British Gas starts to turn off Hive smart home devices forever

https://www.t3.com/news/british-gas-starts-to-turn-off-hive-smart-home-devices-forever

by mindracer • 3 years ago

171 156 3 years ago

edrxty2• 3 years ago

Companies that shut down connected systems should be required to release all device and server source code and hardware electrical schematics. I don't care if it'll be useless to the average consumer, I don't care if it'll hurt their "sensitive intellectual property" (frantically cobbled dog shit) portfolios, but it'll make them think before they roll things out they don't actually intend to support literally forever...

hgomersall• 3 years ago

Honestly, the technological exit strategy should be integrated into every development plan. There are loads of options... Spin out, sell the technology, open source. Simply dropping support should almost never be an option. I daresay there are situations it makes sense, but I can't think of them.

midnitewarrior• 3 years ago

Put the code / schematics into escrow, and require that the company or its successors must release the contents of the escrow in the event that the service ceases to be commercially viable. If another company wants to take over the assets and operate the service, they can, but they are obligated to release the contents of the escrow in the event they cease to operate the service.

quickthrower23• 3 years ago

Or full refund recall. Plus environmental tax and full onshore recycling of parts.

vincnetas• 3 years ago

How do you achieve that with company that is going bankrupt? Big corps, will spin up a branch responsible for that product and cut it off in case of the problems.

adhesive_wombat8• 3 years ago

frantically-cobbled dog shit

And that's my suspicion about why open source often seems two steps behind: when it's in the open, you have to do it right and can't hide the bodies. Doing things right is hugely slower at first. It's only in the long run when doing it right pays off. Steady incremental progress outruns the FCDS junk when that inevitably reaps the whirlwind of the technical debt incurred during the initial breakneck development.

Sometimes the FCDS is a consultancy deal from the outset and you cannot maintain the steaming bowl of canine leavings in front of you at all. Ever wonder why every now and again a serviceable, but clunky and unmaintained shovelware-like app (parking, alarm system, transport ticketing, that kind of thing) gets replaced with one that's basically the same but a different icon and a handful of trimmed features? New consultants just got done frantically cobbling it from scratch. This is clear in the app landscape, but hardware is often a similar consultancy thing.

memefrog7• 3 years ago

Wait, wait, wait... Behind? If you'd asked me, I'd have said that's why open source always seems to be a step ahead! You're under no obligation to do things 'right', and worse is better. But free software means that you start from scratch much less often. You can take what already works and use it again and again in new products, and so can everyone else. Reusing the core of Linux in a billion small devices seems like a good idea to me.

picadores• 3 years ago

Below the hood- a GPL violation + Configuration.. every time...

intelVISA• 3 years ago

Many cases the proprietary is just the closest FOSS lib with extra telemetry, data exfiltration, and other GDPR violations embedded.

KirillPanov• 3 years ago

I think I almost shit myself laughing at this post and the one it replies to.

FCDS: from first-ever internet mention (according to the googles) to internet culture icon/acronym in under 60 minutes. Bravo, HN, you still have what it takes.

hollow-moe• 3 years ago

Or any kind of product requiring a server, there's a lot of games heavily dependent on online features and when the online platform closes you lose of lot of features or even sometimes the best part of the game. You can still play Mario Kart Wii online today because someone saw the issue coming and reverse engineered the server code but it's not a viable solution

Gibbon1• 3 years ago

"sensitive intellectual property" (frantically cobbled dog shit) portfolios

That phrase always makes me think of crazy person that thinks you're coveting his shopping cart full of precious things. Or maybe as my dad alluded to, classified information usually means stuff that makes us look like lame and petty buffoons.

dwg2• 3 years ago

I'm not saying they should not be required, as I have not thought about this deeply, but in whichever way I imagine this playing out, it seems likely to lead to situations in which people are using some device with a lot of security vulnerabilities that were made much easier to find and exploit once the code was opened up.

yjftsjthsd-h• 3 years ago

An unmaintained device was always going to be a security problem; at least with open code and a way to install it there's a way to patch problems after the vendor stops providing fixes.

fsflover• 3 years ago

Security through obscurity doesn't work.

harry8• 3 years ago

Especially so a utilities provider such as gas.

ProxCoques• 3 years ago

I agree, but suspect most such systems are using licences from other closed-source projects, IP from 3rd party agencies they commissioned, and stuff that may well have cross-licencing and other crap going on. I doubt a company like BG would do more than just glue together other people's stuff.

gadders• 3 years ago

This is often a factor with commercial contracts with a vendor - source code is put in "escrow" [1], to be released if the vendor goes bankrupt.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow

jojobas• 3 years ago

Unfortunately they "can't". A lot of the dog shit and the beaver snot that holds it together is licensed from third parties.

edrxty2• 3 years ago

That's kinda what I'm getting at though. If you regulate that everything is going to be escrowed with a contingency (by which I mean guarantee) that it'll end up being forcibly released under GPL/whatever, you suddenly need to use components that are compatible. Short term this would be an e-waste bill, long term it would help strengthen the FOSS community and by extension the quality, speed of development, and general performance of the whole industry.

smashah• 3 years ago

This is why regulation is required to force companies to release feature-parity APIs and protect reverse engineering projects from legal threats.

segmondy• 3 years ago

It's a great idea! Lobby for it, contact a lawmaker and get a bill passed.

pabs3• 3 years ago

We should make them escrow their source code before releasing products, so that the source can be automatically released when they abandon them.

HlessClaudesman• 3 years ago

Smart homes are a corporate fever dream, adding extra layers of complexity, technical debt, servicing costs, for zero benefit. Wall switches and dials are already user friendly, the only exception being for people with disabilities.

pmlnr5• 3 years ago

No, connected homes are. Smart homes on ZigBee, knx, etc (local first) are fine.

CommanderData• 3 years ago

Thankfully the Hive thermostat is Zigbee and works offline (I have one setup).

It's not mentioned in the article so I'm unsure on its longevity but when the time comes the majority of users however will not be able to do this and might make them worthless to those people, more ewaste.

Iulioh• 3 years ago

I mean, they are good if the system is closed.

The same way certain systems work on 80' hardware, they do a job and only a job without internet connection.

rocqua2• 3 years ago

My recent experience with trying to get a working led dimmer combination has almost pushed me to switching to a phillips hue. So not all dials are user friendly. I did notice though, that almost all high-end light bulbs are smart bulbs. Getting name-brand good quality dimmable leds is difficult (except for phillips warm-glow, but the compatibility horror of those bulbs is what started me on this journey)

microtonal• 3 years ago

Philips Hue has so far been an exception to mediocre smart home products. We had Hue at home for ages now, it always works, no lights got deprecated or any of that nonsense, and even though they have a cloud component, it works fine without.

The only downside for me is that I don’t use the smart part. So for me they are just good lights. My wife does use the app/widgets, etc.

mleo• 3 years ago

I have some 11 year old Philips LED bulbs that were early on the LED development and crazy expensive; maybe $60 each. These aren’t Hue, but plain recessed type screw-in bulbs. These have worked consistently great with dimmer switches with no strobing, humming or low voltage issues. I can’t find good bulbs like that anymore. Quality and reliability went down as cost went down and competition went up. I have Hue bulbs in one room, but lag in control of wall switch communicating to adjust lights is terrible compared to direct dimmer control.

alias_neo6• 3 years ago

I've been using Hue for a decade or so now, I can't fault it.

I don't use any of the connected stuff and just manage it with the app and local API.

I decided to take the hub out of my network a couple of weeks ago and use the Home Assistant SkyConnect to manage by bulbs, switches, light strips etc, it's been a less than stellar experience. The hue hub works very well, it's signal strength is excellent, I had it sitting inside a closed rack and never had an issue, the SkyConnect loses signal to a bulb 2 feet away if you breath on it.

Would highly, highly recommend hue to anyone. That said, prices have gone up and bulb quality dropped since Signify took over (many of my bulbs are metal and glass) the newer ones are plastic and plastic for more money, and though none of the original bulbs have failed to date, one of the newer ones randomly cuts out.

bombcar6• 3 years ago

Dimmable LEDs is basically impossible to do well without a smart bulb because of how they work. Hue is among the best, but even that is making me tempted to replace everything with ancient incandescents and oil lamps.

Smart devices are the closest thing to driving me to be a Luddite because nothing is remotely as annoying as having to reboot and update your lightbulb.

politelemon• 3 years ago

People who buy into smarthomes are corporate fever dreams. It allows the companies to focus on lock-in for profits at the expense of everything else (ie stuff you mentioned)

pmlnr5• 3 years ago

However, it's quite an old product and if you went for a Hive system from 2016

These things are part of the house, like an appliance. 7 years is nothing in terms of a building, it's ridiculous to disable products in such a short time.

Reason0772• 3 years ago

Exactly. This is something that should be protected in consumer law. There should be a minimum (10 years? more?) period in which companies are required to support smart home devices and keep the cloud services that support them operational.

There is an e-waste issue here as well as a consumer rights one. The old analog boiler control/timer box and thermostat in my house look they were installed in the 1980s. A bit yellowed and beat up but they still work just fine!

robertlagrant3• 3 years ago

Or have the products clearly labelled to say that the service is not guaranteed to keep working after a certain date.

rjmunro2• 3 years ago

In the UK this is protected by consumer law under the terms of the The Consumer Rights Act 2015. Anyone who bought their devices direct from British Gas should write to them saying that they want repair, replacement with equivalent devices that will work, or a full refund.

There is no time limit, only "reasonable", which for something that is fixed into your house, 20 years seems reasonable to me. You could settle for prorating the 20 year life, so if you've had it 5 years then they will refund 75% or something.

British Gas is easily big enough to absorb the losses, and has a lot of bad press at the moment because of the profit it has been making. It would set a good example for future cases.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-...

rwmj• 3 years ago

The old analog boiler control/timer box and thermostat in my house look they were installed in the 1980s

And more importantly you can easily buy wire-compatible replacement controllers to this day.

tzs2• 3 years ago

There should be a minimum (10 years? more?) period in which companies are required to support smart home devices and keep the cloud services that support them operational

10 years (or whatever) from time the product comes to market or from the time they stop selling it?

If it from the time they stop selling it that would probably lead to a lot of things not being sold for long. Manufacturers will want to get the clock started as soon as possible to minimize the amount of time they end up having to back port security fixes to libraries that upstream has stopped supporting.

This could result in manufacturers discontinuing things a year to two after introducing them, replacing them with newer products that do most of what the old did but probably also incorporate newer features.

That would be annoying for consumers. Say I buy some internet connected home control and security system, but don't buy all the accessories it works with. Then 5 years later I want to add say a camera. But the cameras designed for my system were discontinued 4 years earlier, and the cameras the company now sells are 3 generations ahead of that and require features or interfaces in the base system that aren't in mine.

On the other hand if it is from the time the product comes to market that will also probably discourage manufactures from keeping a product available for a long time. Consumers might be reluctant to buy something that has been for sale several years knowing that it only has a few years of mandatory support left.

Probably what you need are two limits, one requiring a certain number of years from the time the product is introduced, and the other requiring a certain smaller number of years after the product is discontinued.

notahacker3• 3 years ago

Don't see why being fixed in place in a house means that a £60 control chip should be required to last longer than a £1000 smartphone, especially since the latter doesn't offer you a discounted replacement when the OEM kills most of your functionality with incompatible OS updates locking you out of appstores and then the non-removable battery swells up and kills it.

benj1114• 3 years ago

do the same with phones then. unlock them when they stop being supported so you can run your own software.

id accept the same for hive if there was an open ecosystem to move it to.

point is, if companies want to retain control of something they actually need to maintain it. if they dont want to maintain it, they need to give up control. they cant have it both ways.

pmlnr5• 3 years ago

Don't see why being fixed in place in a house means that a £60 control chip should be required to last longer than a £1000 smartphone

Huh? You're joking, right?

You want to go around and replace all switches, dimmers, etc every other year in a home?

rjmunro2• 3 years ago

The price is irrelevant. What matters is how long that kind of device can be reasonably expected to last. Dumb wall sockets cost about £5 and last >20 years. Smart sockets should last a comparable time, or come with a warning.

Because cellphones are traditionally something you replace every 3-4 years it's expected that they only last that long, and you are fully aware of that when you are buying it.

lostmsu• 3 years ago

The phones don't stop to function.

danaris• 3 years ago

If you're manufacturing something that's going to go in a house...

...and that means it should be expected to last 20 years...

...then maybe just don't use the cheapest part you can, and instead actually engineer it to last 20 years?

You're talking about it like the manufacturer has no choice but to make it as cheap as possible and hey, if it fails, it fails—but that's not true at all. If there were a requirement for something to be more durable, then the manufacturer would be both able and obligated to follow it. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is such a requirement as things stand.

alias_neo6• 3 years ago

Customers need to stop buying "connected" smart home devices, but more importantly, legislation needs to prevent this bullshit;

I still remember the story of Sonos intentionally bricking up-traded speakers that were perfectly functional so they couldn't be sold on, and some other company (I now forget who) bricking their remote with a firmware update because they no longer wanted to support it.

Force anyone who wants to release connected products like this to put the code in Escrow and if they go belly up without a plan, it goes public.

Communities across all disciplines have reverse engineered defunct products since forever, imagine what we can do with the source.

ohgodplsno• 3 years ago

It was Google, because Sonos has a patent on playing music synchronously on all your devices in the home.

Note that Google turned it off worldwide, all because the USPTA is a bunch of fucking morons.

alias_neo6• 3 years ago

It's insanity. I get really irate about this sort of thing because it's so anti-consumer and environmental impacts be damned, that's a problem for little people.

anigbrowl• 3 years ago

legislation needs to prevent this bullshit

When are engineers going to understand that the bullshit corporations buy the politicians that write the laws? They don't need to buy all of them, just slightly more than half. They're fine with some rebel types who submit noble-sounding bills for the EFF or whoever to rally around that never go anywhere.

alias_neo6• 3 years ago

When are engineers going to understand that the bullshit corporations buy the politicians that write the laws?

Never. Because as engineers we're optimists, if I just resigned to this fact, there'd be no hope left. It's not that we don't understand, it's that we don't accept.

Many of us also aren't capitalists, so we can't believe that the "free market" will resolve it either.

We build things, somewhat in isolation to the "human problem", some of us (I speak for myself) because technology, machines, are better? easier? more consistent? predictable? reliable? quantifiable? than humans.

We can solve technical problems, we can't solve humans being completly greedy, selfish pricks; those corporations buying those politicians are just humans.

Engineering is _easy_, compared to people and people problems.

midasuni• 3 years ago

We have fairly strong consumer rights in the UK, and the law does get better in these areas in response to public opinion.

userbinator• 3 years ago

I feel like, in some circles, the adjective "smart" has gained a highly negative connotation when referring to anything other than a human, as it necessarily implies some sort of resistance to control and ownership.

fxtentacle• 3 years ago

I feel like "He's as smart as my doorbell." is also not exactly a compliment ;)

martyfmelb• 3 years ago

That circle would include me.

"Smart" is just about synonymous with "connected" these days, and any product with the originating company in its feedback loop represents a risk that the product will start working against the user in some way either immediately or after some honeymoon period.

ragebol• 3 years ago

Agreed, I'm definitely in the same circle.

A smart TV means it can run apps basically. There is really nothing smart about that... It would be smart if it would mute itself during commercials, for example. All these 'Smart' things should work for me instead of for the vendor really.

Concerning the connected stuff: I ordered a new robot vacuum the other day and checked if it could integrate with Home Assistant and fell into the 'local push/poll' category of integrations [0].

[0] https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...

Qwertious3• 3 years ago

IMO, all "smart" devices should be open hardware. Or at least, the electronics should be. A literal toaster being vendor-locked is deranged.

tzs2• 3 years ago

I wonder if the tainting of "smart" over the last few years ever made Kwikset regret naming their entirely mechanical user rekeyable lock system "Smart Key"? Those came out in 2008.

For those who haven't seen those locks, they look like normal door locks, with a normal key, and are used just like normal locks (insert key, turn clockwise to lock, counterclockwise to unlock), except that there is a small hole next to the keyway.

If you put a working key into one, turn it 90° clockwise, insert a simple tool Kwikset provides into that small hole far enough to press a button at the bottom of the hole, and remove that tool the lock will release the key. You can then, being careful to not rotate the cylinder, pull out the key and put a new different key in.

The lock then rekeys itself to that new key, and you can then turn the cylinder counterclockwise 180° to verify this. Then turn the cylinder back 90° clockwise and remove the key and you are done.

This is quite convenient. I recently replaced my locks with these. Before I had one brand of knob and deadbolt on the front door, a different brand on of level and deadbolt on the back door, and a third brand of knob on the garage door. Each of these locks was on a different key, so that was 5 keys in total. And I'd long ago lost the garage key and the back door lever key.

I bought a Kwikset Smart Key comb knob and deadbolt for the front door, a combo level and deadbolt for the backdoor, and a knob for the garage. So that was 3 different keys. Then I picked the key that had the most variation in the depth of cuts, and went around to the other locks with the rekey tool and rekeyed them all to that key. I also picked up a couple of Kwikset padlocks that use this system and rekeyed them to that key. Later I added a deadbolt to the garage and put it on that key too.

I also had a sliding door lock. There doesn't seem to be a Kwikset Smart Key lock in the right form factor for that, but I noticed that the sliding door lock (a PrimeLine E2000) uses Kwickset KW1 keys, which is the same key blank that Smart Key uses. I was able to take that apart and rekey it to match the rest of the locks.

My key ring now only needs my car key and one Kwikset key. It's a lot less jingly now. If I'm not going to be using my car I just carry a loose Kwikset key in my pocket.

samwillis• 3 years ago

This was inevitable, it's always been a secondary thing for British Gas.

I worked on the predecessor to Hive back in about '08-'10, the engineering consultancy I worked for designed a version of the "hub" and a number of their security and energy monitoring sensors.

It was the first thing I worked on that made it out into consumers hands (v2 of the hub). I remember one day buying a copy of Wired magazine, and it had an article about them. Seeing a product I had designed in that magazine was a really memorable moment.

Back then they were not part of British Gas but a Cambridge UK startup called AlertMe. A really good bunch of people with a vision for the smart home. The plan was clearly to start with the security products, then energy monitoring was a secondary market. However after getting a big contract with British Gas to supply monitoring to all their customers, they pivoted almost completely to that - and ultimately they were acquired by them.

As I said, they were a really interesting team, their CTO was a former early Acorn employee who had lead RiscOS.

timthorn• 3 years ago

As I said, they were a really interesting team, their CTO was a former early Acorn employee who had lead RiscOS

He was profiled a few years back, as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24226740

alias_neo6• 3 years ago

Sounds like it would have been really cool in its original form, right up my street.

Shame big corp came in and destroyed it, I hope everyone was paid hansomly in the takeover at least.

robertlagrant3• 3 years ago

I hope everyone was paid hansomly in the takeover at least

That might be a mixed blessing; horses are expensive![0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansom_cab

39Wc• 3 years ago

Deceptive writing. It's just the outdated (and presumably insecure) Hive Nano 1, that is being deactivated early, and for a good reason probably. The author should explain the necessity to switch off insecure products and motivate people to stay up to date in terms of IT security. Instead, the text makes it sound like some villain corporation is trying to screw their customers for no good reason at all.

https://community.hivehome.com/s/article/Nano1-shutdown-Step...

OtomotO• 3 years ago

So, for a smart home where some parts are actually, well "hidden" in the building you find if feasible to just upgrade?

I mean, how much could a house cost, right?

Stuff like this should be forbidden. Non-experts simply cannot fathom the consequences of their decisions.

Nobody would expect parts of their house need complete replacement after just 7 years (if they were in good condition in the first place and there was no catastrophe)

This is not even talking about e-waste and the environmental issues that arise from more high tech garbage

IshKebab• 3 years ago

Are you just guessing that it's insecure and for some reason that can't be fixed with a software update? Your link doesn't mention that as far as I can see.

gambiting2• 3 years ago

Nano 1 was on sale as recently as 2016. It's only 7 years old - there is literally no reason why they can't keep it working. And if they say they can't they are literally incompetent and their tech department needs to be replaced.

leokennis• 3 years ago

I’m super late to the “smart home party” but the few smart things I do own are all HomeKit certified, as a requirement for that is that the device needs to work as long as it has local connection to a HomeKit hub (like an iPhone). Internet not required, let alone a connection to a vendors servers.

Before I go all in, I’ll need to verify how well this works in practice but at least it should prevent a scenario like the one linked here…

deadbunny• 3 years ago

Withought getting in the weeds this is generally the right approach. The most important thing is that devices should work without an internet connection.

I use Home Assistant as my "hub" so that's another requirement but that's more personal choice.

Animats• 3 years ago

Most "cloud" services seem to have a short lifespan. Maybe 5 years.

bombcar6• 3 years ago

Unless they’re really established (and even then) you’re about right.

Turn the Internet off after installing any smart device and see what happens - that’ll be how it works when they shut down the servers. If it don’t work at least somewhat, send it back.

danw1979• 3 years ago

If you’re just looking for some basic remote on/off functionality for your heating and hot water, with built in timers, not dependent on any cloud service or app, may I wholeheartedly recommend Shelly relay products. Simple web interface and easy to physically wire up. MQTT if you need to wire them up to HA or Graphite ( power meter varieties) or whatever.

turblety• 3 years ago

I went all in on the Hive system (heating, cameras, etc) and have only negative things to say about the entire company. Even for their heating systems, do not use them. Don't take my word for it. Go and look at the app reviews. The app is buggy, barely functional and their support is incompetent. Frequently, I'll turn the heating on and the app will (after about 10 seconds) show it's worked. I'll turn off my phone and wonder why the house is still cold. Open the app, and yeah, it didn't actually turn on.

The UX is very clunky too. They've tried to make this "app/phone" like dashboard, where you can drag and drop devices into pages. But it's completely broken (on Android, but looking at the reviews, I assume iPhone too). When scrolling/swiping the page just get's stuck half way through.

Every update makes the lag/delays and errors more frequent.

gambiting2• 3 years ago

On the other hand - I've had a Hive thermostat for the last 5 years and it works flawlessly. Every time I start it from the app it works. Use it with a combi boiler here in UK and it works absolutely fine. I only have that one device from them so I can't comment on anything other than heating.

rjh29• 3 years ago

Literally getting a new boiler with Hive next week, so that was comforting to hear.

i-use-nixos-btw• 3 years ago

This is why I self-host. I don’t like the idea of buying something and having no control over how I use it, where my data goes, etc.

I strongly urge anyone with a tech interest to get a Raspberry Pi (now that they’re widely available again) and install HomeAssistant. Many of your devices will work through the many plugins available. If you can get your head around Python coroutines (… I can’t but I bodged it) you can implement your own.

Some devices will still need to send data to a central server to work, but you can often integrate their APIs until such a time that the service is discontinued. Then search out devices that are known to work with HomeAssistant.

zimpenfish2• 3 years ago

Many of your devices will work through the many plugins available

Alas, the Hive stuff doesn't because BG moved their auth to AWS Cognito and the Python module hasn't yet[1] managed to work out how to keep auth going[2]

[1] There is a workaround which involves getting a device token and using that instead but also I think I may have cracked the "refresh token" flow, just need to push a PR.

[2] You get 1h expiry on the access tokens with mandatory 2FA. Hilarity ensues.

odiroot• 3 years ago

I have a Hive thermostat (for heating and hot water) and I really love it. Bought the hubless version on purpose, to avoid exactly such situations.

It integrates well with Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant though, so I can still control it remotely.

logifail• 3 years ago

Q: Are Hive smart device customers paying some kind of monthly or annual fee?

domh• 3 years ago

I recently added a smart thermostat but picked a provider that works completely offline and has a good Home Assistant plugin (Wiser https://www.draytoncontrols.co.uk/products/Smart-Heating/Wis...). It was recommended to me by people in the trade that Wiser is the "cheap" model, but I'd much rather go for the budget option if it means I can go offline and it still works. Would never touch Nest, Hive, Tado etc, I want this to last longer than any of these companies are willing to provide support.

Anyone know of a dumber system that has thermostatic TRVs + per room scheduling? Ideally with an offline screen to administer?

forgotusername6• 3 years ago

Perhaps someone on here can help me. I'm one of the poor souls who has this device. I ordered the replacement hub late, it arrived while I was on holiday and I only just tried to install it. Unfortunately the migration instructions seem to require that the old device is on and functioning, which it isn't because it is past the 1st of August. I can't find instructions on how to connect the hive 1 thermostat to the new hive hub. If it turns out this is impossible and I need to rewire my boiler I will be very sad indeed.

Edit: a quick WhatsApp chat with a British Gas advisor sorted it. For anyone else reading this, the v1 thermostat is compatible with the latest hub

wildekek• 3 years ago

I really, really don't understand why these simple-ass microcontrollers are running proprietary software instead of something open source like ESPHome or Tasmota. There is no added value in the proprietary software running on an MCU with a sensor, it is all in the service that run on top of them.

It infuriates me that all these perfectly fine devices now are junk, because some clown decided that they needed to develop their own "platform".

happytiger• 3 years ago

“Smart home.”

Lol

British Gas starts to turn off Hive smart home devices forever

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