Builders Ditch Nest After Google Ties Devices to Digital Assistant

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/builders-ditch-nest-as-google-ties-digital-assistant-to-devices

by MBCook • 7 years ago

181 121 7 years ago

sdan• 7 years ago

Not surprised. Google should’ve left nest out of this. Now they need everyone who has a house, a google account as well. Tony Fadell probably wouldn’t like how google transformed his product.

onetimemanytime• 7 years ago

>Tony Fadell probably wouldn’t like how google transformed his product.

as if Google was a paragon of integrity and privacy when Nest was sold for billions...

navigatesol2• 7 years ago

Tony Fadell probably wouldn’t like how google transformed his product.

I put zero stock in the words of people who sell their company for vast sums of money, then complain how the new company runs things.

_iyig2• 7 years ago

I've been leery of Google ever since they required me to enable web and search history to use weather and calendar alerts with Google Home.

lotsofpulp• 7 years ago

I got rid of my Nest products and switched to a HomeKit versions because of this.

vinay427• 7 years ago

This annoyed me quite a bit as well. My Google Assistant device has a LED display that ordinarily displays the time and the temperature below it, but the temperature part was just blank without the history enabled which seems incredibly vindictive to be.

dillonmckay2• 7 years ago

That is hostile to the user. Wow.

mindslight• 7 years ago

But when are they/we going to learn the meta lesson, which is that this is an inevitable outcome [0] of every "cloud" connected piece of trash? With the ease of distributing software to mobile devices, there is little reason for something to be designed around phoning home instead of using well documented protocols on the local network, but for the "value add" of gradually implementing ever more surveillance and lock in.

Frankly the tech community is shirking our professional responsibility by not loudly condemning marketing-pushed junk like Nest, and letting it gain market share in the first place.

[0] Well, one of two possible outcomes really. The other being plain abandonment.

wizzard3• 7 years ago

Not only do they now force you to have a Google account and Google Assistant (via Android or Google Home) to take full advantage of your Nest now, but they also pretty much gutted the API in the name of "privacy." Ironic.

I was looking to play with my historical data to try and figure out how my two heating and cooling systems were interacting, but that data is no longer available to non-grandfathered developers. The only way to access my own data from my super-technologically-advanced-device-owned-by-Google is by ordering a dump of CSV files.

ethbro• 7 years ago

I don't think anyone in the tech world believes Google killed integration features in the name of privacy.

The fact that that's the PR spin they chose points to how poorly managed the entire division must be.

If you want more control, just say it.

wizzard3• 7 years ago

It's definitely a convenient excuse if you just want to be lazy. I certainly can't imagine how any Nest developer could abuse my private data any worse than Google already does.

God forbid any third party should find out -- with my permission! -- what my thermostat was set to last Monday.

techslave2• 7 years ago

you have only yourself to be angry with

wizzard3• 7 years ago

How so? I bought into Nest long before it was bought by Google. Should I have been able to predict all this somehow?

epc• 7 years ago

I finished setting up a pile of Nest thermostats and cameras about a month before Google killed “works with Nest”. Am now planning to remove all of the Nest products. Haven't figured out what to replace the cameras with (I do not want to go through this again with another vendor). The Nest thermostats were great for the first couple of years we had them and we saw some measurable savings on heating and cooling. Killing off the automation options via IFTTT kills the utility of the thermostats for me (and Google Assistant is useless as a replacement if your primary Google accounts are G Suite accounts).

el_benhameen• 7 years ago

I use Wyze cameras for baby monitors, home security, etc., and I’ve been pretty happy with them. They’re cheap enough that you can throw a camera at pretty much any idea. They are a cloud-based product so they come with all of the associated privacy concerns, but if you were using Nest then that’s maybe not a huge deal. Not affiliated with the company, just relatively pleased with the products.

icelancer2• 7 years ago

Same. I use their cameras and now their motion detectors. They are cheap and work well. Their IR filters jam regularly though on the cameras, giving everything a blindingly purple shade unless you just have IR/night mode on at all times. Small price to pay for the cost of the camera I guess.

the_pwner224• 7 years ago

The Wyze cams are very cheap and you might be able to use them locally as normal network cameras without any internet connection.

A year or two ago I looked into this and there was a 'jailbreak' to load different firmware onto it, but I think it stopped being functional due to updates. However, I have heard things about an official offline firmware being released by Wyze which you may want to look into.

_iyig2• 7 years ago

Fire Phone notwithstanding, Amazon seems to offer good long-term support for their devices. I've been very pleased with my e-Ink Kindles, first-gen FireTV, and first-gen Alexa. I expect the Amazon Cloud Camera to have a similarly lengthy product lifetime.

spockz• 7 years ago

Ubiquity has some nice cameras. They operate on the LAN only. Not sure whether they have any alerting/movement detection or IFTT capabilities though.

TaylorAlexander• 7 years ago

The Ubiquity cameras are nice! They do offer remote access, which I used to monitor 3D printers and chickens from afar. I’m not sure if remote access comes with the cameras or requires their “cloud key” device, which we also have.

adrianN2• 7 years ago

Use normal network enabled cameras and make them remote accessible via a Tor hidden service: https://github.com/n8fr8/talks/blob/master/onion_things/Inte...

xg152• 7 years ago

Out of curiousity, what benefits does Tor bring here? Wouldn't a domain + VPN (or simply HTTPS + password protection) + a restrictive firewall work as well?

delfinom3• 7 years ago

Jesus, why would you waste Tor's limited bandwidth on personal cameras. Throw it behind a VPN and that's it. It's like trying to record your camera footage in blockchain bad.

mike_pol• 7 years ago

Yi cameras are quite cheap but good quality (xiaomi is behind that company I think). There is a custom firmware you can load that will enable ftp and ssh so you can grab the recordings from your home server and push them wherever you want, bypassing the need to use their cloud.

epistasis• 7 years ago

Nest has been so terribly mismanaged seemingly from the beginning of the acquisition; has there been any management level change to compensate for the poor execution?

I really like the look of the Nest thermometer, but I definitely don't want Google in control of anything in my house, or listening to anything in my house, with how the manage this stuff.

If I do automate anything, I will be going with Home Assistant, even though I kind of despise home rolling these sorts of things. I don't trust any of the major players, and their recent behavior and lack of care for the user makes me nervous for the future of tech.

mmmBacon• 7 years ago

Management at big companies like Google is about protecting your $1M+ paycheck a year and not about innovation. You don’t rock the boat and you don’t stick your neck out. These companies are not hungry, they are simply greedy.

fauigerzigerk• 7 years ago

You're underestimating the complexity of the game. It's not certain that not sticking your neck out protects your paycheck or the company's profits. Some other company or employee may be willing to take more risk and succeed.

https://www.cio.com/article/2379013/satya-nadella-to-succeed...

https://www.cnet.com/news/google-buys-android/

ageofwant2• 7 years ago

This. Any company pass a certain size has a legion of upper, and middle manglers whose sole responsibility is risk management, and paramount to anything is the risk to the personal wealth and progression of said manager. There is very little incentive to 'innovate'.

dreamcompiler• 7 years ago

The beautiful thing about this is that any half-bright kid could come along and kick these executives to the curb. There is zero technical barrier to entry in home automation products; the technology is dead simple. The only problem is that you cannot get conventional VCs to fund it because the only way to achieve high-growth and a rapid 10x exit is to spy on people. But if capital were available for moderate-growth, sustaining companies, privacy-respecting HA would be an easy market to penetrate.

caseyf7• 7 years ago

It’s a real shame we didn’t get to see Dropcam reach it’s potential.

claudeganon• 7 years ago

Many years later, I’m still angry that Google took my functioning service, subtracted features from it, and replaced it with their seemingly always half-broken one. RIP Dropcam.

KaiserPro• 7 years ago

I suspect that google bought nest as a beachhead for creating a "house platform"

Having google in your house means that it makes sense for an en user to have an android phone, a google account. If you make the walled garden nice enough, you'll never want to leave.

Or if you make people invest enough in it, its to expensive or painful to leave.

As HA requires a bit of work to setup, its always going to be for tinkerers (unless its packaged and supported by a third party)

mehhh4• 7 years ago

Google should have bought Wyze or Iris by Lowes, the Nest Protect offerings are very underwhelming (no motion detectors, the door sensors don't double as temperature sensors like most Z-Wave sensors).

GarrisonPrime• 7 years ago

This kind of sounds like what governments do. Or civilization in general.

ageofwant2• 7 years ago

Its helpful to approach https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/ as you would a moderately complex home entertainment system, with a smart tv, a apple tv, a blueray player, playstation, a recorder all managed via a AVR with a 'smart' remote. You are going to spend a few hours setting it up in the beginning.

pacala6• 7 years ago

The economic incentives for home automation are aligned to send them the way of the SpyTV fiasco [0]. Whatever brand you choose, it will spy on you sooner or later. Our speech is no longer private within the confines or our own homes. Soon, our heart beats too will become game for the creeps of the world [1].

This needs to stop. We need laws to keep internet-connected devices from spying on us in our own homes. We need an option to purchase internet-free devices. We need legislation now, as the wireless internet of things [5G] is coming online and the last drop of control we had, to not give the wifi password to the spy devices, will be taken away from us.

[0] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/your-tv-is-probably-tracking-you...

[1] https://atap.google.com/soli/

delfinom3• 7 years ago

Just buy Zigbee and ZWave based home automation products. People are hyperfocused on Wifi products that end up spying on you because that's all they know. Zigbee and Zwave products have no capability to connect to the internet. They must go to a zigbee/zwave router of some sorts. There's a few vendors selling them that definitely aren't Amazon or Google and some that even run entirely internal to your network and some that are cloud based.

llampx• 7 years ago

Soon, our heart beats too will become game for the creeps of the world [1].

Isn't it too late for that? Every $15 heart rate monitoring fitness band is already doing that, along with Wear OS watches.

neonate• 7 years ago

https://outline.com/JUHxC3

olliej• 7 years ago

I bought a nest thermostat just before google bought it. Returned it immediately because even before the current “smart home” insanity I knew google couldn’t be trusted to not harvest and steal information about you.

PeterStuer2• 7 years ago

It is not just Google. Regulation on listening devices, especially those that can connect to or transmit to a network, needs a big overhaul.

Yes, I know every phone is basically the same thing and we all have those near or with us all the time, but that does not mean all our conversations and other sounds are up for grabs.

A more sane model could be requiring a deliberate manual action to turn on the the microphone for up to 10 seconds.

Something like STNG's comms badges that you touch to speak would be nice.

GistNoesis• 7 years ago

We are at kind of reaching climax here, it's going to get harder to collect anymore thing. With the gesture recognition SOLI chips, they managed to introduce what is technically a sexual performance monitor in the android phone near your bed, without even an ounce of resistance from the public.

Every advertiser and surveillance wet dream is now achieved.

There is no other term than total victory for the post-privacy world. It is time to surrender without conditions before they leverage their knowledge of our declining interests in our wives or of our extra-marital adventures.

(edit:There is still time to avoid blood and tears)

pas5• 7 years ago

... if you want privacy, maybe turn off these things on your phone. Even just simply switching off the phone is easy. My phone boots in half a minute and switches off in ~5 seconds.

Home automation should have a switch off too.

perl4ever3• 7 years ago

It's easy to say there should be a physical connect/disconnect for audio or video recording, but how do you enforce that it is designed as a complete barrier?

I'm thinking of Nevada regulations on casino equipment...

Fezzik2• 7 years ago

It really is a pox of a product. I’m in the process of buying a house and any listings with Nest products I just skip. I know it is negligible, financially and physically, to remove them, but why even bother when there are plenty of options that don’t come pre-equipped with dysfunctional spyware.

goatinaboat2• 7 years ago

What happens with Nest if your Google account gets locked out for any reason? You can no longer heat your home?

BeanoBox• 7 years ago

If you can get a pay as you go Sim card it may be worth it to register a new Google account just for nest.

Separate nest from your personal Google account. That's if nest is worth that effort.

echelon• 7 years ago

I’m in the process of buying a house and any listings with Nest products I just skip.

That is incredibly foolish. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. A thermostat can be replaced for under $100.

Instead you choose to miss out on options that might be desirable. You're not teaching anyone a lesson here.

This sounds exactly like something RMS would say.

Be pragmatic.

bencollier492• 7 years ago

But he's no idea how deeply integrated it is?

timc3• 7 years ago

I don’t know why this is being downvoted so much, but the comment is correct if slightly badly worded. Looking for property that will be off-putting to other potential buyers is usually the way to get a good deal as long as you sweat over the big details (Mold/damp, subsidency, problems with location, etc...)

Even replacing a heating systems at a cost of $10,000 could be offset by getting a good deal on a property.

pacala6• 7 years ago

Fitting user name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON.

Animats• 7 years ago

Builders have to offer warranties on new houses, including HVAC systems. Which means that the builder and their insurance company is liable when Google screws up. What insurance company would want to be in that position?

Gibbon1• 7 years ago

This is the correct answer. When the next recession hits and google panics and dumps all this crap overboard, the builder is left holding the bag.

bencollier492• 7 years ago

Someone needs to start a home device company with open-source firmware.

Yes, susceptible to cheap Chinese clones, but if done correctly could control the market.

Maakuth• 7 years ago

I think the goal should be to establish open ecosystem for those devices. That way cheap Chinese devices wouldn't be competition, but the entry-level offering to this ecosystem. Then this company would focus on higher-end devices, services and so on.

MrQuincle• 7 years ago

How would such an open ecosystem look like? It's the next step we would like to take. We're thinking Arduino compatibility. What do you think?

onion2k• 7 years ago

The market for hackable devices in every other domain (routers, phones, etc) is at most 1% of the total. Why would home automation be different?

krapht• 7 years ago

This. X10 has been around for decades. Even the most common of devices - the home router - how many run openwrt?

dredmorbius• 7 years ago

What exceptions to this rule exist?

Where do we have widely-used hackable devices (or tools, processes, environments, etc.)

I'd include such areas as gardening, cooking, creative activities (photography, music, etc.).

Are there any notable exceptions?

Hrm: arguably clothing and cosmetics. There are people who will spend a non-trivial amount of daily time putting on their face or wardrobe.

woofie11• 7 years ago

I don't think hackability is so much the point as open ecosystem, privacy, and interoperability. iOS wiped the floor with Symbian, and Android wiped the floor with iOS due to being more open than the predecessor. Linux is the most popular OS kernel in the world (think routers, smart devices, etc.)

I want a choice of thermostat which fits my decor, and for that to work with my smart thermometer. I'd like to buy both on eBay from a Chinese company if I'm poor, or at an upscale designer store if I'm rich.

cakeface• 7 years ago

I don't think that the devices themselves need to be hackable so much as the protocols need to be open. Any phone I buy works with any router. I think that's the kind of openness we need.

ficklepickle• 7 years ago

Mozilla WebThings is pretty cool. The gateway software runs on a Pi. They have their own open protocol over wifi or you can use ie. a ZigBee adapter. I've played with it and I think it has a lot of potential.

mehhh4• 7 years ago

Device drivers seem to be the main issue for IoT gateways. That being said, I have been really impressed with Arcus, the open sourced Lowes IoT platform (formerly known as Iris).

ZigBee & Z-Wave work out of the box, very broad device support, writing templates for new devices is pretty straightforward.

aldanor• 7 years ago

Loxone is a pretty nice one, planning to install it soon. Not open source, but it doesn't have to connect to Internet, your house is not polluted with radio signals, and you have full control over programming it (via their software).

techslave2• 7 years ago

Google did that! It was called Android Things. It was discontinued due to being unpopular.

manigandham3• 7 years ago

We have Nest thermostats without a google account or any mobile app connected to them. They work fine.

This Google account stuff is only for extended automation or integration with other "smart" home stuff. I doubt many people really need or want all that, and it's mostly a gimmick anyway.

slfnflctd• 7 years ago

I don't know if I would exactly call the ability to monitor/adjust the set temperature in your home from in bed without having to get up and walk to the thermostat on the other side of the house a gimmick. It's also handy when you're on the couch and have a child and/or a couple cats sleeping on you that you don't want to disturb. It even functions to reduce low-level irrational anxieties when traveling [Is my house on fire right now? Okay, thermostat's still connected and temperature looks normal, I can stop worrying about that for the moment.]

I'm as wary of this continuing mass privacy invasion as anyone, but the reason it's getting traction is because it offers new functionalities people value that are decidedly not just gimmicks.

jpindar2• 7 years ago

"Is my house on fire right now?" may sound paranoid, but "Has my house lost power due to the blizzard, and if so, is it getting cold enough to burst the pipes?" doesn't.

iamaelephant• 7 years ago

I don't know if I would exactly call the ability to monitor/adjust the set temperature in your home from in bed without having to get up and walk to the thermostat on the other side of the house a gimmick

Really?

manigandham3• 7 years ago

How often are you changing temperature? The whole point of smart thermostats is that the temp is maintained automatically. I haven't touched mine in a long time as the schedule is set, and walking a few feet for the occasional tweak isn't really a big deal.

I think most of these gadgets cause people to fiddle with them more than they need to be because you have the option to do so.

diogenescynic3• 7 years ago

I’m ditching Nest when my contract is up. They’re forcing everyone to convert to Google accounts. I guess I’ll replace them with Ring cams? Doesn’t seem like there are many other good cheap alternatives with a data storage plan.

I also have a 4G Arlo security camera and wish there were more 4G/5G remote camera options.... hoping we’re about to get more options as 5G spreads.

dcow• 7 years ago

Ring means you use an Amazon owned account.

diogenescynic3• 7 years ago

I’m aware, but I firmly see Google as worse company and steward of my personal data than Amazon.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 7 years ago

I’ve been using a couple of Logitech Circle 2 and have been pretty happy with them. The software comes with data storage plans and integrates with all the major home ecosystems (Amazon, Apple, Google).

diogenescynic3• 7 years ago

Thanks, I'll do some research on those. Appreciate the tip.

chinathrow• 7 years ago

First they come for search.

Then they come for e-mail.

Then they come for mobile.

Then they come for your home.

Then no privacy is left.

Then we lose.

pacala6• 7 years ago

You forgot autonomous vehicles, which double as a high capacity sensor platform connected to the mother hive. On which you can keep piling more and more intrusive sensors in the name of safety. If you ever wondered why Google of all companies is in the forefront of that technology.

yardie• 7 years ago

Well when they first came out I thought the product was super innovative. But the competition didn’t rest on their laurels either. I’ve looked at many smart thermostats over the last year. We settled on HomeKit because of the privacy and it not being IoT based. This knocked Nest out of the running.

navigatesol2• 7 years ago

Well when they first came out I thought the product was super innovative.*

I never really understood it. It's a nice looking, albeit expensive, thermostat with some simple optimization algorithms. Now it's a spying tool.

Meanwhile, my HVAC runs on a dumb Honeywell unit that I can program a schedule on. Haven't even replaced the batteries in years.

DocG• 7 years ago

I don't trust technology companies to mess up updating apps, removing features or breaking working functionality, sure as hell as I don't trust them with something permanently in my wall. Oh sorry, we decided to end the support for this product because there weren't any users. No, you can't use it offline. Buy a new one, break your walls every three years etc.

Maybe, maybe companies who produce industrial equipment, and know what it takes to have something work for 20 years non stop. DOS based CNC machines etc.

Builders Ditch Nest After Google Ties Devices to Digital Assistant

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