Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 356 posts

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#181

Post by thayne »

titzer wrote: post #152
Corrado wrote: post #2

I 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…

> 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

Maybe a little. But I think a big part of it is businesses realizing they can make a lot more money, at least in the short term, if people have to replace their products more often.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#182

Post by s1artibartfast »

13of40 wrote: post #159
titzer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Even that isn't a binary decision (haha). I have a 60 year old dumb analog thermostat and it solves that problem by having a big knob on it with time to set Heating and Cooling. No winding required.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#183

Post by vxNsr »

Sosh101 wrote: post #15

I can't understand people that want to wire up every aspect of their home to big tech cloud companies. There are plenty of options for self-hosted smart home setups.

As someone who is fairly tech literate, and has his own home server. I disagree. Self hosting still isn’t anywhere near consumer friendly enough to be a mainstream option for most people.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#184

Post by everybodyknows »

elif wrote: post #77

One day I fully expect to wake up to find my phone issuing me the warning "Google Fi has been discontinued. Please find an alternative carrier by the end of the month" Or "Google Photos has been replaced by our new service, Google Pixa. Please back up your photos as they cannot be transferred to our new service" It's almost like their project/team structure depends on cannibalisation. I already lost my wedding playli…

> lost my wedding playlist

It's the new industry normal. Amazon Prime Music zeroed out all user's investment of time spent crafting playlists, five months back.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33521374

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#185

Post by mholm »

srmarm wrote: post #43
c4mpute wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Break even faster. Upgrading HA is a chore, it frequently breaks, ceases to understand its own configuration, drops integrations.

I had this experience a few years back and just put it in the sorta janky but hacky fun box. However I did a totally fresh reinstall on some new hardware 6 months ago and it's been absolutely rock solid since and updates have been one click without issue. Was still a bit of a faff to set up (though tbf that was more around the VM side of things which was my perogative)

I had the exact same experience. I might even have some comments on an old HN account complaining about HA's disregard for upgrade stability. After another broken upgrade, I finally decided to just fix my install at a certain update in March 2022 and leave it there. I left it there for over a year, until I wanted a few newer features. I carved out a chunk of my weekend to make sure I had time to fix whatever broke with everything and... nothing broke after catching up on a full year of updates. It's now faster, just as reliable, and has more features than before.

Home Assistant is finally ready for primetime in the average technical user's home.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#186

Post by fencepost »

The only thing Google can be depended on to do with lower volume products and services is kill them. The same seems to apply to services with no way to run ads.

I'm kind of amazed that Google Voice is still around, though at this point it may be tied in with Google Fi and letting them lean on each other.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#187

Post by doctor_eval »

sshumaker wrote: post #145
burntalmonds wrote: post #134

I recently bought a Nest thermostat and regret it. Two months in and the wifi went bad. Apparently a common problem. Support agrees to send me a replacement, but they end up sending it to the wrong address.

I had the same issue, but support kept disconnecting me and I had to start all over again going through the entire “try all of the brain dead stuff like resetting” 3 times, before I finally gave up and just ordered a new Nest and ate the cost.

Why did you buy the same device after a bad experience? That’s just encouraging the fuckers.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#188

Post by simfree »

vxNsr wrote: post #173
netsharc wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android you can install https://newpipe.net and turn off a lot of things: no more trending/start screen recommendations if you don't want them, you can turn off comments, or "watch next" recommendations.. the shorts show up in the search results like other normal videos, with a slider so you can still navigate it.

I know this is an unpopular question, but are there ads in newpipe?

Nope, there are zero ads in NewPipe. No ad blocker needed!

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#189

Post by oittaa »

osigurdson wrote: post #136
cogman10 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is just shit. As my company briefly decided to look into using them for a cloud provider it quickly became apparent that they are just awful stewards of any software that isn’t related to advertisements. It’s beyond shocking how amateurish GCP is being operated. My assumption is it comes down to really awful leadership. They only care about making and selling new things. You simply can’t trust that any piece o…

That is interesting, I thought GCP might be a good alternative - at least for managed Kubernetes.

It's probably the best managed Kubernetes out there. People just like to make hyperboles. The consumer stuff, especially the free ones, get abandoned every now and then, but the "enterprise" services are pretty good.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#190

Post by Espressosaurus »

13of40 wrote: post #159
titzer wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

That's what the parent is saying. The new digital thermostats have some nice features without the stupidity that is IoT connectivity that allows the parent corporation to screw you over when they get bored.

I personally would not consider anything IoT because anything connected to the internet is a) a vector for intrusion into my network and b) has a lifetime measured in single digit years. Anything going into a home should realistically have a lifetime of at minimum ten years. For capital improvements like a furnace or thermometer connected to it (or a washing machine, or a stove), it should be measured in decades. Even lightbulbs aren't that disposable anymore thanks to LEDs.

Google discards things after a handful of years. Anything cellphone related has a lifetime of 5 years max, and for most it's more like 2 to 3.

Keep that shit away from my home and my car.

Post reply on HN