[flagged]
Nest before Google (Nest Gen 1 and 2) was a small tech startup.
That doesn't really make it better, unless they had a stricter privacy policy.
NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
61–70 of 146 posts
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#62Living in a cold room with an evil presence is better than roasting in hell with an angry wife.
This is why I hate digital thermostats. With the old classic round Honeywell thermostats you could turn the dial a fraction of a degree when nobody was looking and "boil the frog" to get a reasonable temperature. With digital thermostats, you can only change the temperature in discrete steps which will be immediately noticed. > Why does it say 74?? I had it set to 75!!1!
Have you considered just not living with people you think so little of?
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#63Right now it's just a blob that you flash to your device to make it talk to a proprietary service. It is not yet " giving me complete control over my device data and settings ." I can't change where it comnects to etc. In fact - I don't even see a privacy policy on nolongerevil.com! Hey, I can login at nolongerevil.com using my Microsoft-owned github login! And there's yet another company involved: clerk.com - yay? "…
I don't get the hate, it looks like they reverse-engineered the nest thermostat and wrote a firmware for it? That's super cool and the fact that an open source project doesn't have a privacy policy yet doesn't really matter at this point
> ...looks like they reverse-engineered the nest thermostat and wrote a firmware...
Not to diminish what this project has done, but they modified existing firmware to make it communicate with a different server. They've also implemented a server for the thermostat API.
It's pretty neat but, at this point, it's just a hacked firmware that talks to a different proprietary server.
Edit: It's not even a modification to the firmware binaries. They're just injecting /etc/hosts entries into the firmware[0]. If the Nest device just uses DNS to resolve these names then you wouldn't even need to modify the firmware-- just point it at a DNS server that's authoritative for the necessary names.
[0] https://github.com/codykociemba/NoLongerEvil-Thermostat/issu...
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#64I'm a little confused, because this looks like you're just swapping one proprietary service (Google) for another (NoLongerEvil).
Despite their name, we have no idea if NoLongerEvil is evil or not. Why should I trust them? I don't know them at all. Why will they be immune to the regular economic pressures surrounding any connected online service? What will stop them from adding tracking or other anti-features? Even if they are a bunch of saints, what will stop them from selling the service to a company that will not respect my privacy?
Google is at least the devil we know, here.
I was expecting a fully open source firmware, with a fully open source backend service that people can host themselves if they so choose.
(I guess they didn't write their own firmware; they hacked Google's firmware so it redirects traffic from Google's servers to their own. So I guess in this model, I'd want to see an open source, self-hostable backend service, and a "build" process for the hacked firmware to set the API URL to the self-hosted backend.)
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#65I can't express how much damage Google has done to its reputation in my mind with how they EOL'd the online functionality of these devices. I have 3 of them. I will never buy a Google device of any kind ever again.
What really surprises me is that there are people who didn't see this coming. I mean really people, you're purchasing a device which requires an internet connection to a server you don't own.
I certainly didn't see this coming in 2014 when I paid $800+ and installed them. If they'd have said hey $5/year for each to keep them going, I'd have begrudgingly paid it and carried on...but now, Google will never get a dime from me again.
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#66Right now it's just a blob that you flash to your device to make it talk to a proprietary service. It is not yet " giving me complete control over my device data and settings ." I can't change where it comnects to etc. In fact - I don't even see a privacy policy on nolongerevil.com! Hey, I can login at nolongerevil.com using my Microsoft-owned github login! And there's yet another company involved: clerk.com - yay? "…
I don't get the hate, it looks like they reverse-engineered the nest thermostat and wrote a firmware for it? That's super cool and the fact that an open source project doesn't have a privacy policy yet doesn't really matter at this point
If they really want to show that they're building something that protects user privacy, they'd open source their backend server, and make it possible and easy to self-host it and point the modified firmware[0] at your own instance.
[0] They didn't write their own firmware; they hacked the stock firmware to redirect traffic from Google's servers to their own.
Edit: looks like they plan to open source the backend and enable self-hosting "soon". Hopefully that comes to pass!
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#67[flagged]
Where did you get the idea there was a subscription?
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#68I'm a little confused, because this looks like you're just swapping one proprietary service (Google) for another (NoLongerEvil). Despite their name, we have no idea if NoLongerEvil is evil or not. Why should I trust them? I don't know them at all. Why will they be immune to the regular economic pressures surrounding any connected online service? What will stop them from adding tracking or other anti-features? Even if…
I want a little blade server or SBC stack cabinet, that’s sized to fit comfortably near the broadband router, which is set up to run a bunch of home services from nest controller to Minecraft server as a lightweight kubernetes.
Every so often you swap out the slowest one for a new one and keep adding more stuff to it.
Add the ability to isolate some of the machines as bastion hosts and we could do an awful lot without having to exfiltrate our own data.
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why I hate digital thermostats. With the old classic round Honeywell thermostats you could turn the dial a fraction of a degree when nobody was looking and "boil the frog" to get a reasonable temperature. With digital thermostats, you can only change the temperature in discrete steps which will be immediately noticed. > Why does it say 74?? I had it set to 75!!1!
Have you considered just not living with people you think so little of?
I have an analogue thermostat in my home, but vacations (in rental properties) with the in-laws turn into thermostat wars. I particularly don't appreciate the ones that use proximity sensors to light the thermostat display's backlight. Whoever came up with that idea was a genuine asshole.
Besides, would you really break off a relationship over something so petty as temperature preference? The people who find somebody who's literally perfect for them must be very rare, I think most people have to make small sacrifices and concessions.
Re: NoLongerEvil-Thermostat – Nest Generation 1 and 2 Firmware
#70I'm a little confused, because this looks like you're just swapping one proprietary service (Google) for another (NoLongerEvil). Despite their name, we have no idea if NoLongerEvil is evil or not. Why should I trust them? I don't know them at all. Why will they be immune to the regular economic pressures surrounding any connected online service? What will stop them from adding tracking or other anti-features? Even if…
I want a little blade server or SBC stack cabinet, that’s sized to fit comfortably near the broadband router, which is set up to run a bunch of home services from nest controller to Minecraft server as a lightweight kubernetes. Every so often you swap out the slowest one for a new one and keep adding more stuff to it. Add the ability to isolate some of the machines as bastion hosts and we could do an awful lot withou…
You can get a nice arm device with 16 or 32 gb ram for about 150 bucks and a screw 2 tb ssd to it for another 100 something.
There is even risc-v things with decent ram, nvme connector and costing about 50 bucks