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Surely this is illegal? If a Nest tech turned up at your door and when let in to do "service" he took a hammer to the device destroying it, people would be suin

by zik 11y ago

Surely this is illegal? If a Nest tech turned up at your door and when let in to do "service" he took a hammer to the device destroying it, people would be suing left and right for property damage. Surely this is just the same?

StephenConnell 11y ago
Are they actually damaging the devices or are they just turning off the remote servers that the devices rely on?
- bobbles 11y ago
  What's the difference between damaging the device and making it no longer able to perform the function it was designed and sold as?
- awinter-py 11y ago
  Physical destruction. The nest is affixed to a wall via quick-release bolts so that if it's mounted too high to reach, you can remote-eject it. Properly reprogrammed, the incendiary charge on the quick-release can act as an autodestruct. Beyond vaporizing the device, in some cases it's taking out a chunk of wall or the family pet.
- anexprogrammer 11y ago
  Does it matter? The effect is the same, and it's a choice not that the company is insolvent so cannot continue.
- gherkin0 11y ago
  The devices were sold with the implicit promise that the servers operated by the manufacturer would remain in service, so I don't think there's much of a real distinction between bricking a device by shutting down servers vs. hitting it with a hammer. That said, they probably tried to weasel themselves out of any obligation via the EULA.
  - victorhooi 11y ago
    The company, Revolv sold this product to people - then nearly went bankrupt in 2014: http://recode.net/2014/10/24/nest-acquires-home-automation-hub-revolv-but-will-stop-selling-it/ http://recode.net/2014/10/24/nest-acquires-home-automation-h... Another company swooped in, and bought them in 2014 - they immediately stopped all sales of Revolv products, but decided to keep the Revolv service running for nearly two years afterwards, for the older customers. However, eventually, they seem to have decided to pull the pin - perhaps they knew it'd just keep bleeding money. After all, Revolv never made money, and they haven't sold any units in nearly two years, so they have zero revenue to show for it. Either way - how exactly do you see it as reasonable that they should keep them up ad infinitum? I mean, say Revolv had just gone under, and nobody had swooped in to save them, and keep them on life-support for two more years. Would you still be yelling about the EULA means a bankrupt company should still keep paying it's server bills? I somehow doubt Jeff Bezos is coming to leap in and be like, "Gee, you're bankrupt. Don't worry, here's a couple million dollars of AWS credits, to keep your servers running for two years. And don't worry, in two years, I'll give you a few million dollars more, cause I'm just a nice guy. Oh, and here, let me load you five of my software engineers, and a couple of my site reliability engineers, in case it crashes."
    - andrewprock 11y ago
      If they didn't want the customers maybe they should not have bought the company.
    - brwnll 11y ago
      This is nonsense. A company "swooping in" to buy a company assumes the liabilities of that company. If Alphabet were to buy a struggling company, they don't get to go to it's creditors and say "We will pay you $1, which you should consider a blessing, since if the this company went out business you would have got nothing". Similarly, if the company made sales of a product on the notion of "lifetime support and updates", a purchasing company is absolutely responsible to uphold those guarantees (this is the type of thing companies do due diligence for before acquiring a business).
    - bryanrasmussen 11y ago
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  If you've got a device that can't run without access to remote servers, despite purely local functionality, then turning off the servers is just as pointlessly destructive as coming to your house and hitting the device with a hammer. If this was a device whose core functionality legitimately required connectivity, that might be different, but it's not.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
atemerev 11y ago
Happened with my iPhone. Its screen started to behave unreliably, and it was still on extended warranty, so I brought it back to the point of sale. After keeping it for 1.5 months, they told me it was damaged by liquid (it wasn't, so no warranty for me, the phone is beyond repair, and I have to pay them €80 for their efforts). They would also physically destroy it. I told them to [redacted], threatened to sue them, so they waived this €80 fee, but still won't repair the phone despite the warranty.
qmr 11y ago
I would bet good money that you are from .eu, .au, or .nz.

by zik 11y ago

StephenConnell 11y ago

Are they actually damaging the devices or are they just turning off the remote servers that the devices rely on?

bobbles 11y ago
What's the difference between damaging the device and making it no longer able to perform the function it was designed and sold as?
awinter-py 11y ago
Physical destruction. The nest is affixed to a wall via quick-release bolts so that if it's mounted too high to reach, you can remote-eject it. Properly reprogrammed, the incendiary charge on the quick-release can act as an autodestruct. Beyond vaporizing the device, in some cases it's taking out a chunk of wall or the family pet.
anexprogrammer 11y ago
Does it matter? The effect is the same, and it's a choice not that the company is insolvent so cannot continue.
gherkin0 11y ago
The devices were sold with the implicit promise that the servers operated by the manufacturer would remain in service, so I don't think there's much of a real distinction between bricking a device by shutting down servers vs. hitting it with a hammer. That said, they probably tried to weasel themselves out of any obligation via the EULA.
- victorhooi 11y ago
  The company, Revolv sold this product to people - then nearly went bankrupt in 2014: http://recode.net/2014/10/24/nest-acquires-home-automation-hub-revolv-but-will-stop-selling-it/ http://recode.net/2014/10/24/nest-acquires-home-automation-h... Another company swooped in, and bought them in 2014 - they immediately stopped all sales of Revolv products, but decided to keep the Revolv service running for nearly two years afterwards, for the older customers. However, eventually, they seem to have decided to pull the pin - perhaps they knew it'd just keep bleeding money. After all, Revolv never made money, and they haven't sold any units in nearly two years, so they have zero revenue to show for it. Either way - how exactly do you see it as reasonable that they should keep them up ad infinitum? I mean, say Revolv had just gone under, and nobody had swooped in to save them, and keep them on life-support for two more years. Would you still be yelling about the EULA means a bankrupt company should still keep paying it's server bills? I somehow doubt Jeff Bezos is coming to leap in and be like, "Gee, you're bankrupt. Don't worry, here's a couple million dollars of AWS credits, to keep your servers running for two years. And don't worry, in two years, I'll give you a few million dollars more, cause I'm just a nice guy. Oh, and here, let me load you five of my software engineers, and a couple of my site reliability engineers, in case it crashes."
  - andrewprock 11y ago
    If they didn't want the customers maybe they should not have bought the company.
  - brwnll 11y ago
    This is nonsense. A company "swooping in" to buy a company assumes the liabilities of that company. If Alphabet were to buy a struggling company, they don't get to go to it's creditors and say "We will pay you $1, which you should consider a blessing, since if the this company went out business you would have got nothing". Similarly, if the company made sales of a product on the notion of "lifetime support and updates", a purchasing company is absolutely responsible to uphold those guarantees (this is the type of thing companies do due diligence for before acquiring a business).
  - bryanrasmussen 11y ago
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
If you've got a device that can't run without access to remote servers, despite purely local functionality, then turning off the servers is just as pointlessly destructive as coming to your house and hitting the device with a hammer. If this was a device whose core functionality legitimately required connectivity, that might be different, but it's not.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

atemerev 11y ago

Happened with my iPhone. Its screen started to behave unreliably, and it was still on extended warranty, so I brought it back to the point of sale. After keeping it for 1.5 months, they told me it was damaged by liquid (it wasn't, so no warranty for me, the phone is beyond repair, and I have to pay them €80 for their efforts). They would also physically destroy it. I told them to [redacted], threatened to sue them, so they waived this €80 fee, but still won't repair the phone despite the warranty.

qmr 11y ago

I would bet good money that you are from .eu, .au, or .nz.