
Builders Ditch Nest After Google Ties Devices to Digital Assistant - MBCook
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-17/builders-ditch-nest-as-google-ties-digital-assistant-to-devices
======
epistasis
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
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.

~~~
dreamcompiler
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.

~~~
kortilla
> But if capital were available for moderate-growth, sustaining companies,
> privacy-respecting HA would be an easy market to penetrate.

There is, you’ve described a small business loan. The problem is that you
can’t be entering a new field. No investor wants to give money for a high
risk, low return investment.

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wizzard
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
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.

~~~
wizzard
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.

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epc
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
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.

~~~
the_pwner224
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.

~~~
icelancer
Awesome, that'd be huge. Only issue with them are the SD cards being the
canonical place to store footage... so if the criminal (or weather event)
destroys the cameras.... not so useful.

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PeterStuer
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
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)

~~~
pas
... 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.

~~~
perl4ever
I'm not sure why you would think that your phone is 100% off when it's "off".
PCs have had an "always on" secondary processor and OS[1] for years now that
runs whenever there is power, and you can't remove the battery in most phones,
can you?

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine)

~~~
pas
I'm fairly confident that if it's off it's not on the network, so it cannot be
turned on remotely either. (Baseband hacking and fake-off malware aside. That
would be very easily detected, because batteries would die left and right.)

Sure, it's not 100.0% off, for example the battery management system is
consuming some power, and maybe it's motherboard is "energized" like with ATX
boards, so it can respond to switch on via keypress (which worked on PS/2, and
probably there's some USB functionality that can do this too).

------
Animats
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
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.

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bencollier49
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.

~~~
onion2k
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
This. X10 has been around for decades. Even the most common of devices - the
home router - how many run openwrt?

~~~
mehhh
Netgear, TP-Link, Linksys, D-Link and most other router vendors run 4 to 6
year old branches of OpenWRT on their products.

------
mindslight
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.

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sdan
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
>> _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...

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yardie
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.

~~~
navigatesol
>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.

------
manigandham
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
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.

~~~
jpindar
"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.

~~~
manigandham
If you lost power how is it reporting anything? And how do you turn on the
heat without power?

~~~
jpindar
OK, if the power is out you wouldn't know the temperature. Although in theory
you could build a battery powered cellular system.

But like slfnflctd said, if it doesn't report that the situation is normal,
there's likely to be a problem.

If there's no power and it's cold enough to matter, you go there (or call a
neighbor or handyman) to either start a generator, start up a kerosene heater,
or drain the pipes.

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DocG
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.

------
_iyig
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.

~~~
vinay427
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.

~~~
dillonmckay
That is hostile to the user. Wow.

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neonate
[https://outline.com/JUHxC3](https://outline.com/JUHxC3)

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chinathrow
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.

~~~
pacala
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.

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olliej
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.

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diogenescynic
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
Ring means you use an Amazon owned account.

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

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Fezzik
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.

~~~
echelon
> 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.

~~~
bencollier49
But he's no idea how deeply integrated it is?

~~~
smrq
It's a thermostat! They don't sink tentacles into the walls to leave behind
invisible internet-enabled slime. You can replace a thermostat.

~~~
Fezzik
I think I acknowledged the ease of removal, but in the market I am in - moving
back home to Portland, Ore. - most of the homes that have Nest products have
multiple Nest thermostats, Nest locks, and Nest smoke detectors. As the
article alludes to, it is a product line that contractors were going all-in on
for quite a while. There are an abundance of wonderful homes that do not have
these gadgets, so using one data point to limit my search can be helpful. I am
looking at a lot of homes while working full-time in a different city. Sure, I
may miss the perfect house, but I doubt it.

