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

uk.businessinsider.com

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

#281

Post by marbletiles »

deelowe wrote: post #174
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…

Lot's of people are throwing Google and alphabet in to the same bucket here. Please don't do that. The alphabet companies are free to be ran however they wish and Nest is an extreme example of NOT running a company the Google way. When the alphabet change happened, this became quite clear in just a few months time internally. What you're seeing here is further evidence of that.

What Nest is doing is little different to Reader or the other products Google killed. Alphabet is the common link and is clearly OK with this behaviour.

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

#282

Post by sbov »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #152
fezz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Forever? No. But what is reasonable to you? 0 days? What if it's a home appliance I paid around $5,000 for, like my most recent furnace install? Also 0 days?

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

#283

Post by walrus01 »

FussyZeus wrote: post #101

Do not trust the cloud. Do not trust the cloud. Do not trust the cloud. If you didn't build it and you don't know where it is, it could go away at any time for any reason and you will have zero recourse. DO NOT. TRUST. THE CLOUD.

Do not trust the butt. Do not trust the butt. Do not trust the butt.

If you didn't build it and you don't know where it is, it could go away at any time for any reason and you will have zero recourse.

DO NOT. TRUST. THE BUTT.

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

#284

Post by click170 »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #198
click170 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs me is how many companies these days want to include reliance on the cloud for features that don't require it at all, in the interest of gaining access to more customer usage data, but then when they turn the servers off the product becomes useless. This has become a key thing that I look for when buying new products. If the product relies on the cloud for a feature that I think should be entirely offline, t…

How do you determine if a given feature 'should' be entirely offline?

Unlocking my front door? That has to work without internet access.

Turning my lights on and off? That has to work without internet access.

Logging my heart rate et all, ala fitbit? Nope, I should be able to use a server of my choosing, requiring that I use cloud servers for something I paid a one time fee for is an instant deal breaker.

A service that logged all of my access times and determined whether or not I was home based on the result? I would prefer that be run from my own server even optionally with a DNS hijack, but I would understand the need for the cloud in this situation.

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

#285

Post by click170 »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #243
click170 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs me is how many companies these days want to include reliance on the cloud for features that don't require it at all, in the interest of gaining access to more customer usage data, but then when they turn the servers off the product becomes useless. This has become a key thing that I look for when buying new products. If the product relies on the cloud for a feature that I think should be entirely offline, t…

Fitbit. I fail to see why tracking my health, location, etc. is a cloud function, beyond selling my data. At least give me the watch free if you're going to sell my data too. They then add insult to injury by making me sync via a dongle /connected cable to my laptop; at which point I could just as easily sync to a desktop client vs their otherwise "disconnected cloud".

I wouldn't have such a grudge against fitbit if they would make it easier to log to your own server. Even if I had to hijack DNS to accomplish it, I wouldn't mind. Its not like many people would take advantage of the option.

But the fact that they force you to use their servers to store your data so that they can turn around and sell it, frankly I hope they get sued for something. Anything.

There should be a law against selling customer data without the expressed consent of the customer whos data is being sold, per purchase. Even if the company is acquired.

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

#286

Post by deelowe »

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?

That's exactly what they did.

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

#287

Post by maxerickson »

Animats wrote: post #11

This is a big problem for HVAC control devices that ought to last decades. Even Honeywell only offers a 2-year warranty on their Lyric network-enabled thermostat.[1] [1] https://customer.honeywell.com/resources/techlit/TechLitDocu...

Out of curiosity I went and found a random hydronic component. 3 year warranty:

https://customer.honeywell.com/resources/Techlit/TechLitDocu...

5 years on a simpler thermostat:

https://customer.honeywell.com/resources/Techlit/TechLitDocu...

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

#288

Post by mdip »

There's really no good reason for this kind of behavior from Google. They have the infrastructure to continue to support old products and they don't do this every time they do an acqui-hire.

I recall years ago when I was a huge SageTV fanatic. They acqui-hired the company behind SageTV and integrated their product into Fiber (yet another reason for me to be jealous of Fiber). The products were immediately pulled from market but generally continued to function for years (I'm not sure how long since I abandoned the platform and went full-on cord-cutter), but last year they decided to fully open-source the code. Yeah, it would have been nice if it was done much sooner, but at least they gave enthusiasts of the platform an opportunity to pick up where the company left off after they were acquired and their core product was force-pivoted.

It seem to me that something similar could have been done here but they opted not to. That's unfortunate and it will play into my ever growing concerns about committing to any google product beyond search[1].

[1] I'm GMail and Android committed to but I'm not happy with the rapid, radical changes happening on that platform, either. Though they're unlikely to sunset the product any time soon, it appears to be evolving into something that's so different that I can no longer call it the same product I fell in love with years ago.

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

#289

Post by driverdan »

hoodwink wrote: post #189
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).

As an early adopter, I'm used to being burnt by technology, but for some reason, the Revolv disappointment really hurt. It actually reduced my early adopter tendencies ever since. I think it hurt so much because the product underdelivered from day one (I purchased it on day one) and did not improve over time in an area of technology that should have been doable. Oh well.

This is why you never buy on day one. You wait to buy on day seven after the reviews come out.

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

#290

Post by driverdan »

cylinder wrote: post #6
sharkweek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha - imagine a bank robbery escaping in a driverless car, only to have the manufacturer brick it during their daring escape.

This can already happen with OnStar.

But you can pull the SIM card from OnStar and the car will still work.
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