I had to, manually, disable over 50 cookies on that site, crazy.
I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
151–160 of 356 posts
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#152I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…
Prior to replacing my furnace I had a mercury thermostat that was easily over 50 years old. The new one is digital but isn't "smart". I don't expect 50 years, but 20-30 seems reasonable. Somehow software people have forgotten that physical things last a long time, and people want them to keep working and stay the same as long as possible. My thermostat doesn't need "upgrades", and anyone who thinks they are going to "upgrade" my home remotely via software can get fucked.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#153I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…
It's kind of the way of the world now, not just Google. I've accumulated a ton of stuff that just doesn't work anymore or works in a crippled local-only mode because the service doesn't exist anymore or drivers/software stopped getting updates. What's really sad is buying something, having a little bit of fun with it, then going back to it a year or two later and finding out it's a brick now. Or just buying something "new" and finding out it was born into the grave.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default.…
I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.
Try YouTube Revanced from https://revanced.net/
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#155My primary use of the Home speakers is playing music in the shower. That experience is actually pretty bad though, over the years between google music and spotify, getting it to play my music is just horribly obtuse. I can't reliably get it to start my music. "Playing a playlist called my favorites" or similar rather than playing my own playlist. At one point after 3-4 failed attempts like this I said "F you" and the…
I never understood why people put smart speakers in their showers. Why is a simple and cheap Bluetooth speaker not good enough? You can get them in any size and shape and sound quality and they (can) work with your phone's built-in "smart" assistant. I never use that though because when I'm in the shower all I want to do is listen to music.
Here's my routine, for reference:
1. Turn on the speaker (which is hanging on my tile shower wall via an Ikea suction cup hook).
2. Open Spotify on my phone and start a playlist and adjust the volume if necessary (it remembers the volume I last set for this particular Bluetooth speaker so I rarely have to touch that).
3. Take a shower (singing and dancing of course!)
4. Turn off the speaker.
5. Leave the bathroom with my phone.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#156I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…
I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default.…
Agreed. See this across all of Google products.
It's amazing to me that Google Assistant was more useful when it came out than it is today. Just the past few days I've been dealing with this bug where I can't even set an alarm through it.
Google Photos is another one: content-based search used to work really well, but totally unreliable today.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#157My primary use of the Home speakers is playing music in the shower. That experience is actually pretty bad though, over the years between google music and spotify, getting it to play my music is just horribly obtuse. I can't reliably get it to start my music. "Playing a playlist called my favorites" or similar rather than playing my own playlist. At one point after 3-4 failed attempts like this I said "F you" and the…
I still want profanity mode. Hurling insults at a Google Assistant and having to roast me in return would be amazing.
That's not really what I'm looking for, of course. At the time it was feeling a bit like "3 times is enemy action". A person, if I had asked them to play my playlist and they put on "KidzBopz" or other "decidedly not my playlists", they'd be like "Ok, I've pushed this gag far enough."
But seriously, I still haven't plugged that thing back in, it's been over a year. The only reliable way I could get to start my playlists was to use my phone, at which point I might as well just be using a bluetooth speaker, which is what I've been doing the last year.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#158My primary use of the Home speakers is playing music in the shower. That experience is actually pretty bad though, over the years between google music and spotify, getting it to play my music is just horribly obtuse. I can't reliably get it to start my music. "Playing a playlist called my favorites" or similar rather than playing my own playlist. At one point after 3-4 failed attempts like this I said "F you" and the…
I never understood why people put smart speakers in their showers. Why is a simple and cheap Bluetooth speaker not good enough? You can get them in any size and shape and sound quality and they (can) work with your phone's built-in "smart" assistant. I never use that though because when I'm in the shower all I want to do is listen to music. Here's my routine, for reference: 1. Turn on the speaker (which is hanging on…
Because I don’t have to remember to pair my phone with the Bluetooth speaker, then queue up whatever. I just tell my Echo to play my daily briefing, and it does the work. I picked a set that is generally done in 15-20 minutes, so it doubles as a good time for my morning routine.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#159I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…
Prior to replacing my furnace I had a mercury thermostat that was easily over 50 years old. The new one is digital but isn't "smart". I don't expect 50 years, but 20-30 seems reasonable. Somehow software people have forgotten that physical things last a long time, and people want them to keep working and stay the same as long as possible . My thermostat doesn't need "upgrades", and anyone who thinks they are going to…
Same here, but I want to say some bad things about old thermostats. My first house had propane heating, in a big tank that they would periodically come by and fill, so I had a visceral connection to how much fuel I was using. The previous owner had left the original 1960s mercury thermostats running the place, which meant that barring any initiative on my end the temperature was the same no matter if I was sleeping, at work, or whatever else it is people do. When I finally got around to replacing it with a digital programmable one, it cut my propane bill in half. Do you need to hook it to your smart phone? No, that's dumb. Do you need to choose between bleeding money vs. adjusting everything manually as part of your daily routine, like your grandfather winding the hallway clock? No, also dumb. Local digital is the way to go.
Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
#160I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…
Recently I noticed I could not turn my Nest thermostat "off" anymore, on the device or on the app. Wait, what??? Any ideas?