Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by bitJericho » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #224

fezz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can easily fix this. If they don't, it speaks volumes about how Nest/Google/Alphabets values customer relationships. Take all the other google services and imagine what would happen if google were just as reckless, especially with long life products like home installed devices. Home automation installation services or even contractors would also be cautious about Nest.

It needs to be understood that home automation appliances are going to be assumed to be long-life products. Nobody thinks about their light switch being an old version and needing to be replaced. I'd say any home automation installer should be very wary of Silicon Valley-based automation "services", and focus on robust products which have been available for a long time.

I've done such installations. The simple solution is to use Honeywell products. It's good stuff that works as intended. The downside is its not even in the same ballpark as modern google/amazon/startup type devices. The customer gets what the customer wants so if someone wants ultra modern then conservatively designed products don't fly. Best advice is to vote with your wallet and stop trusting google products.

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

#232

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

click170 wrote: post #146

fezz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can easily fix this. If they don't, it speaks volumes about how Nest/Google/Alphabets values customer relationships. Take all the other google services and imagine what would happen if google were just as reckless, especially with long life products like home installed devices. Home automation installation services or even contractors would also be cautious about Nest.

These shenanigans by Google and the numerous reports of the problems with Nest and their smoke detectors have basically guaranteed I don't include Google devices in my home automation setup. I would rather manually muck around with a raspberry pi and some random sensors bought online than rely on a Google product at this point. There's a lot of room for a vendor to come in with open products, a pledge to maintain tha…

Yeah, unfortunately, there's a huge middle ground not being tackled. I use INSTEON devices, which are proprietary, but can only interface outside through my PC's serial adapter (or a cloud hub, which I obviously didn't buy). I want consumer-quality switches and such in my house, so this was the obvious choice.

But then the open source hardware stuff is almost entirely limited to 'build it yourself' boards. And sure, I could buy some Arduino and Raspberry Pi hardware (I actually have a lot of it lying around) and spend a bunch of time working on it, but then it wouldn't be a nice wall unit like my switches I have.

There's a huge open space here. It's a market just asking for someone to step in and make products.

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

#233

Post by mrrsm » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:07 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #190

mrrsm wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time. In the case of electronics I would hope they last a significant amount of time. If my hardware can work still at least give me a way to write my own code for it or use it as is with the "cloud" portions disabled/removed. If I get a new cell phone my old one doesn't need to become a paperweight because the carrier isn't pushi…

>Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time. What is X?

I think it depends on the product and the cost I am paying. x for a checkout lane electronic keychain that I paid $1.99 for I don't expect to last very long a month or two maybe. When I am paying $300 I would hope to get many years out of it before there may be hardware (rather than fixable software bugs) failure from a bad capacitor. Even then if you have the electronic knowhow you can replace the parts and keep it working. What lifetime do you expect out of a new TV you purchase? Should it stop working after a year or two or just continue to work as long as the hardware works?

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

#234

Post by jasonlaramburu » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

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…

I agree that it's annoying when a company sunsets any product (HW, SW or other), but why is it so much more annoying when it's a hardware product? Is it because you still have the physical thing? Most SAAS products have upfront/monthly costs, and when they fold consumers lose these sunk costs, but nobody is writing medium articles about that...

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

#235

Post by ocdtrekkie » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

yuhong wrote: post #218

rconti wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know almost nothing about the inner workings of Google or the Nest team, and yet I regularly hear about Tony and what a piece of work he is. If someone like myself, only casually acquainted with the organization, hears so many bad things about Tony, how does he still have a job? Forget his apparent management incompetence, at this point it's just bad PR for Google.

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. ;)

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

#236

Post by jasonlaramburu » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:16 PM UTC

mrrsm wrote: post #167

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's an ideal outcome for a company to sunset a product, but why is the consumer expectation so different for pure software vs a connected hardware device (i.e. software + hardware)? Consumers experience sunk cost when any product gets sunset, whether it's hardware or not.

Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time. In the case of electronics I would hope they last a significant amount of time. If my hardware can work still at least give me a way to write my own code for it or use it as is with the "cloud" portions disabled/removed. If I get a new cell phone my old one doesn't need to become a paperweight because the carrier isn't pushi…

Not sure the analogy works. You would still need to pay some carrier an ongoing service fee to use your cell phone. Here we are talking about a connected device where the software service is offered for free.

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

#237

Post by burtmacklin » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:23 PM UTC

spoinkaroo wrote: post #225

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar Pichai still has a job.

What have you heard about Pichai?

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

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

#238

Post by anexprogrammer » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #234

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…

I agree that it's annoying when a company sunsets any product (HW, SW or other), but why is it so much more annoying when it's a hardware product? Is it because you still have the physical thing? Most SAAS products have upfront/monthly costs, and when they fold consumers lose these sunk costs, but nobody is writing medium articles about that...

Again, depends why.

They went bust or are closing? OK that sucks, but it happens. Can't really be helped. Even if it's a hardware thing it's going to happen if there's a server-side component rather than entirely stand alone. Best case release some code, specs or open source to enable some hackery to keep hardwareThing viable.

We got bought, OldThing is boring so it's closing in 4 weeks, we're truly excited to be working with FaceGoog on the future of NewThing. Seriously not ok. People should be writing Medium articles about it. And yelling.

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

#239

Post by unclebucknasty » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

The problem with some of these IoT products is that they are more focused on being a vector or platform for broader automation than they are at doing one thing well.

Nest (the thermostat) itself is completely overrated, and is an over-engineered and unnecessary "solution" to a problem that's already been solved.

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

#240

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 10:34 PM UTC

click170 wrote: post #177

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it's an ideal outcome for a company to sunset a product, but why is the consumer expectation so different for pure software vs a connected hardware device (i.e. software + hardware)? Consumers experience sunk cost when any product gets sunset, whether it's hardware or not.

What bugs me is how many companies these days want to include reliance on the cloud for features that don't require it at all, in the interest of gaining access to more customer usage data, but then when they turn the servers off the product becomes useless. This has become a key thing that I look for when buying new products. If the product relies on the cloud for a feature that I think should be entirely offline, t…

[deleted]