If someone says Google can't be trusted for purchases of long-term, capital-style goods like a thermostat (or smoke detectors), I'd have to agree.
The Nest I bought way back when may still be installed in the home I sold 10+ years ago.
But I didn't buy it from Google, I bought it from Nest (pre-Google) - a company that designed and sold high-tech gear that was designed to be permanently installed and (presumably) last a good long time. The acquisition was not a good match, but it is what it is - lesson learned and reputations lost.
(and the design, honestly, was more down Apple's lane than Google's - I thought the former would be more likely to buy them out, not that it guaranteed any different results).
I think that's an overly optimistic take, because we've been through this over and over, and it's only getting worse. We collectively are clearly not getting the message, and we don't own anything as a result.
What a coincidence, I am working on deploying the https://nolongerevil.com/ on my 2nd Gen Nest Thermostat, my wife has bugging me for weeks to either fix it or buy a new one.
I am actually going to self-host and vibe code my own cloud service on Cloudflare.
On one hand, I obviously can’t legitimately expect the manufacturers of these things to support their older hardware offerings ad vitam aeternam.
On the other, it’s a freaking thermostat controller. An appliance. I don’t want to have to replace appliances before they break, and software breaking it is unacceptable.
I’ve been largely holding off on domotics because so much of it reeks of premature obsolescence... Maybe someone over here has good experience with Home Assistant et al?
I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect. I expose all my devices to Google Home as a convenient frontend, but all the actual devices are mine and locally controlled so I can replace Google at any point. I tried home assistant years ago, but aside from the wealth of plugins I didn't find its approach particularly convincing. I have on occasion used it simply as a bridge between node red and HA plugins before though which is nice for niche devices or integrations
plenty of things should have a mandatory sort of twenty year supportability warranty. not necessarily free repairs but an enforceable promise that a thing / "ecosystem" can be used for a reasonably expected lifetime
I was looking at wireless cameras on eBay and had to stop because I realized I can't just check specs and price. I have to make sure they don't require a cloud connection and or a service plan.
Nest is a disaster. Same with their fire alarms. I spent a small fortune buying those, just to rip them out and dump into garbage. Google hardware - never again.
100% agree. i had a thermostat and 4 cameras. abysmal software, and the hardware started dying . The thermostat died after 3 years, due to faulty "smart" HVAC circuitry . The doorbell camera (with built in lithium battery, ) died after 5 years.
i marvel at simple mechanical-electric solutions . e.g. toasters, simple coffee pots, thermostats. 100+ year duty cycles. amazing elegance and resilience
in theory AI can produce the ongoing software support. and the compute bill is trivial compared to even a single AI assistant customer (1/500). something doesn't add up
Another case of a smart home device that unnecessarily needs someone else's servers. They could've made it controllable over the local network and that would've solved, like, 80% of this issue.
I have a z-wave hub I bought about 8 years ago. Admittedly, it's shit, but it does one thing right — you only need the manufacturer's cloud services if you want to control it from outside of your LAN, or if you want integrations with other services.
The law should require that if a company sells hardware that depends on an internet service, and later discontinues that service, it must open-source the communication protocol and provide a way to connect the hardware to alternative services. This requirement should cover every feature that was functional when the device was sold.
Fortunately Nest owners got lucky this time and there was an escape hatch that allowed projects like No Longer Evil. But there's a long list of devices that have been bricked when their manufacturers shut down a proprietary backend.
The Matter standard[0] (+HomeAssistant) starts to fix this, but almost all "smart" appliances have this flaw. From Lutron, GE, Apple, Amazon (ring), Philips(Hue), Samsung, LG, Control4, Ecobee, ADT, Schneier, Chamberlain, Tapo.
Honestly, given the surveillance capitalism of it all, I take this as a win. The termostst should have been dumb the whole time, not an avenue for harvesting our data.
If someone says Google can't be trusted for purchases of long-term, capital-style goods like a thermostat (or smoke detectors), I'd have to agree. The Nest I bought way back when may still be installed in the home I sold 10+ years ago.
But I didn't buy it from Google, I bought it from Nest (pre-Google) - a company that designed and sold high-tech gear that was designed to be permanently installed and (presumably) last a good long time. The acquisition was not a good match, but it is what it is - lesson learned and reputations lost.
(and the design, honestly, was more down Apple's lane than Google's - I thought the former would be more likely to buy them out, not that it guaranteed any different results).
> lesson learned and reputations lost
I think that's an overly optimistic take, because we've been through this over and over, and it's only getting worse. We collectively are clearly not getting the message, and we don't own anything as a result.
one if the problems being the freedoms companies can be bought for the purposes of being destroyed
What a coincidence, I am working on deploying the https://nolongerevil.com/ on my 2nd Gen Nest Thermostat, my wife has bugging me for weeks to either fix it or buy a new one.
I am actually going to self-host and vibe code my own cloud service on Cloudflare.
how do you flash? do you need uart ?
You just need a microUSB cable IIRC
On one hand, I obviously can’t legitimately expect the manufacturers of these things to support their older hardware offerings ad vitam aeternam.
On the other, it’s a freaking thermostat controller. An appliance. I don’t want to have to replace appliances before they break, and software breaking it is unacceptable.
I’ve been largely holding off on domotics because so much of it reeks of premature obsolescence... Maybe someone over here has good experience with Home Assistant et al?
I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect. I expose all my devices to Google Home as a convenient frontend, but all the actual devices are mine and locally controlled so I can replace Google at any point. I tried home assistant years ago, but aside from the wealth of plugins I didn't find its approach particularly convincing. I have on occasion used it simply as a bridge between node red and HA plugins before though which is nice for niche devices or integrations
You could expect them to support the product for the lifespan of the product, though.
plenty of things should have a mandatory sort of twenty year supportability warranty. not necessarily free repairs but an enforceable promise that a thing / "ecosystem" can be used for a reasonably expected lifetime
for a thermostat that's measured in decades
I was looking at wireless cameras on eBay and had to stop because I realized I can't just check specs and price. I have to make sure they don't require a cloud connection and or a service plan.
They could easily license the server component to allow you to run it, or unlock the bootloader so you could run third party firmware.
They've had 10+ years to plan ahead for this eventuality, and it's not rocket science.
Nest is a disaster. Same with their fire alarms. I spent a small fortune buying those, just to rip them out and dump into garbage. Google hardware - never again.
Did you move to a different “smart” smoke detector? Just go with an old school “dumb” one?
100% agree. i had a thermostat and 4 cameras. abysmal software, and the hardware started dying . The thermostat died after 3 years, due to faulty "smart" HVAC circuitry . The doorbell camera (with built in lithium battery, ) died after 5 years.
> $1200 in hardware, practically worthless.
Meanwhile my mercury-bulb thermostat from the 1960s still works perfectly.
i marvel at simple mechanical-electric solutions . e.g. toasters, simple coffee pots, thermostats. 100+ year duty cycles. amazing elegance and resilience
The emudhra debacle might turn out to be an accidental boon for keeping devices like this running.
To a point anyway.
wouldn't they have to be an emudhra customer (their ssl certs signed by emudhra)?
If I understood correctly, emudhra was able to issue certificate to any website.
Therefore if some device trusts emudhra root certificate...
Google usually does certificate pinning. They know that the CA root store is not to be trusted to sign for their own domains.
Google usually does certificate pinning. They know that the CA root store is not to be trusted.
How much could it possibly cost to keep these working?
in theory AI can produce the ongoing software support. and the compute bill is trivial compared to even a single AI assistant customer (1/500). something doesn't add up
Another case of a smart home device that unnecessarily needs someone else's servers. They could've made it controllable over the local network and that would've solved, like, 80% of this issue.
I have a z-wave hub I bought about 8 years ago. Admittedly, it's shit, but it does one thing right — you only need the manufacturer's cloud services if you want to control it from outside of your LAN, or if you want integrations with other services.
The law should require that if a company sells hardware that depends on an internet service, and later discontinues that service, it must open-source the communication protocol and provide a way to connect the hardware to alternative services. This requirement should cover every feature that was functional when the device was sold.
Fortunately Nest owners got lucky this time and there was an escape hatch that allowed projects like No Longer Evil. But there's a long list of devices that have been bricked when their manufacturers shut down a proprietary backend.
I would never buy an appliance that requires a third-party server. Google cannot remove the value from a Zigbee or Z-Wave thermostat like this.
The Matter standard[0] (+HomeAssistant) starts to fix this, but almost all "smart" appliances have this flaw. From Lutron, GE, Apple, Amazon (ring), Philips(Hue), Samsung, LG, Control4, Ecobee, ADT, Schneier, Chamberlain, Tapo.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard)
Honestly, given the surveillance capitalism of it all, I take this as a win. The termostst should have been dumb the whole time, not an avenue for harvesting our data.
More dumb electronics please.