"Dumb" home devices work as expected for 25-50 years, and then you replace them.
"Smart" home devices work as expected for about a year and then they fail in new and exciting ways, and then you replace them.
zahirbmirza · 46m ago
Connected thermostats are great in theory! But they should not have to rely on a cloud connection. A local network with the option of internet connectivity would be awesome; but, it seems, no company is going to become uber successful if there isn't the option of forced upgrades and cloud subscriptions. Look at Ring...
throwway120385 · 13m ago
If you're VC-funded then the valuation is the most important thing. The only way to juice your valuation is to get recurring revenue, because it comes with an 8x to 10x multiple. So you don't want to be in the hardware game, you want to use hardware to get a foothold in someone's home and then get them to pay you a subscription to maintain that hardware.
I think the valuation thing is what drives 90% of this stuff. Whereas an established company like Honeywell is more interested in building products and selling a lot of them, so they're going to charge you 5-10x of the cost of a Nest for the same feature set but with a local-first implementation instead of a cloud-first implementation.
I don't think I would ever buy a hardware product from a company billing themselves as a VC-backed startup.
Also, FWIW the Nest is a perfectly functional thermostat even if you never hook it up to their app. We found the scheduling and learning features to be really annoying so we turned them all off and never connected ours to the cloud.
AceJohnny2 · 6m ago
I agree almost entirely, but I gotta quibble a point:
> so [companies like Honeywell] are going to charge you 5-10x of the cost of a Nest for the same feature set but with a local-first implementation
"Established" companies also see the long-term value of subscriptions and are also hopping on that bandwagon.
Additionally, customers are extremely sensitive to up-front price, so a product that's more expensive up-front but with no subscription fee and longer-term value will have trouble finding a foothold in the market compared to cheaper but subscription-based alternatives. Especially if the alternatives are "1 year free!" as they usually are.
rpcope1 · 39m ago
Honeywell's z-wave thermostat basically does all of the shiny shit you'd want out of a connected thermostat while making basically impossible to lock the user out because Honeywell decided it didn't like the product anymore. Why people have to keep relearning this with IoT devices baffles me, and that Z-wave or maybe Zigbee isn't what's insisted upon.
stavros · 28m ago
I bought a $20 Zigbee thermostat from AliExpress and it has been fantastic. It turns on when it's cold, and off when it's hot. Anything else, I can do with software, because it's just Zigbee.
ocdtrekkie · 21m ago
My Insteon thermostat is a great dumb thermostat that I can also send commands to over a serial connection to a powerline/RF modem. (Very similar to Z-Wave's RF, though proprietary.)
The key is do not buy smart devices with Wi-Fi. There are better products for serious people. Everyone here with a Zigbee or Z-Wave product probably learned that the hard way first. ;)
SV_BubbleTime · 36m ago
EcoBee is happy to work without WiFi.
gxs · 43m ago
They are so shady about this stuff
I have a Honeywell t6 that I got when they installed a new unit - Honeywell INSISTS that you create an account and download the app to connect it to your home network
Thankfully this is bullshit and you can connect it directly from the thermostat to HomeKit - you will not find a single piece of documentation on this though and will be told it’s not possible
The real kicker is that there is a notification to register your device that you can’t get rid of unless you register your device
You can only snooze it for a couple weeks at a time
How I’d love to have one on one conversations with the evil people who approve this type of crap
xp84 · 30m ago
The shameful part is that the only thing that even remotely (no pun intended) needs a server to even be online, is the out-of-home control, just for NAT traversal. It should be free to Google for these to have at least in-home smart functionality forever.
Well, that, and the moving target of updating an "app" every year for all the breaking changes Google and (especially) Apple do to the mobile OS. Although honestly I'd rather have a QR code that links you to a PWA hosted on the thermostat itself.
nonfamous · 49s ago
I’m affected by this, and as pissed at Google about it as anyone, but the headline is overblown. The old Nest devices continue to function as thermostats, and the on-device features like scheduling still work. But I need the cloud-based features (particularly remote control via the app), so I went ahead and paid the upgrade tax.
ryandrake · 4m ago
This should be pretty much true for every "connected" device out there. They should all have a mode that works by directly connecting over the local LAN. Why do device manufacturers refuse to support this configuration?
If I want to change the volume of my "smart speaker" from my phone that's also on my LAN, it shouldn't require a round trip to a server on the Internet, or an account with credentials, or any of that nutty stuff.
nwellinghoff · 52m ago
Anything that requires a cloud account and does not offer a self hosted option, even a limited one, should be considered throw away. Would be nice if google released a self hosted server for these as a nod and thanks to the early customers.
bobmcnamara · 49m ago
Or just open up a little JSON server on the thermostat.
0cf8612b2e1e · 56m ago
To each their own, but the idea of an internet connected thermostat (at great expense!) never made sense to me. A $20 Honeywell lets you program 4 regions per day (waking, day, evening, night) and will be fine almost every day of the year. Has a battery backup and never failed me.
I guess it would be cute to get some analytics dashboard, but that’s about where my interest ends.
dgacmu · 49m ago
I really appreciate mine. My big use case is that we go away for a week or two over winter sometimes and turn the house down to 55F. The radiators take quite a while to heat the house back up from that temperature, so I turn the temperature back up remotely the morning before we fly back.
That said, I'm quite annoyed that Google is nuking my perfectly functional thermostat, and I will be buying an Ecobee to replace it, and integrating it with home assistant.
loloquwowndueo · 29m ago
So you use smart thermostat functionality once a year? What’s wrong with wearing jackets indoors for half a day once a year :)
bluGill · 19m ago
the more likely case is they just leave it on normal when they are gone - like everyone else
throwway120385 · 11m ago
It's expensive to run a propane-fueled indirect-fire boiler when you're not home.
nkrisc · 13m ago
Well beyond a basic dumb thermostat I like that my EcoBee can use several wireless temperature sensors. During the day I have it set to only use the downstairs sensors and at night it only uses the upstairs sensors.
Can a $20 Honeywell thermostat do that with wireless sensors? If it can, I will get one.
CSSer · 51m ago
I used to have a Honeywell wi-fi thermostat. It looked like any other thermostat you've ever seen, except you could connect it to a home hub. It was nice because you could exactly what you're describing, but you could also do it in the app.
What made it worth it was being able to turn off the air or heat when you weren't home automatically. Now all or the "AI training" garbage? Yeah, forget that. I used to work in an office with a nest and it was torture if you showed up too early if stayed a little too late.
renewiltord · 48m ago
Everyone always says this stuff, but man these things are such garbage to use: terrible user interface, LCD screen with random blinking elements to tell you that's being edited, response rate slower than a ping to Mars. Modern app-connected thermostats are so much better.
I have the same thing and to be honest, if I had to replace a $200 thermostat every 2 years I would gladly do it. In fact, this whole thing has made me go and research which thermostat will fit where I live.
ryandrake · 40m ago
It's starting to look like when you buy any kind of electronics gizmo with a UI, your choices are limited to:
1. A non-smart device that will work forever but looks and feels like it's still in the 90s
2. A device with a nice, responsive UI, but destined for the landfill because it's chained to a cloud service.
Why are these things mutually exclusive? Across so many product categories, there's seemingly few or no options for a nice UI but without dependence on an Internet service that will inevitably shut down.
OJFord · 9m ago
Because people won't pay (or the companies(' research) don't think they'll pay) much for the hardware, so it's a loss leader or barely profitable promotion for the subscription service.
Not that straightforwardly in Nest's particular case to be fair, but a lead in to other products, and Nest was perhaps bought by Google before having to worry too much about profit margins(?).
xyzelement · 52m ago
The key usecases for me are:
Adjusting the thermostat (which is downstairs) from bed.
At the airport - oh shit did I turn off the AC for the two weeks we'll be away? Ok I just did.
jkestner · 44m ago
I got a Honeywell Sensi thermostat that can do that, and also works without an internet connection. Better things are possible.
dogcow · 47m ago
Luckily, this can all be achieved using a Wi-Fi or (even better) a Z-Wave thermostat that is 100% locally-controlled using something like Home Assistant or any number of other solutions.
xyzelement · 21m ago
The guy I replied to was asking why you'd want an Internet connected thermostat.
I am a HA guy and prior to my ecobee I ran an American Radio Thermostat with local HA support and you could control over curl. But the wifi module was so old that no modern device connected to it when I had to reset it up.
But I agree zwave plus HA are a great option too.
slipnslider · 48m ago
Same. My Nest has probably paid for itself in terms of me being able to remotely disable it while away on trips
sneak · 44m ago
I like being able to adjust HVAC based on temperature sensors that are not co-located with the input keypad.
Being able to use the temp reading in a specific room is choice.
walterbell · 35m ago
Is there a list of devices which have been rescued or extended by open-source software?
Lyrion Music Server (formerly Logitech Media Server) is open-source server software which controls a wide range of Squeezebox audio players, https://lyrion.org/
API access is being ended as well, so third-party apps and services will not work.
sedatk · 51m ago
I was hoping that at least my Home Assistant integration would keep working. That sucks terribly. Lesson of the day: Avoid any IoT device that you can't use without an external service.
cheald · 44m ago
FWIW, I replaced my Nests with Centralite Pearls a few years ago, and have been extremely happy with them WRT Home Assistant. The Pearl doesn't seem to be widely available anymore, but any Zwave or Zigbee thermostat + a local hub gets you a thermostat that should work with Home Assistant and will be immune to being sunsetted like this.
sedatk · 20m ago
That's a good suggestion. Thanks!
boringg · 57m ago
NEST protect has been a thorn in my side. Aside from just completely eating batteries - it constantly has to reconnect.
I wish the internet of things was soo much better than it is. There was a dream once of a world that worked efficiently, and then profit models came in and destroyed it.
scrumper · 45m ago
You’ve got to use the one specific brand and type of battery they insist on. It’s some energizer lithium thing I’ll have to check for you and comment later. Anything else fails very fast, the correct ones last for years.
winrid · 26m ago
They must have found some really bad security issues in the old backend they can't fix, or something. It's a bad look.
Havoc · 25m ago
If you want IoT...ensure it's home assistant compatible.
delduca · 54m ago
Google? Not surprised.
lioeters · 45m ago
When I think of Google, killing products is one of the first things that come to mind.
apparent · 32m ago
Is there a stated reason for this EOLing?
IlikeKitties · 50m ago
So, this will happen to ANYTHING that requires a server that you don't control eventually, including cars, smart-anything, smarthome stuff etc. I find this quite obvious to be true, yet the market seems to ignore this, from the consumer and manufacturers side. Why is that?
"an email from Google stating that they are no longer it's going to support the Nest 1st gen and 2nd gen thermostats. While they will continue to operate locally, it appears that they will no longer work with the Nest app or Home app controls."
at least they dont seem to be planning a mass bricking.
dlachausse · 1h ago
Does operate locally retain any smart features or does it just essentially become a dumb thermostat?
willidiots · 1h ago
I had one of the second-gen units, it was programmable locally, and you could locally enable the learning mode (which was not good)
hangonhn · 1h ago
From what I understand it just means the app will no longer work for that thermostat. All the other features that you access from the device itself should still work. At least that's how it was presented to me on the Nest app.
mort96 · 1h ago
Can you access smart features on the device itself? Like program in schedules or whatever? Or does the device itself more or less just let you set a target temperature without the app
hangonhn · 11m ago
Yes those still work. App integration won’t but on device features should be fine.
IAmGraydon · 1h ago
A rule of thumb when dealing with anything Google: never become too reliant on anything made by Google. They tend to depreciate almost everything eventually.
bobbylarrybobby · 1h ago
Deprecate*
But yes, this is why I'm staying away from Gemini. Seems like an amazing product! But no way am I putting my AI eggs in the Google basket.
cjbgkagh · 52m ago
It’s far easier to open a new tab than it is to change a thermostat, which also isn’t that hard… I still think google is doing itself and the rest of us a disservice when they don’t facilitate off-boarding or continuation of services that would be trivially cheap to maintain.
LoganDark · 1h ago
To be fair, it's not like the thermostat is worth as much after it's discontinued
Mtinie · 8m ago
When I bought my first Nest in 2012, Nest Labs was not yet part of Google (that acquisition came in 2014.)
So for the owners of Gen 1 and 2 thermostats, your rule of thumb isn’t helpful like it is for post 2014 purchases.
gyomu · 1h ago
I wonder what year they’ll sunset Gmail. Nothing is forever, surely some PM in 2033 will decide that email is over and it’s time to push everyone to Gemini Messenger.
No comments yet
zb3 · 54m ago
The day they finally deprecate Google Ads will be a good day.
SV_BubbleTime · 32m ago
The devil you know though.
The day the kill that, is the day a new hell is trust upon you.
As it were, appreciate the life you have right now that AI doesn’t have ads, it’s coming.
Serious question: how long do you expect cloud hardware vendors to support the servers for their products? 10 years? 20? 30?
xoa · 16m ago
>Serious question: how long do you expect cloud hardware vendors to support the servers for their products? 10 years? 20? 30?
Serious answer: I do not expect any specific lifetime at all (though legal return period is an obvious floor), but at a bare minimum I do expect (and think should absolutely be mandated by law) that power be intimately tied to responsibility. Ie., it's fine if a hardware vendor decides to retire their cloud services (or OS updates or the like) in 1 year or 10 years or 20 or 30, but IF they cease to support it, THEN they must also remove any technical obstacles to hardware owners pointing it at another service of any kind. So any signing keys required, code, docs/APIs etc. Decide that a given product no longer makes commercial sense for you to produce or support? Sure, fine, it happens. The problem is then ensuring the hardware/software dies with that.
The basic issue is that these places generally want to have their cake and eat it too. They want all the financial power of a monopoly tie-in and feudal rent extraction, but no responsibilities to go with it and the ability to force customers onto new stuff (or nothing). That should be illegal. Honestly, I think any tie-in should be illegal, fully accessible local APIs should be required and any 1st party subscription should earn its place on its merits.
But at a minimum, no one should be able to have it both ways. If they want power over their customers, they should have responsibility proportional to that. And conversely if they go full open source community friendly hackable from day 1 (and are fully upfront about that), I'm fine saying they have very minimal long term responsibility. There can and should be room for many different approaches to the market, but not extractive lock-in.
rappatic · 35m ago
I don’t know how these were advertised when originally sold, but I think products like these ought to clearly display a minimum sever lifetime. Something like “Nest connected thermostat, with 10 years of guaranteed cloud connectivity” displayed relatively prominently on the packaging. Otherwise, if the vendor can arbitrarily remotely yank access to a key feature, then the consumer is being sold a false bill of goods.
sneak · 17m ago
Products are not services. If you buy a product that needs services to work, and at the time of purchase you are clearly informed that those services are subject to change at any time, you are sufficiently aware of the fact that product functionality may change at any time.
You’re still in the return window when you are presented with the service ToS.
modeless · 38m ago
When it's a device intended to be installed permanently in a house that could last 100 years, controlling a device that could last 20-30 years, and the company still exists (and is worth trillions to boot), I think 30 years of support would be a completely reasonable expectation.
bluGill · 16m ago
liftime of the building it is installed in. if I choose to replace it that is fine but there are still buildings in use 1000 years later, you need to escrow enough to support servers that long just in case.
unethical_ban · 29m ago
Yes. Unless Google is going out of business?
ddingus · 52m ago
This crap is exactly why I do not ever purchase devices like these.
Yeah, I don't have a smart home, but all my old stuff works great and that will continue until after I have left this place.
Maybe I do have a smart home.
dekhn · 1h ago
"That alarm cannot be silenced here"
jeffbee · 12m ago
That's what my Nest was saying as it flew out the 3rd floor window.
dlachausse · 1h ago
I highly recommend Ecobee if you want an alternative to Google Nest.
emchammer · 1h ago
Does Ecobee require an app and account to be activated, or is it something that HomeKit just detects on the LAN?
sanex · 50m ago
I know they used to be Home Assistant capable but required an API key which they will no longer give out. Seems like no fully local control to me. I believe my app stops working when the Internet goes out but it's been a bit.
xp84 · 32m ago
Oh really? Weird. I did need to do some developer API key thing to get mine in HA, and it's awesome. All sensors and controls work great[1].
Since it's Homekit compatible though, you can go that route. HA easily discovers anything HK compatible as soon as you connect it to your network. So you connect Ecobee to HA with the HomeKit protocol in lieu of connecting it with Apple's stuff.
[1] ...and anything's better than the asinine on-device UI that Ecobee "updated" to a couple years ago (ask yourself: what would a foolish inexperienced "uX dEsIgNeR" do to ruin a plain old thermostat UI? It's that.)
SV_BubbleTime · 33m ago
My ecobee has been working a for year with no internet.
Of course the app stops working, but that’s expected from a WiFi product.
themerone · 1h ago
I've had both and am much happier with Ecobee.
jjtheblunt · 59m ago
same here. had 2 nests and 2 ecobees. the only ecobee quirk i find after 9 years of ecobees is that the weather calculation is way off if you live near microclimates. i'm not sure if they use your postal zipcode, or use a map from IP address to more accurate weather, but it's normally showing weather from 10 miles away.
worthless-trash · 31m ago
My wife can ask google home for the weather forecast and it is correct. I ( the account holder ) can ask it when right beside her and it will provide weather prediction for a location 30km away.
dasmoop · 32m ago
I was really disappointed with the lack of analytics / historical data.
Thankfully the open source beetstat makes ecobee a lot more useful, with full history and graphs for heat/cool runtime, aux heat, indoor/outdoor humdity, etc
jajuuka · 58m ago
Didn't those come out in 2012? That's better than most appliances.
wrs · 45m ago
Which says something about how bad modern appliances are.
bluGill · 12m ago
my car is from 1999 and I can still keep it working. I replaced a perfectly working furnace from 1973 a couple years ago (nearly double the efficiency). I still use my 1939 tractor and can get parts for it. I have plenty of other appliances older than that - many modern ones don't work as well
delfinom · 58m ago
Worse than most thermostats that aren't made by Google though.
"Smart" home devices work as expected for about a year and then they fail in new and exciting ways, and then you replace them.
I think the valuation thing is what drives 90% of this stuff. Whereas an established company like Honeywell is more interested in building products and selling a lot of them, so they're going to charge you 5-10x of the cost of a Nest for the same feature set but with a local-first implementation instead of a cloud-first implementation.
I don't think I would ever buy a hardware product from a company billing themselves as a VC-backed startup.
Also, FWIW the Nest is a perfectly functional thermostat even if you never hook it up to their app. We found the scheduling and learning features to be really annoying so we turned them all off and never connected ours to the cloud.
> so [companies like Honeywell] are going to charge you 5-10x of the cost of a Nest for the same feature set but with a local-first implementation
"Established" companies also see the long-term value of subscriptions and are also hopping on that bandwagon.
Additionally, customers are extremely sensitive to up-front price, so a product that's more expensive up-front but with no subscription fee and longer-term value will have trouble finding a foothold in the market compared to cheaper but subscription-based alternatives. Especially if the alternatives are "1 year free!" as they usually are.
The key is do not buy smart devices with Wi-Fi. There are better products for serious people. Everyone here with a Zigbee or Z-Wave product probably learned that the hard way first. ;)
I have a Honeywell t6 that I got when they installed a new unit - Honeywell INSISTS that you create an account and download the app to connect it to your home network
Thankfully this is bullshit and you can connect it directly from the thermostat to HomeKit - you will not find a single piece of documentation on this though and will be told it’s not possible
The real kicker is that there is a notification to register your device that you can’t get rid of unless you register your device
You can only snooze it for a couple weeks at a time
How I’d love to have one on one conversations with the evil people who approve this type of crap
Well, that, and the moving target of updating an "app" every year for all the breaking changes Google and (especially) Apple do to the mobile OS. Although honestly I'd rather have a QR code that links you to a PWA hosted on the thermostat itself.
If I want to change the volume of my "smart speaker" from my phone that's also on my LAN, it shouldn't require a round trip to a server on the Internet, or an account with credentials, or any of that nutty stuff.
I guess it would be cute to get some analytics dashboard, but that’s about where my interest ends.
That said, I'm quite annoyed that Google is nuking my perfectly functional thermostat, and I will be buying an Ecobee to replace it, and integrating it with home assistant.
Can a $20 Honeywell thermostat do that with wireless sensors? If it can, I will get one.
What made it worth it was being able to turn off the air or heat when you weren't home automatically. Now all or the "AI training" garbage? Yeah, forget that. I used to work in an office with a nest and it was torture if you showed up too early if stayed a little too late.
I have the same thing and to be honest, if I had to replace a $200 thermostat every 2 years I would gladly do it. In fact, this whole thing has made me go and research which thermostat will fit where I live.
1. A non-smart device that will work forever but looks and feels like it's still in the 90s
2. A device with a nice, responsive UI, but destined for the landfill because it's chained to a cloud service.
Why are these things mutually exclusive? Across so many product categories, there's seemingly few or no options for a nice UI but without dependence on an Internet service that will inevitably shut down.
Not that straightforwardly in Nest's particular case to be fair, but a lead in to other products, and Nest was perhaps bought by Google before having to worry too much about profit margins(?).
Adjusting the thermostat (which is downstairs) from bed.
At the airport - oh shit did I turn off the AC for the two weeks we'll be away? Ok I just did.
I am a HA guy and prior to my ecobee I ran an American Radio Thermostat with local HA support and you could control over curl. But the wifi module was so old that no modern device connected to it when I had to reset it up.
But I agree zwave plus HA are a great option too.
Being able to use the temp reading in a specific room is choice.
Lyrion Music Server (formerly Logitech Media Server) is open-source server software which controls a wide range of Squeezebox audio players, https://lyrion.org/
Tasmota is open-source firmware for ESP8266 and ESP32-based devices, https://templates.blakadder.com/preflashed-stand.html & https://github.com/tasmota
Some IP cameras have open firmware replacements.
Some Chromebooks are supported by mainline Linux.
I wish the internet of things was soo much better than it is. There was a dream once of a world that worked efficiently, and then profit models came in and destroyed it.
Some earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45033555
And when it was announced in April: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43802574
at least they dont seem to be planning a mass bricking.
But yes, this is why I'm staying away from Gemini. Seems like an amazing product! But no way am I putting my AI eggs in the Google basket.
So for the owners of Gen 1 and 2 thermostats, your rule of thumb isn’t helpful like it is for post 2014 purchases.
No comments yet
The day the kill that, is the day a new hell is trust upon you.
As it were, appreciate the life you have right now that AI doesn’t have ads, it’s coming.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45141343
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z4RKRLaSug
Serious answer: I do not expect any specific lifetime at all (though legal return period is an obvious floor), but at a bare minimum I do expect (and think should absolutely be mandated by law) that power be intimately tied to responsibility. Ie., it's fine if a hardware vendor decides to retire their cloud services (or OS updates or the like) in 1 year or 10 years or 20 or 30, but IF they cease to support it, THEN they must also remove any technical obstacles to hardware owners pointing it at another service of any kind. So any signing keys required, code, docs/APIs etc. Decide that a given product no longer makes commercial sense for you to produce or support? Sure, fine, it happens. The problem is then ensuring the hardware/software dies with that.
The basic issue is that these places generally want to have their cake and eat it too. They want all the financial power of a monopoly tie-in and feudal rent extraction, but no responsibilities to go with it and the ability to force customers onto new stuff (or nothing). That should be illegal. Honestly, I think any tie-in should be illegal, fully accessible local APIs should be required and any 1st party subscription should earn its place on its merits.
But at a minimum, no one should be able to have it both ways. If they want power over their customers, they should have responsibility proportional to that. And conversely if they go full open source community friendly hackable from day 1 (and are fully upfront about that), I'm fine saying they have very minimal long term responsibility. There can and should be room for many different approaches to the market, but not extractive lock-in.
You’re still in the return window when you are presented with the service ToS.
Yeah, I don't have a smart home, but all my old stuff works great and that will continue until after I have left this place.
Maybe I do have a smart home.
Since it's Homekit compatible though, you can go that route. HA easily discovers anything HK compatible as soon as you connect it to your network. So you connect Ecobee to HA with the HomeKit protocol in lieu of connecting it with Apple's stuff.
[1] ...and anything's better than the asinine on-device UI that Ecobee "updated" to a couple years ago (ask yourself: what would a foolish inexperienced "uX dEsIgNeR" do to ruin a plain old thermostat UI? It's that.)
Of course the app stops working, but that’s expected from a WiFi product.
Thankfully the open source beetstat makes ecobee a lot more useful, with full history and graphs for heat/cool runtime, aux heat, indoor/outdoor humdity, etc