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

Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

nest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 600 posts

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#311

Post by Zarath »

Causality1 wrote: post #131

If you're even slightly surprised by this you weren't paying attention when Google bought the Revolv smart home ecosystem then took it out back and shot it. All the customers got when their expensive smart home devices shut down was a "Thanks for playing, here's a coupon for saving when you buy a Nest because we just turned off all your shit". Google is a company with severe ADHD. Consumers expect home appliances to…

Hardware as a service is the new normal. This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. "Smart" hardware means you're leasing it and will be changed at will or it gets bricked.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#312

Post by masklinn »

URSpider94 wrote: post #214

For those who see this as Google turning off an unused service: no, just no. This is Google cutting off a massive interop ecosystem to try to parlay the success of Nest into higher adoption of Google Home. That’s vastly different than shutting down G+, Wave, Orkut, Reader, etc. It would be as if they announced tomorrow that the only way to read GMail is in Chrome browser or on an Android phone.

> For those who see this as Google turning off an unused service: no, just no. This is Google cutting off a massive interop ecosystem to try to parlay the success of Nest into higher adoption of Google Home. That’s vastly different than shutting down G+, Wave, Orkut, Reader, etc.

It's exactly the same as previous shutdowns, it's just that you didn't personally care about previous shutdowns and couldn't be arsed to emphasise or learn the lesson that google can not be trusted to keep services alive.

The sharp folks are those like ocdtrekkie upthread who shed their nest immediately upon learning of the acquisition.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#313

Post by bryanrasmussen »

EU law (because the EU seems to be the only one willing to make these big laws inconveniencing tech) - any IOT enabled product that has the IOT capabilities removed by closing of a service without a simple way for those capabilities to be re-enabled (simple being further clarified in law) can be returned for a full purchase refund up to 3 months after closing of the service.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#314

Post by telltruth »

dehrmann wrote: post #302
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The month Google originally bought Nest, I sold my thermostat to someone else and picked up an Insteon thermostat instead. My Insteon thermostat's been a reliable partner since, and doesn't send my data to anyone. I actually turned a profit on it, since I got rebate credit from my electric company originally for buying it.

My gripe is the design is nowhere near as good. It's like going from an iPhone to a feature phone. I wish there were an open-source Nest firmware, or at least an open-source backend. Google doesn't need to know when I'm home.

Nest is actually far from great thermostate, definitely not "iPhone" of thermostate. It doesn't allow lots of manual settings and it doesn't handle anything more than simple systems well. There is lot of marketing that is blinding but not much substance. You should check out thermostats like Ecobee instead.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#315

Post by masklinn »

garmaine wrote: post #224
Rexxar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. There is a lot of reasons to criticize Microsoft but they keep their services/apis alive longer than any other company.

Not the ones they put up briefly only to rout the competition. The “embrace, extend, extinguish” path. Mind you that’s the old Microsoft. The new Microsoft is totally different.

EEE was a strategy for destroying standards through proprietary extensions:

> Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions.

They didn't shut down services, they'd make previous market leaders irrelevant & alternate implementations difficult to impossible (as they couldn't keep up).

Their attitude here would have been to not buy Nest but ship devices reimplementing the Works-With-Nest protocol, then add convenient / useful new features to the protocol in ways difficult for Nest to implement, and finally manage to lock it down such that Nest simply wouldn't be able to use the extensions while retaining compatibility with WwN devices themselves.

They'd kill Nest, not the WwN ecosystem.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#316

Post by dragonwriter »

gboudrias wrote: post #74
GiorgioG wrote: post #37

Man, Google is the new Microsoft of the 90s. Fuck them. I have 3 Nest thermostats (bought prior to the Nest acquisition.)

Really curious how shutting down every service works as a business model.

> Really curious how shutting down every service works as a business model

They don't shut down every service, just ones that aren't performant from a business perspective.

Which, I would think, works pretty well as a business model.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#317

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

telltruth wrote: post #305
gergles wrote: post #22

> I’m a Works with Nest developer. Will I be able to access and control Nest devices moving forward? > No. The Actions on Google Smart Home platform does not provide open API access to Nest devices, so it cannot be used to access and control Nest devices. Instead, managing and controlling Google Home, Nest, and thousands of third-party smart home devices is done through the Google Home app and the Google Assistant. W…

At Google, no one wants to work on existing things. You must create new product/feature to get promoted. Then you move on and thing gets shutdown. This is direct consequences of their internal incentive structure.

I heard that’s how PowerShell came in existence. Nobody wanted to improve conhost.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#318

Post by boyband6666 »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #13
bhhaskin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reminder to never buy a "smart" device. At the end of the day they are pretty dumb.

I have Wemo smart plugs that I have plugged in all sorts of stuff like Heater, Lamps, and TV, etc connected to my Google Home and Home Mini. And I'd advise anyone to think twice before buying smart plugs or smart devices. There are so many bugs creating so many complications that I feel they are not worth using. You'd need to reconnect them with WEMO app time and again, restart these frequently if they just stop work…

All I can say is if like me you'd bought Energenie MiHomes, you'd have spent half as much working out that you need to think twice becase there are so many bugs that make them not worth using... I seldom hear success stories from us early adopters with smarthome things.

I also have two Nests. Stringify has now shut down (and was buggy/difficult to use), and IFTTT is now losing access to Nest it seems, so I guess that's a real knockback of at least several years for smarthome.

Even when it was all in theory working, the most simple thing was not actually possible - Nest shows you humidity, so when humidity is over 60%, turn on the dehumidifier (I have one upstairs, one downstairs). Such a simple task coudln't be achieved because of about individual problems, and this to me puts the date of solving it back quite a way.

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#319

Post by dragonwriter »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #317
telltruth wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Google, no one wants to work on existing things. You must create new product/feature to get promoted. Then you move on and thing gets shutdown. This is direct consequences of their internal incentive structure.

I heard that’s how PowerShell came in existence. Nobody wanted to improve conhost.

> I heard that’s how PowerShell came in existence. Nobody wanted to improve conhost.

PowerShell still relies on conhost.

Do you mean PowerShell ISE instead of plain PowerShell or do you mean cmd.exe instead of conhost?

Re: Google Is Turning Off the Works-with-Nest API

#320

Post by telltruth »

pugworthy wrote: post #68
richev wrote: post #21

So my Nest app[1] that has 1800+ registered users will stop working in August. :'( [1] https://richev.me/nest

Look not to be blunt, but 1800 users? Why should they care? I'm being a devils advocate, but ... if you were at Google and a person making large business decisions, why would you care about 1800 users?

1800 is big number. When you piss off these many people, they talk, they let their friends know, they tweet. It's a world of instant information that spreads like wild fire. You are easily talking about turning away 18000 or even million users depending on who picks up their frustration. You are one journalist away from disaster. So if you got to piss off these many people, you better have real good reason and be able to explain it convincingly. You show empathy. You have path for switch. You give enough of notice. I see none of that in Google's blog post. Absolutely none. They have hired people who simply don't care or perhaps are so dumb that they don't even know the damage they are doing. Next time when Google guy show up at interview, make sure to ask him/her big decisions he/she made about product shutdowns and how they executed on them.
Post reply on HN