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Wait, so people that bought other devices that "Works with Nest" will no longer work with Nest?
by bhhaskin 7y ago
Wait, so people that bought other devices that "Works with Nest" will no longer work with Nest?
- floatingatoll 7y agoCorrect: https://nest.com/whats-happening/#im-a-works-with-nest-developer-will-my-solution-still-be-able-to-access-and-control-nest-devices https://nest.com/whats-happening/#im-a-works-with-nest-devel...
- bhhaskin 7y agoAnother reminder to never buy a "smart" device. At the end of the day they are pretty dumb.
- Robotbeat 7y agoUnless you roll your own. But then we’re in the bad old days of home automation just for tinkerers...
- dreamcompiler 7y agoI have lost all hope that it will ever be otherwise. It's quite straightforward to build smart home devices for youself that are reliable and don't depend on the whims of some cloud or firmware vendor, but the minute you try to form a company that sells them you'll be required to generate a continuing revenue stream which means shitting on your customers in one way or the other.
- Robotbeat 7y agoIs this true? I’ve used open source printers from Lulzbot and others, and I haven’t had this experience. I think the moral of the story is to not put stuff on some closed platform in the cloud, not that you shouldn’t use company-provided hardware.
- cortesoft 7y agoI think his point was that it is hard to keep a company going making just the hardware. The margins are low, and customers only have to pay you once, to get the hardware. It is hard to make a lasting business off that, which is why everyone wants to do subscription services.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIt used to be the only way to make business in not so long past. People made money selling products just fine. Maybe it's because people trying to get rich quick playing the VC lottery are sucking the oxygen out for people who want to just do a honest to God, "payment in exchange for providing value" type of business.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoYes, I think it's the VC mindset. It's "grow fast and exit quick" rather than "build a sustainable business."
- bhhaskin 7y agoI honestly have give it quite a bit of thought as to what it would take to start an open source hardware company. Everything has a user accessable API and the option to use their own firmware if they want.
- dec0dedab0de 7y agoand any cloud services would be AGPL
- hedora 7y agoThe more important thing than hack-ability is that the product is rock solid. That implies stuff like "there is one way to do it", "95+% branch coverage in unit tests", and "100,000-1M hours of automated stress testing of real hardware before shipping a new board rev."
- gordon_freeman 7y agoI have Wemo smart plugs that I have plugged in all sorts of stuff like Heater, Lamps, and TV, etc connected to my Google Home and Home Mini. And I'd advise anyone to think twice before buying smart plugs or smart devices. There are so many bugs creating so many complications that I feel they are not worth using. You'd need to reconnect them with WEMO app time and again, restart these frequently if they just stop working and even you would not know what to do with them when a failed firmware upgrade will make your smart plug useless!
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoIf I'm reading this right, the Wemo plugs should still work? The part of the program that's ending is that Nest devices can no longer be controlled by third party apps. Devices that are controlled by Nest should still be controlled by Nest. At least, unless I have vastly misunderstood the FAQ?
- ethbro 7y agoThe sad thing is it's not rocket science. It's just terrible, barely working, shoehorned in buggy drivers, "shipped as soon as it can appear functional" code. You could take a microcontroller, write something simple, and have something that worked to a few 9s. Instead, IoT vendors spend their time optimizing their data collection and monetization platforms. "You had one job..." would be a good epitaph for the entire industry.
- saagarjha 7y agoWemo’s plugs support other protocols too, don’t they? Could you bridge one of those to what you need?
- Despegar 7y agoOnce again HomeKit's design proves to be prescient. https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16083996/internet-of-shit-wrong-about-homekit https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/3/16083996/internet-of-shit-...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y agoHrm. How so? HomeKit does not allow third party devs to write apps to control HomeKit devices, AFAICT. So they never added the capability that Google is removing. People can still develop devices that are triggered by Nest and Google Home. They just can no longer write apps that themselves trigger or modify Nest devices. Or are you saying it's prescient because Apple saw that such capabilities were not economically viable in the long run, and so it was prescient of them to never develop the functionality in the first place?
- Despegar 7y agoHomeKit doesn't require an internet connection for smart home devices to work, it doesn't require you to use the smart home maker's garbage apps or sign up for accounts with them, it gives away for free features that smart home makers try to put behind subscription paywalls, and most importantly it was designed to be secure.
- Gaelan 7y agoI haven’t tested this, but I believe you could use Homebridge to create a virtual “button” that got “pushed” when you hit some API endpoint, then configure HomeKit to change something when the button gets pressed.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- iknowordidthat 7y agoHomeBridge can control HomeKit accessories just fine.
- 7y ago
- debacle 7y agoThere are many wonderful devices from China that have hackable APIs that don't need to phone home to Google to work. They're also much cheaper and more OSS friendly.
- 542458 7y agoI’m always worried about: - security - support - safety With those devices. Don’t get me wrong, I love AliExpress - but I’d be worried about anything running at mains voltage, especially when I’m away from home.
- debacle 7y agoMost of what I purchase on that front is from Amazon. Excepting a few wifi switches (which are UL listed), everything runs on 12v.
- conradfr 7y agoDon't buy electronic devices not supporting open standards or technologies.
- telltruth 7y agoI realize this is Google's moment of "Plays for Sure".