30 ms·
Google Forcing Nest Cameras’ Visual Indicator Light To Be On
- SethTro 7y agoThis is a great change particularly with respect to guests being in other houses (visiting friends, Airbnb, ...)
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoSo no more /r/airbnbporn?
- esotericn 7y agoI've never seen a nest camera in the wild. I do however have a little USB webcam with LEDs that cannot be disabled. I taped over them with black tape so as not to draw attention to the camera. The proper version of this would just be to like, desolder them or whatever. Is there any reason this wouldn't work? Perhaps if the camera is forced to be displayed prominently like on a front door you'd see that it'd been obscured?
- phnofive 7y agoProbably depends on the camera board, but mechanically disabling the LED is either going to mysteriously disable the entire device, or be undetected, or the designer specifically accounted for that and something else happens. As long as you’ve got your iron hot, you could replace the LED with a D(iode): https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/111219/remove-an-led-from-a-circuit https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/111219/remov...
- jedberg 7y agoThis feels like a double edged sword. On one hand, yay, now I'll know for sure that the camera is on and I'm being watched. On the other hand, we know that the light is obviously software controlled, so now we're going to get people used to the idea that "light on == camera on/ light off == camera off", and then when the camera gets inevitably hacked, people will be a lot less cautious if the light is off, assuming the camera is off.
- esotericn 7y agoRight. I mean, could you just like, dab it with a black permanent marker? I don't know what this light looks like.
- WalterBright 7y ago"About the glowing red light on the pre 12v Bus which was my constant 'little worry' on many night trips: there were many, many explanations. All seemed valid and I really appreciate them all, but the cat who seemed to have the best grip on the problem suggested painting the button with heavy red fingernail polish so I couldn't see the dim glow, but could still see when the light actually came on." -- How To Keep Your Volkswagon Alive
- scrungus 7y agoi think the obvious solution would be to have the light in series with the power to the camera, so that in order for the camera to be on, the light will also have to be on
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoThe obvious solution is to make this a regulatory requirement. You want to sell cameras in this country? The on indicator light must be hard wired. With exception for some professional grade equipment, or the ability to physically cover the indicator light when the recording environment requires it, for whatever reason.
- kelnos 7y agoIf I want to buy a camera to place in my own home without having it light up (and without having to mod it), that's my business. I understand what you're getting at: you want to protect average people from predatory device manufacturers who would make an Internet-connected camera and then spy on their customers. But requiring non-disableable lights by law has unintended consequences.
- drusepth 7y agoThis seems equivalent to security theater in response to misplaced fear and mistrust over cameras in general. I understand why they felt pressured to make this change (and the "good" PR it results in), but I can't help but shake the fact that, well, it doesn't actually do anything. Bad actors will just disable the light in a myriad of ways. People will still mistrust cameras because the light can be disabled. Drawing over the light with permanent marker (or doing something temporary like putting tape over it) doesn't even create a small barrier of entry for people secretly recording. If they want to secretly record, it's not significantly harder now than it was yesterday. The only thing this is supposed to accomplish is appeasing people that don't understand technology yet make a ruckus over Google disrespecting privacy. Now Google can say "no look, we do!" and those people will complain about something else.
- floatingatoll 7y agoOther than physical access to the camera (at which point they will more likely just install their own cameras), how precisely could attackers disable the light in any plausible ways? I’ll offer one for free: 1) “Forcing Google to do so through a government court order that leads to a firmware update to that specific camera” What other methods besides “issue Google-signed firmware to the device” are you implying exist (“a myriad of ways”), that are obvious enough to be taken for granted without further explanation? I can’t see them, and so unfortunately I must request that explanation.
- stevep98 7y agoPutting tape over it.
- mulmen 7y agoRemotely?
- floatingatoll 7y agoYou could mount a tape dispenser on a robot platform, but it’s not really “plausible”.
- sdca 7y agoIt should announce its presence on an interval too. What if someone camoflages the camera in some Christmas lights? What if you're blind?
- knd775 7y agoNo one would buy this.
- m3kw9 7y agoBlack tape
- t0mbstone 7y agoNothing a little piece of black electrical tape won't solve.
- mbrumlow 7y agoDo I not own these cameras? I don't think they should be able to retroactively change this behavior. As a consumer of 5 of these things I hate them glowing at me. Any sane person should simply assume that if a camera is aimed at you it is recording...
- defertoreptar 7y agoHere's my low tech solution to random LEDs from electronics in my bedroom while I sleep: electrical tape.
- shiftpgdn 7y agoBlack nail polish also works well to "hide" obnoxious LEDs.
- WalterBright 7y agoThat's also the solution to the blinking 12:00 on the VCR.
- smt88 7y agoGenuine question: how do you feel about Apple preventing Japanese users from disabling the camera "click" on iPhones when they first came out?[1] 1. https://www.wired.com/2008/07/pervert-alert-j/ https://www.wired.com/2008/07/pervert-alert-j/
- 7y ago
- notus 7y agoBut it's my camera
- social_quotient 7y agoThis should be the top comment. If a car mfg forced driving lights remotely and killed your ability to run and operate the car without the driving lights I feel like this issue would get more clear resistance. The workarounds are cute but the alarming issue is that we paid for these things with XYZ capabilities and specifically someone thought this feature was good enough to build and ship and maintain for years. Now that feature is removed, I guess this invalidates the previous use case to have had it. It seems fair that new cameras would have this “feature” baked in, old cameras notta. Same use case for the car scenario.
- qball 7y ago>If a car mfg forced driving lights remotely and killed your ability to run and operate the car without the driving lights I feel like this issue would get more clear resistance. This actually already happens: case in point, Tesla (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/notifications-copy-jpg.289910/ https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/notifications-co...). I find the lack of negative press over this disturbing, to say the least- this will kill someone someday.
- bigiain 7y agoTesla have also shown themselves to be untrustworthy with this capability: https://electrek.co/2016/03/05/tesla-hacker-musk-replies/ https://electrek.co/2016/03/05/tesla-hacker-musk-replies/
- nkrisc 7y agoClearly it's not.
- BuddyKallipygos 7y agoWhat use case are they trying to solve for? It's confusing to me. Especially this: >On Nest Cam, Dropcam, and Nest Hello, the status light will blink when the camera’s live video is streamed from the Nest app. The setting to turn this off will be removed. So now someone trying to break into my house will know that no one is looking at them on the camera so it's all clear? Edit for formatting, sorry, I don't post ever.
- peteretep 7y ago> What use case are they trying to solve for? Watching a house-guest/renter getting naked
- ridaj 7y agoNo, because that's worked around with tape on the led. I think the use case that they are trying to solve for is to avoid camera owners unintentionally recording activities of other people who are unaware that they are being recorded, and then ending up with footage that they probably wished they hadn't captured because it makes them feel pervy. Maybe parent setting it up for security but ending up with videos of their teenage kid making out...
- hexo 7y ago"When the camera is on, the status light will glow blue." Blue?? Really?! At least - one can always use black tape and "turn it off" for good.
- herf 7y agoI have two of these cameras in a window, so they can see outside. Keeping the LED on all the time makes them useless at night from reflections, so I always turn it off. It seems really wrong that I am "allowed" to add electrical tape, but not to click a checkbox.
- tedmcory77 7y agoI do the same, this breaks that.
- glennon 7y agoSame config -- right inside a window. It took three layers of tiny tape squares to conceal the light on mine today. The cameras run pretty hot and the adhesive is going to make a gooey mess.
- sixothree 7y agoI use AC foil tape for this sort of thing. It's expensive but there are so many project uses.
- baldeagle 7y agoNail polish is my favorite annoying LED hider.
- calimac 7y agoI refused to by nest after google acquired it in 2014. And one would have to be completely stupid to think that any data going into a Google device is secure.
- cptskippy 7y agoJust so we understand it correctly. The LED is software controlled and therefore it being illuminated or dark signifies only that it's illuminated or dark and nothing more.
- jakewalker 7y agoWe use Nest cams for a baby/child monitor at nighttime. Haven’t seen the change yet, but I suspect it will make it so that this use case no longer works.
- timdorr 7y agoJust put a small bit of electrical tape over the LED. Problem solved.
- ALittleLight 7y agoI think some people prefer the asthetics of their electronics without tape
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- cracauer 7y agoThose LEDs should be in-series with the camera's sensor power circuit. No software control at all.
- dollar 7y agoI love that Google’s commitment to privacy is mucking with the LED on a camera instead of anything, you know, meaningful. Like, maybe not tracking your every movement, search, interest, thought, fear, and desire to turn you into clicks for money? Or hey, maybe give you total control of the information they collect on you? Nah, let’s turn the LED on and tout our commitment to privacy!
- halflings 7y ago> Or hey, maybe give you total control of the information they collect on you? What's wrong with "My Activity"? It gives you access to all data stored in your account and lets you delete all or pieces of it. https://myactivity.google.com/ https://myactivity.google.com/
- wolco 7y agoLet's you hide data. I'm not sure I believe it's deleted.
- qtplatypus 7y agoThat would cause problems with the GDPR and saying "We have deleted it" and then not deleting it is the type of thing that invites lawsuits.
- bigiain 7y ago"being able to prove they didn't delete it" is a somewhat higher bar that you probably need to at least consider before starting that lawsuit... I've been discussing/arguing recently about whether being able to prove you've deleted the encryption keys for PII that you have on on long term backups/archives is something we'd want to explain to a judge or jury while the opposing counsel keeps saying "But they didn't delete the data! Show me when they deleted the data!"
- vageli 7y ago
- sprite 7y agoThey should offer to buy back every camera or grandfather in existing cameras.
- twirlock 7y agoEveryone knows that only the intelligence community I mean Alphabet I mean Google is allowed to surreptitiously record everything about you they possibly can, without your knowledge or consent and regardless of what any law or public oversight says about it. Good on them for not being the most oppressive pile of fucking shit in the history of reality after all.
- exabrial 7y agoRight, unless the CIA asks nicely
- remote_phone 7y agoAs a Nest owner with multiple cameras, I find it hilarious that no real features have been introduced in years, and this is what they come up with instead. If they would spend more time shipping features I might not care as much but they have done nothing and instead they ship this stupid “feature”. They don’t allow us to train the cameras to ignore moving trees or shadows, repetitive noise like birds cawing, or fix their “familiar face” functionality. I’ve had complete strangers identified as being a familiar face, and I’ve also had cars identified as a familiar face. Google is a terrible consumer product company.
- StreamBright 7y agoBecause they are an ad company and ads revenue has nothing to do with your satisfaction.
- kempbellt 7y agoNot sure why this was downvoted - except maybe the "nothing to do with your satisfaction" part being a bit over exaggerated. Google's priority is ad rev. Everything else is secondary. It's like being an airplane engineer for a living, making great money, and then promising your neighbor that you'll fix the brakes on their car for 20 bucks. Maybe...one day, when you're bored, you'll get around to it, but it's definitely not your priority.
- StreamBright 7y ago> Google's priority is ad rev. Everything else is secondary. Exactly my point. Even your user experience, privacy, security, developer experience is secondary. There are many examples of these being ignored on the internet. I gave up on Android because of the broken UX. I cannot just keep turning off spellcheck on my phone/tablet after every Android update when it resets back to the defaults. iOS has much better UX from this point of view, I "waste" significantly less time on fighting with the OS.
- Urgo 7y agoMy thoughts exactly! I've had outdoor nest cameras for a couple of years now and was expecting at some point it'd learn that the trees moving or bugs flying across the camera were not interesting but nope...... we get this... It seems like I'm not the only one annoyed at nest lately though. I actually backed a indiegogo last week called Camect that hopefully will fix a lot of these issues and you don't even need to replace the nest cameras, though you can if you want to. I recommend checking it out!
- Overtonwindow 7y agoCouldn’t you just put a small piece of electrical tape over it?
- Animats 7y agoIf they were really concerned about privacy, they'd have a motorized cover for the camera. (That has potential as a product. Especially for things like Amazon's inside-your-house door camera.)
- FerretFred 7y agoIn over a year of Nest Outdoor Cam ownership, I can safely say that only one visitor has noticed our camera, despite its size, design and position. The lack of a lit LED idiot light has been instrumental in this and now Google have fcked it up. So it's black tape time, and fck you Google - stop making decisions on my behalf!
- pronouncedjerry 7y agohttps://twitter.com/dontbuynest https://twitter.com/dontbuynest
- ru999gol 7y agoI'm the total minority here obviously but anyhow.. First of all if you have a camera indicator light that you can turn off in the software what you have is a very fundamental lack of understanding in the first place. There is no point in indicator lights at all if you are let them be controlled by software. Second anyone who is using a cloud camera has automatically forfeit all right to his or her privacy, if you are this monumentally idiotic this insanely stupid to trust a random cloud provider with hundreds to thousands of hours of footage of your private home, you are so irresponsibly ignorant you should be arrested for it. Your children should sue you for the horrible privacy violation you committed on them and you should have to go to prison.
- Dayshine 7y agoUh, we're talking mainly about doorbell cameras, or using these cameras for security.
- anonu 7y agoWas there a catalyst for this change? It's a bit annoying that the byproduct of always being connected is that companies can control a product you own... I suppose you don't really own it if it's connected to a cloud service and that service is 90 percent of the functionality
- css 7y ago> As part of that commitment, we explained that you will always see a clear visual indicator when your Nest cameras are on and sending video and audio to Nest. Since the LED is now always on, this sounds like a euphemism for "you can't turn the camera off anymore"