling share?

They did. 100% share.

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

#275

Post by 21echoes » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:25 AM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #123

jacquesm wrote: post #88

Companies are getting more and more creative with interpreting what 'ownership' actually means. Books you've bought evaporate, equipment stops working, cars that can't be serviced other than at authorized dealerships and so on. Ownership is a term that has been stretched way beyond the breaking point. Any device that needs an internet connection in order to function should be leased, not bought.

Well it was apparently leased, just the customer wasn't informed about that. The nice side benefit is they get to have a nice container of hummus at the end -- don't have to return it. Then these companies complain and cry how everyone is pirating things and nobody wants to buy their products. A lot of people in Western countries, I feel use pirated products not because they don't have the money to pay, but because i…

> Then these companies complain and cry how everyone is pirating things and nobody wants to buy their products

To be fair, I think you'll find that there's very little overlap.

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

#276

Post by flashman » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:27 AM 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…

Apple is a lot more subtle. They just don't give a damn about the performance of older devices. The iPhone 5 runs iOS 6 much faster than iOS 9[1]; Apple is clearly more interested in having people upgrade to a faster phone than optimizing software for older ones.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYQgn8J6zbU

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

#277

Post by mikeash » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:31 AM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #214

mikeash wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It was a deliberate choice by the former Google board, who no longer runs Google and now runs Alphabet. The blame lies with Alphabet, not one of it's many subsidiaries.

I think the problem is that Alphabet is basically what we used to call Google, and what is now called Google is just one aspect of what we used to call Google. Referring to Alphabet as "Google" is outmoded but it's sort of like saying "Blackwater" instead of "Academi."

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

#278

Post by toomuchtodo » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:37 AM UTC

pdkl95 wrote: post #258

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge success. The level of security awareness the general public has is terrifyingly small, and companies are taking advantage of it to produce brickable devices. It is the legal variant of ransomware...They can hold your data hostage for any reason and at any time. You're completely at their mercy, with regard to pricing and availability, and you have to trust…

> We care, others don't. That's not a justification to add data stealing features and obfuscated dependencies to a remote, probably short lived server. We understand the nature of those features, others don't.

I'm not justifying it. I'm explaining why it plays out in the marketplace.

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

#279

Post by nostrademons » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:50 AM UTC

rconti wrote: post #157

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…

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.

Larry tends to be very loyal to his lieutenants. I'd say this is a combination of 1.) his personality type 2.) that you have to be, in order to get people to work for you when it's clear that you aren't going to step aside any time soon and 3.) his long-term orientation, where he's willing to endure a lot of temporary hiccups with the faith that people will eventually get the job done.

All of these are positive character traits, but they also mean that some...well...sociopathic individuals have managed to gain his trust and hold it for long periods of time, doing significant damage to the organization in the process. In the past, he has eventually fixed things, it just took years.

It's hard to say that this is wrong, per se, since the alternative is often a slash-and-burn CEO that axes executives at the first sign of trouble in their divisions. You can't do anything long-term under those conditions either.

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

#280

Post by walrus01 » Tue, Apr 05, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

I don't understand why anyone would buy a home automation/smart-home device that can't work fully independent of "the cloud" (butt) with local management. If I can't talk to it over private IP space and run a local daemon/server on the same layer 2 ethernet fabric to manage it (eg: Unifi), I don't want it.

If I want to remotely access a camera or something like dropcam I am perfectly capable of VPNing in to my own home network to do so. I don't need the butt.