Google will shut down Dropcam and Nest Secure in 2024

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/7/23673165/google-nest-dropcam-nest-secure-eol

by turtlegrids • 3 years ago

101 72 3 years ago

kotaKat5• 3 years ago

"We will be contacting eligible Nest Secure customers on Friday with an exclusive offer for a complimentary next-generation security system from ADT (up to $485 value), or $200 to use on the Google Store."

Does anyone willingly want to go ADT? Home of the three year contract, the long-winded-drawn-out cancellation processes, the constant door-knocking and chasing down to sign up for service, the constant glut of fees and charges when things go wrong...

AdamJacobMuller• 3 years ago

I'm definitely among the unwilling.

I'm using nest secure now, anyone have any suggestions for a replacement?

At least they aren't killing my smoke alarms, though, they still can't automatically dispatch fire/police if there is smoke/fire, though they will dispatch if an alarm is triggered.

kotaKat5• 3 years ago

Personally if I have to go into an 'alarm' ecosystem I'd go with Alarm.com if you're serious about paying for monitoring.

My favorite vendor is https://suretyhome.com/ - they have reasonable costs to get an alarm panel running with monitoring and all the normal integrations.

(I personally use an older Honeywell Vista security system that's been integrated into ADC via a communicator. The sky's the limit!)

azinman24• 3 years ago

I’m surprised this space isn’t better disrupted. They all aren’t that great, even the new comers. Either they don’t have wide product coverage, only work with certain assistants / apps, are ugly, terrible UX, etc.

As much as I don’t think it’s that great, Ring seems to be the best of the bunch now.

zacharyvoase• 3 years ago

Fortunately I never had to rely on it, but Simplisafe was super easy to set up, and had a nice app/interface/customer support.

WirelessGigabit2• 3 years ago

I wonder how many false alarms the fire department would get if they get dispatched every time a smoke alarm goes off.

And I'm one of the guilty ones. Well, the apartment I live at is. Its range hood is one of those things that even after putting in brand new filters and extensive cleaning barely performs better as one of those fake ones at Ikea.

Same with the bathroom fan. When you turn it on it's loud, but it just circulates air. So I open the door. But that sets of the smoke alarm in the hallway...

phpisthebest5• 3 years ago

Roll your own Self Hosted Solution,

Either Buy DSC Wired Gear yourself[1] and install it (hard) or do a "less secure" wireless system using HomeAssistance and Zigbee or Zwave devices.

[1]https://www.level1techs.com/video/better-iot-dsc-alarms-whom...

LeoPanthera2• 3 years ago

It's not just ADT. We finally managed to escape from a contract with Brinks, after Brinks bought our previous provider, Livewatch, a few years ago.

It was hell, and in the end they made us sign a bunch of shit via docusign (!), and even then you're forced to pay for 30 days more service while they bombard you with scaremails.

Never again.

kotaKat5• 3 years ago

ADT, Brinks, and Vivint are the three shitty horsemen of the home security industry.

kabdib• 3 years ago

ADT is garbage.

I canceled ADT service about 15 years ago. For the next few years they were mailing open-air ads to my address asking me to reconnect the alarm system.

I managed to reach someone in their C-suite, who told me directly that they were unconcerned about that type of privacy data being made available to anyone who happened to read a literal postcard.

vuln• 3 years ago

Duh. How else are they going to fear monger you into reconnecting.

“Look everyone knows you no longer have an alarm, or alarm service”

jimbobimbo• 3 years ago

The best part of ADT is when the sales guy spends an hour face-to-face with you and you learn about 3-year commitment next day, from the installer guy, who (wisely) asks whether you are aware of 3-year commitment before wiring anything.

louky2• 3 years ago

I installed a Mormon-owned alarm years ago (Pinnacle) and the division of sales/installers was stark. I didn't last long because is was so scummy. I was hired off craigslist and didn't even realize they were all Mormon at first. The Circle meetings, "The Wives" being always there but not working was really bizarre. I just couldn't take the lies the salesmen told regularly. Weirdest gig/contract I ever had. Many customers were shocked when I told them what they actually signed a contract for.

j45• 3 years ago

It's wise to closely review and avoid the marketing of companies selling old infrastructure repackaged as new. Security companies are looking for new lines of revenue.

Telcos, and cable companies will often private label existing solutions that are made for enterprise (B2E) and not really meant for B2C as well, let alone B2B (small business)

You would be better off finding something like Home Assistant and stumbling through connecting something together.

ubermonkey2• 3 years ago

Wow, sounds like they've gotten pretty shitty.

I've been using ADT for 26 years, and in my current home for 23. I have had no issues with them, and have found them responsive when alarms happen or equipment needed to be replaced.

OTOH, some pals have a Simplisafe setup and it's been a darkly hilarious saga of nonfunctional sensors, false alarms, and ongoing chicanery.

zmk5• 3 years ago

With the news that they are shutting down the Google assistant smart displays, the best thing you can do now is just not have smart devices like these in your house or just use Home assistant. They're just waiting to go to the landfill.

minhazm• 3 years ago

They're cutting off software updates for third party displays. Their own displays will continue to be supported... for now.

rio517• 3 years ago

Imagine being one of the companies impacted by this. It becomes a lesson in not partnering with Google.

tracker13• 3 years ago

Yeah... as much as I wouldn't mind doing more "smart home" stuff, I absolutely won't as I don't trust anything to be supported for a decade or more, which is where I consider home stuff should be.

thatoneguy2• 3 years ago

Generally speaking, I no longer buy any device that requires a smartphone app or otherwise not built into the device itself.

philprx• 3 years ago

"Google, the finest place where startups and products go to die" ;-)

geodel• 3 years ago

Earth, the finest place where all living things born to die.

kamray23• 3 years ago

Honestly, how many surviving Google products were developed at Google instead of outside it and then got absorbed by it at some point? They keep absorbing working startups and often killing their products to work on new products, only for those products to always be incredibly niche and never survive more than half a decade or so. Basically only the actual business-oriented ones, with anything consumer-facing shutting down fairly quickly.

God, G+ was bad though.

nvy2• 3 years ago

G+ had a good idea at its core, though. Facebook lost its appeal for 24-year-old me as soon as all my random aunts and uncles were on there posting boomer memes and commenting on photos of me at a kegger, or whatever dumb stuff I was getting photographed doing back then.

The "Circles" feature was a nice way to address that in theory, but the execution was really half-baked and the network effect didn't help them.

cptcobalt• 3 years ago

Another day, another google death https://killedbygoogle.com/

With this track record I never plan on using a new google product. Now, I will immediately stop using or sell anything I have that is acquired by google. It seems like they're only capable of leaving a trail of corpses of past good ideas.

GalenErso• 3 years ago

Until the prophecy is fulfilled and Google voluntarily shuts itself down, in the ultimate twist of irony.

dylan6042• 3 years ago

I will immediately stop using or sell anything I have that is acquired by google.

This is the crux though. You could be totally satisfied with a non-Googly product, but suddenly become a Googly user when Googs buys the successful company. I feel this way about Amazon buying the Roomba company.

Takennickname• 3 years ago

These aren't even good ideas. They're acquisitions. They could have been totally fine, profitable companies on their own.

jeffbee• 3 years ago

They could have been totally fine, profitable companies on their own.

Very, very unlikely. The business model was an illusion.

codemac• 3 years ago

They haven't released a Dropcam in 8 years? "Nest Secure" was cancelled in 2020.. and now they're saying "hey, we'll actually turn things off in 2024"

I think the reason killedbygoogle.com actually exists is because they try to be professional about notifying folks of things they are EoL, and communicate updates along the way.

jdmg94• 3 years ago

no, they have a well earned reputation of being an incubator with little incentive for long term support

rodgerd• 3 years ago

Don't buy a GM car, then.

ubermonkey2• 3 years ago

I heard this news and was all set to be annoyed, since I have a Dropcam we set up when we're away from the house for longer trips, but then I checked my records and realized I've had it for 9 years, & of course they're only sunsetting it NEXT year.

Ten years is okay.

1letterunixname2• 3 years ago

VMware build vSphere on Angular. I wonder what they're using now.

diogenescynic• 3 years ago

Well this stinks. Guess I will think twice about ever giving money to Google again. The run has been pulled out from under me by Google enough times to consider them worth avoiding.

kccqzy• 3 years ago

Considering that Dropcam came out in 2012, (and the Pro version in 2013) I think this is actually good enough. We don't expect IoT devices from other brands to be working forever either. Not even Apple supports their devices for that long. Google just gets a lot of hate on HN but this isn't anything deserving that much hate.

The article kind of made the same point:

Google previously committed to supporting Nest products for at least five years, and it did meet that standard. If you’ve been holding onto a Dropcam for more than a decade, it’s hard to argue that you didn’t get your money’s worth

crooked-v• 3 years ago

The objection isn't that they're dropping support for specific older devices... it's that they're dropping support for the entire platform, including Nest cameras that are still on sale right now.

greycol• 3 years ago

The major issue is we know the minimal least effort steps involved to keep these things working aren't hard.

Release a firmware update that updates the device to only point to ips/domains in the private range as it's new control/update/whatever server and update any security certs to a new releasable one.

Then open source the server software if not still in use, or roll back the firmware the x number of years to the point were the requirements to maintain the device started diverging and release that version of the updated old firmware/old server source.

There's no ongoing cost to the company and people can continue to use their devices if they wish to put in the effort to maintain it. I mean I'm not up in arms about this case, but it's such a common story about how device/software is no longer usable because finance wants to turn off a server that it should be SOP in every sunset plan. I'd go so far as saying it should be regulated as the minimum.

thatoneguy2• 3 years ago

Since you probably haven't worked at Google, this sort of thing is what many googlers have wanted since at least the closure of Google Reader. But executives and engineers won't get promoted doing anything but launching products, so it never happens.

Also, normal companies would just sell off the tech to someone else or even just spin off a new company that would manage everything but again, no one would get promoted so it doesn't happen.

hedora• 3 years ago

Stuff that is integrated into your house needs to last more than 5 years.

Hell, standard warranties on new homes are 10 years, and I’d wager if a developer built a bunch of houses that stopped working after ten years and a day, they’d lose badly in court.

lotsofpulp• 3 years ago

The 10 year warranty is only for structural stuff (or the “bones”) I believe, not for things like doors/windows/finishes/fixtures/etc. In a cheaply tract built house, that stuff will wear out within 5 years.

rconti3• 3 years ago

Now that it’s dropping Dropcam and Nest Secure, the Nest Protect smart smoke alarms are the only Nest App-only devices left

Wait, what does this mean? Does this mean my Nest thermostat has... another app I can use? I mean, the Nest app is a dumpster fire of deferred features. The only reason I know it's been touched in the past 9 years is because the app was updated to work full-screen on the iPhone X.

rconti3• 3 years ago

To reply to myself, this is some fantastic word soup, but it looks like I can use the Google app? Or the Home app? Possibly they're different things? It'll be fascinating to see if I can do fancy modern high tech thermostat things like... override a schedule.

Once you add your Google Nest thermostat to the Home or Nest app, you can easily control it even when you're not at home.
The Nest Thermostat can only be controlled with the Home app.
You can control the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Thermostat E with the Home app after you migrate your Nest Account to a Google Account.
The Nest app also offers full control and settings for the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Thermostat E.

enjo• 3 years ago

It's the Google Home app. Hopefully they'll invest in the interface quite a bit over the coming year but it does a good job of managing all of the devices in my home right now. So this isn't a huge issue. The weird problem of having both the Nest app and Google Home has always been really weird.

warp• 3 years ago

Presumably the Google Home app? That's where they moved the Google Wifi stuff too before they stopped updating the dedicated Google Wifi app.

bdcravens• 3 years ago

When I was weighing Ring vs Nest security systems, I'm glad I went with Ring.

gnicholas2• 3 years ago

Does anyone know of the devices will work even locally? That would provide some value, though of course most of the value is in remote notifications and status availability.

Separately, is there any chance that folks here might be able to come up with something like Rebble to give these devices life into the future? I have a lot of sensors and hate to think this will go completely to waste!

UPDATE: If these will still run locally (like they can now when my wifi is down), then I'd probably buy a HomePod Mini and train it on the Nest's alarm sound for use with the Sound Detection feature. [1] I first heard of this feature at an Apple presentation at the CSUN Assistive Technology conference and thought it sounded really useful.

Although it wouldn't let me know what door/window was opened, it would at least send an alert to my phone so that I would know to look into things further.

1: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/01/18/homepod-sound-recogniti...

tracker13• 3 years ago

They likely won't... but would really appreciate if, when hardware vendors EOL their products they'd release schema diagrams and protocol documentation. There's no reason you shouldn't get at LEAST a decade out of these. It's the main thing that has kept me from any kind of "smart home" integration at all.

I wound up going with a security package from my cable company (kind of crappy cameras, tbh), but I'm not thinking in terms of ownership at this level. In the end, it's just disappointing in general how much churn there is in the tech space.

Similarly, I'm not going to buy a fridge, or washing machine with a built in tablet, when they stop receiving updates in under a year usually. It's just really crappy as a race to the bottom. Either start with a rental/subscription model, or be prepared to maintain the product for a decade. Homes and cars aren't churned like phones.

gnicholas2• 3 years ago

Yep, Rebble kept my Pebble running for many years after the company was bought. I finally gave up on it because the battery life got so short, and I don't trust myself to repair it decently. I loved that thing, and I'm so glad it was able to live beyond the acquisition of the company!

Hopefully someone can figure out a way to do something similar for these devices.

1letterunixname2• 3 years ago

And all of your cloud hardware investments will be worth nothing

squokko• 3 years ago

At this point, people who buy stuff from Google deserve what comes to them.

Google will shut down Dropcam and Nest Secure in 2024

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