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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

#301

Post by outside1234 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #235
yuhong wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://daringfireball.net/misc/2016/03/the-information-tony... : "Mr. Duffy never got a reply from Mr. Page, but the representative eventually told Mr. Duffy that Mr. Page had considered the offer but declined"

In fairness, asking the CEO of the company if they'll fire someone and let you replace someone two managerial steps above yourself is rarely if ever going to work. ;)

Its worth a shot. Especially when you already have your check for your stock for the company you sold. :)

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

#302

Post by click170 »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #291
click170 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for the info! Have you found many devices that meet this criteria? I can't think of any smart locks that run locally.

Though I haven't confirmed that this was fixed in new models, when I was first reviewing the Lockitron I contacted their support folks with my concerns about paying a one time fee for something that waa easentually a service and about being able to run my own server and (one of) the founder emailed me back and explained that in the next version my concerns would be addressed. That gave me hope for their next iteration but I haven't been back to them yet. I look forward to checking them out again.

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

#303

Post by sbashyal »

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…

I think this is a little more tricker. When customers make buying decisions, there is "Nest, owned by Alphabet and not likely to be shut because they are broke" benefit that they get. When they fail to meet those expectations, it should and will certainly reflect on the trust for Alphabet. Mainly because of your argument: Alphabet has little control over the companies and one should stop expecting good treatment and product lifecycle just because it is under Alphabet umbrella.

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

#304

Post by iofj »

the_unknown wrote: post #208
jasonlaramburu wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Having worked on "smart" hardware, this can't be done. For the reason of regulation.

Essentially, the law demands that no matter what you do with the software, the product won't malfunction (not just "not explode", it needs to work). Obviously that means no software that isn't made by the same engineering team ... also once the hardware is out that means no changes to the software unless someone does make their fridge explode. Even if they change the temperature 50 times a minute with the door open that can't affect the lifetime of the product. Needless to say, you block this in the software.

Unless courts start putting responsibility for the things people do with their own hardware on those people, this won't be forthcoming.

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

#305

Post by Bud »

flashman wrote: post #276
Bud wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Bullshit. El Capitan and iOS 9 both substantially improved the performance of older devices, compared to the previous version.

Apple's not "subtle". They are actively working in the opposite direction from what you are claiming. That's why my 9-year-old iMac still works like a charm. That's why iPhones are still able to run the latest software YEARS after the competition has ceased to have any updates.

Apple is interested in improving its OS. iOS 6 might run faster than iOS 9, although this stupid video doesn't prove that. But you know what? iOS 6 also had a lot less features. You want Apple to stand still for a period of 4 years on feature upgrades? That's nice. You can stay with iOS 6, then. Nobody will stop you. The rest of us would like the updates, thank you very much.

"Planned obsolescence" as a phrase applied to Apple is bullshit, has always been bullshit, and is perhaps more bullshit these days than ever before.

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

#307

Post by golergka »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #241
burtmacklin wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious about this too... most "tech industry" news I've read of him is full of fawning admiration.

Google is incredibly good at their "PR releases disguised as interviews". Google senior employee puff pieces are pretty amazing. While such interviews aren't "paid" persay, you only get such interviews (and the clicks/ad-views they bring) if you portray those people in a positive light. Though if you scrape them for minor bits, you find some minor hints. For example, one of those fawning admiration posts about him, t…

Two years ago? Strange, I worked with Android in PC form-factor 3 years ago and while I haven't been following it, I was sure they're everywhere already.

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

#308

Post by msh »

ageitgey wrote: post #140
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 still can't believe something like Dropcam is such a huge success. The level of security awareness the general public has is terrifyingly small I think you are totally misjudging this market. To the average person, a Dropcam is empirically far more secure in practice than many alternatives have proven to be. It's certainly what I'd recommend to a friend. A few years ago, Foscam Wifi cameras were popular with pare…

Totally agree.

I think there are a lot of people on HN who dont remember that just because they can easily set something up regular people can't do the same thing.

Of cause having dropbox/dropcam simplicity comes with downsides but for regular consumers its not a question between self hosting and cloud, its between having something that can do this and not having it at all.

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

#309

Post by xg15 »

iofj wrote: post #304
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…

Having worked on "smart" hardware, this can't be done. For the reason of regulation. Essentially, the law demands that no matter what you do with the software, the product won't malfunction (not just "not explode", it needs to work). Obviously that means no software that isn't made by the same engineering team ... also once the hardware is out that means no changes to the software unless someone does make their fridg…

This makes sense into you throw OTA updates and cloud services into the mix. I'm not sure how those would even be allowed by the "the software must not change" rule. But even if you interpret it generosity, shutting down the service or pushing an update that bricks the device is very clearly an update that breaks functionality. Wouldn't that be forbidden by the above rules as well?

Also, there are "hackable" products on the market, e.g. the OpenWRT routers. Those still seem to be allowed.

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

#310

Post by Loic »

I repeat myself like an old scratched LP, you should build your smart-home around an open standard like KNX[0] which is supported by 100's of hardware vendors, many software vendors including OSS and can fully run without any kind of server.

[0]: https://knx.org/

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