Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#71

Post by MichaelApproved » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #34

MichaelApproved wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reconsider. I'd say these are two safe options: 1) Go with a cloud service using products exclusively made by a single major company, like Google or Amazon. This is simpler to setup and maintain but more expensive. 2) Go with an open source solution, like Home Assistant. Cheaper option with more control but requires a lot of time to learn, setup and maintain. Both options should be considered safe at this point. Edit…

> Go with a cloud service using products exclusively made by a single major company, like Google or Amazon. You mean like Nest? Not a good example. Better advice is buying something non-cloud based which uses established standards and which works entirely within your LAN. If the company goes down, at least you can interact with the devices using the standards they were built on (Zigbee, z-wave, etc).

Why is best not a good example? If you buy exclusively Google made products you're still fine.

Reread my original comment. I say you'd be safe if you buy products made BY a single company. This API effects those who bought things that are made by other manufacturers.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#72

Post by throwaway55554 » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

davemp wrote: post #50

bpyne wrote: post #40

I can't think of a single compelling use-case for home automation systems. I'm trying to understand what other people see in it. I have to wonder if it's driven by the amount of interest a person has in "tinkering" with technology.

Home automation is a great source of overly ambitious capstone ideas for ECE students!

Yep. I did one for my BsCpE a dozen years ago.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#73

Post by mabbo » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

It used to be "Embrace, extend, extinguish"- Microsoft would promote a technology, then extend in their own way, then use that extension to kill off the competitors also using the same tech.

Now it's more like "Acquire, Advocate, Assassinate". Big companies buy small tech startups doing neat things for customers. They fund it, highly promote it, integrate it with their stack. Then they kill off the critical pieces that made the original company loved by their users.

They buy the devs, the tech, and the customers but kill the soul of whatever it was they acquired.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#74

Post by hebrox » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #17

erinnh wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely would invest into Smart Home, but only if I can control it 100% from the server in my basement without the appliance having any internet access at all. All my IoT devices are in a wifi without any internet access.

Can you offer up a list of items that you were able to configure like this; or a reference point I could use to get started?

I'm just getting started with Home Assistant and been busy with $10 wifi energy meters: https://blog.quindorian.org/2019/02/home-assistant-10-wifi-e...

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#75

Post by roel_v » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

bpyne wrote: post #40

I can't think of a single compelling use-case for home automation systems. I'm trying to understand what other people see in it. I have to wonder if it's driven by the amount of interest a person has in "tinkering" with technology.

I really like my automated curtains, get some benefits from being able to switch some lights on and off (make movement sensors work or not depending on the time the sun goes down/up and whether it's weekend or not, turn on outdoor lights at certain times depending on whether the sun is already up), and integrating the air conditioning controls with other devices is convenient and somewhat spiffy. Furthermore I like the advanced programability that having a powerful central system gives you, like having a house-wide 'nobody home/up/everybody asleep/on holiday' mode and having all components react to that, and how you can set advanced rule sets in code like 'if it's a weekday and the average temperature the last 5 days was That said, I would never advise it for someone who doesn't like tinkering, or at least know how to tinker.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#76

Post by boulos » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

tinus_hn wrote: post #59

DannyBee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has cancelled plenty of things, it's just much better at erasing history and pretending those things never existed than the other companies.

I suppose that’s why instead of showing examples you are making broad sweeping claims?

Remember Ping? :).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping

Edit: on a more serious note, what if you loved PPC development? Apple went x86 and now you can’t develop there. It’s my main fear whenever there’s talk of them using their ARM cores for a new laptop and macOS.

To be clear, I think they pulled that transition off really well, and suspect they could do x86 => ARM better than anyone (closed ecosystem, tons of LLVM people). It would still mean they were deprecating and cancelling x86 though (presumably with a Rosetta-like translator for a while).

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#77

Post by slantyyz » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:21 PM UTC

erinnh wrote: post #52

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you offer up a list of items that you were able to configure like this; or a reference point I could use to get started?

For lightning I use the Ikea Tradfri brand, but afaik Philips Hue also works. (as do most ZigBee products with various bridges) The management solution in my home is OpenHab2, but Home Assistant also works fine. https://www.home-assistant.io/components/ https://www.openhab.org/addons/ There are a few other products I use (for blinds, windows, heat), but you can often simply search the above two lists and read through…

Worth noting - if you want cloud access, it's a paid subscription (reasonably priced) add on for Home Assistant, and it's free for OpenHAB.

I personally prefer OpenHAB over HomeAssistant, but the thing that annoys me about OpenHAB2 is that it doesn't have even rudimentary built in user management with authentication. The docs basically tell you to use something like Nginx to do that for you.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#78

Post by ansible » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

zelly wrote: post #46

We are all used to SaaS randomly getting obsoleted, but when you buy a physical device you kind of expect to own it forever. But no, cloud and IoT means even your physical stuff are SaaS products. Just stop buying the trash.

You might enjoy Cory Doctorow's recent book "Radicalized":

https://craphound.com/category/radicalized-full/

The protagonist starts out by jail-breaking her toaster, which was designed on only toast authorized bread. However, the company that produced it went out of business (taken over by a hedge fund), and the authentication servers were shut down, so now the toaster couldn't toast anything.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#79

Post by magicalhippo » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

erinnh wrote: post #9

stirkac wrote: post #6

This is why I would never invest too much into Smart Home. While my phone may be expected to last for a few years only, I don't want my house deprecated because of a takeover/bankruptcy of a company.

I definitely would invest into Smart Home, but only if I can control it 100% from the server in my basement without the appliance having any internet access at all. All my IoT devices are in a wifi without any internet access.

I'm mainly going for Z-Wave plus, using Home Assistant as controller for now (though still evaluating that).

My A/C is on Wifi though, and the cloudy controller web page is using a REST API (undocumented but simple enough to sniff and fake), so that's the only outlier so far.

Re: Nest, the company, died at Google I/O 2019

#80

Post by scarface74 » Fri, May 10, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #58

scarface74 wrote: post #29

In what world could Nest have been a profitable ongoing concern without being acquired by someone? It’s hard enough going from startup to either IPO or a self sustainable “lifestyle business” for a software company. It’s almost impossible for a hardware company - see Eero.

I think they had a shot. It seems to me that they had managed to effectively own the top end segment of the home thermostat market in term of branding and product recognition. I don't see why that wouldn't have enabled a profitable, sustainable company. The thing is that these days people start this kind of company with their exit in mind from day one.

How sustainable? There are only three ways to sell a thermostat.

- at the time a home is being built when it’s easy to get all sorts of add ons bundle through the builder. How many homes are being built in a year?

- as a self service after market upgrade to your existing thermostat. In the grand scheme of things, how many people are willing to do that?

-working with service companies or building out a network of installers.

Also, how often do you replace your thermostat?

Look at Roku, they knew from day one that money wasn’t ultimately going to come from hardware sells. Their business model was always ultimately to get a cut of subscriptions, sell ads, and sell viewing habits.