9 ms·

I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my b

I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Google AP and it still gets updates and I'm free to change the settings at any time. Another example was my old Nest thermostat. I was so excited to up-my-game and replace the old, crappy thermostat with something that could change the temperature based on the weather forecast. My happiness was short lived; Google purchased Nest and forced everyone to change over to their Google account. Then features stopped working. I finally had to remove the Nest and replace it with something else, mostly because Google just seemed to not care anymore.

goosedragons 3y ago
TBF Airport Extremes stopped getting updates years ago. The last update was 7.9.1 from 2019. Granted you can still change settings and not being able to do that after discontinuation is pretty inexcusable.
- doctor_eval 3y ago
  I scored a handful of these years ago, and they still run my house internet. Airport utility still works too. On all devices. They are great little APs.
knolan 3y ago
I love my Time Capsule. It worked flawlessly for a nearly a decade when the disk inevitably failed. I still use it in my office for backups with a new disk. I wish Apple still made them and made swapping disks tool free.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I had an AirPort Express as an audio bridge to my stereo for years, maybe a decade? Thing was bullet-proof and the only reason I finally put it down was all the new stereos have built-in casting of some sort. https://www.ebay.com/itm/203874699472 https://www.ebay.com/itm/203874699472 was great, had everything you could want in a compact size, and was compatible with the power adapter cables (which are still the same these days)!
- katbyte 3y ago
  Is time capsule any different the Time Machine backups to networked eogtage?
  - knolan 3y ago
    No, but the hardware was neat.
largepeepee 3y ago
I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default. Such a pity, Google used to be the most respected of the SV big tech.
- hackernewds 3y ago
  I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.
  - Drakim 3y ago
    It's crazy, when I remove the YouTube Shorts pane it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days". It feels like a slap to the face by some promotion seeking Google Manager who tells me that he knows better than me. It's crazy. I didn't stop using YouTube like you did but I was darn close. I guess they do know better than me, in a way.
    - robin_reala 3y ago
      It’s the same in Instagram: removing recommended posts only has an option to remove for 30 days. The consistent enshittification of products with these sorts of behaviours just makes me want to use them less. Unfortunately I’m sure they’ve got data that shows that my reaction is a minority.
      - netsharc 3y ago
        Black Mirror anyone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=99&v=5P_HqwgDFJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=99&v=5P_HqwgDFJM Fascinatingly this content is narrated by a robot voice...
    - 3y ago
hackernewds 3y ago
Same happened to me with investing in the Fitbit ecosystem. Hope they don't botch Reminders next with their migrations to Tasks
- voakbasda 3y ago
  When Google bought Fitbit, ours went in a drawer. We know how they operate, so we outright do not trust them. I wonder how many other people take a similar approach to products that Google buys.
yellow_mixer 3y ago
If you’re looking for a good read, pick up a copy of Tony Fadell’s “Build”. There are a few interesting chapters where he writes about the process of selling Nest to Google.
MR4D 3y ago
The Nest situation is actually even worse - you specifically need a Gmail account on a Google domain. If you have a Google hosted domain on gmail like I do, it won’t work. I’ll never buy a nest again either.
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  Why is that such a problem. Just make a throwaway account that you log into once a year for the nest. Just like you would if it was some other random company(create a new account).
linsomniac 3y ago
That is the TP-Link router, right? I had one of those, recently replaced it with a used Ruckus R610, and oddly enough, the coverage of a single R610 seems to beat the coverage of 4 of the Google WiFi points.
titzer 3y ago
Prior to replacing my furnace I had a mercury thermostat that was easily over 50 years old. The new one is digital but isn't "smart". I don't expect 50 years, but 20-30 seems reasonable. Somehow software people have forgotten that physical things last a long time, and people want them to keep working and stay the same as long as possible. My thermostat doesn't need "upgrades", and anyone who thinks they are going to "upgrade" my home remotely via software can get fucked.
- 13of40 3y ago
  Same here, but I want to say some bad things about old thermostats. My first house had propane heating, in a big tank that they would periodically come by and fill, so I had a visceral connection to how much fuel I was using. The previous owner had left the original 1960s mercury thermostats running the place, which meant that barring any initiative on my end the temperature was the same no matter if I was sleeping, at work, or whatever else it is people do. When I finally got around to replacing it with a digital programmable one, it cut my propane bill in half. Do you need to hook it to your smart phone? No, that's dumb. Do you need to choose between bleeding money vs. adjusting everything manually as part of your daily routine, like your grandfather winding the hallway clock? No, also dumb. Local digital is the way to go.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Even that isn't a binary decision (haha). I have a 60 year old dumb analog thermostat and it solves that problem by having a big knob on it with time to set Heating and Cooling. No winding required.
  - Espressosaurus 3y ago
    That's what the parent is saying. The new digital thermostats have some nice features without the stupidity that is IoT connectivity that allows the parent corporation to screw you over when they get bored. I personally would not consider anything IoT because anything connected to the internet is a) a vector for intrusion into my network and b) has a lifetime measured in single digit years. Anything going into a home should realistically have a lifetime of at minimum ten years. For capital improvements like a furnace or thermometer connected to it (or a washing machine, or a stove), it should be measured in decades. Even lightbulbs aren't that disposable anymore thanks to LEDs. Google discards things after a handful of years. Anything cellphone related has a lifetime of 5 years max, and for most it's more like 2 to 3. Keep that shit away from my home and my car.
13of40 3y ago
It's kind of the way of the world now, not just Google. I've accumulated a ton of stuff that just doesn't work anymore or works in a crippled local-only mode because the service doesn't exist anymore or drivers/software stopped getting updates. What's really sad is buying something, having a little bit of fun with it, then going back to it a year or two later and finding out it's a brick now. Or just buying something "new" and finding out it was born into the grave.
SomeHacker44 3y ago
Recently I noticed I could not turn my Nest thermostat "off" anymore, on the device or on the app. Wait, what??? Any ideas?
- toast0 3y ago
  I've never seen that? But pull it off the baseplate and it'll be off. ;p
ksec 3y ago
>I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. Apart from increasing ad revenue, there isn't a single thing that Google's leadership has been succeeding.
dheera 3y ago
> Another example was my old Nest thermostat. Speaking of Nest, I got rate limited trying to access images from my own Nest camera. WTF? I paid for it and I own it. I will get as much rate from it as the hardware can support.
jahewson 3y ago
I’m using Nest without a Google Account. It nags me to migrate but I’ve never done so. I deleted my Google account because I was using a custom domain and Google moved that functionality to Workspace and wanted to charge for it, while half of Google products don’t support it fully and there was no migration path to a regular account. I could pay for something broken or loose all my data. So I wrote some scripts and migrated to iCloud.
sho_hn 3y ago
Hardware companies get a lot of flak for inadquate software. On the other hand, software companies have no idea what kind of commitment it means to launch a product line. Hardware companies don't do this without determining lifespan/support window ahead of time and designing for it; sw companies basically do whatever, you can always shut it down.
ChuckMcM 3y ago
I could not agree more with this sentiment. On an abstract level it is really interesting to me to see if this is how open source eventually wins all the things. I have an ASUS WiFi AP that has been running DD-WRT->OpenWRT for 15 years at this point (changing the underlying hardware twice, once to get 802.11n, and again to get 802.11ac). I look forward to the day when there are "standard schematics" for this sort of gear which has the level of interoperability that has been achieved in USB and WiFi.
- Corrado 3y ago
  Funnily enough, there used to be "standard schematics" provided with electronic things. I think my first computer (VIC-20?) had pretty detailed information on the external ports (joystick, power, printer, etc.) I also look forward to the time when we get back what we used to have.
flanbiscuit 3y ago
I had the same router they stopped supporting, it worked great but I ended up buying their newer nest wifi because I also wanted a mesh point. They work great as well. I am waiting for the day they also stop supporting them. What's the alternative? What company makes good routers that would get updates over many years? My guess is that I should be looking at ones where I can flash a open source firmware (OpenWRT?)
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >What company makes good routers that would get updates over many years? My guess is that I should be looking at ones where I can flash a open source firmware (OpenWRT?) Yes, that's exactly it. You have to look for routers that are well-supported by OpenWRT or DD-WRT or Tomato. You can't trust any company to support their product over a very long time period any more.
George83728 3y ago
For all their faults (I no longer buy their products) Apple is, or at least traditionally was, a company that makes money by making and selling things, so they try to be good at making things. Google is an advertising company that occasionally tries making and selling things to cope with the insecurity they feel about being an advertising company. But they've never been good at it and never will be.
rektide 3y ago
It'll be interesting to see if this repeats. I have a little bit of sympathy for eliminating a 6 year old wifi router, largely because it was built around some Qualcomm chipsets on what was probably at that time a 2+ year old linux kernel. This is Qualcomm's fault. Qualcomm provides awful Board Support Packages with limited shelf life. Qualcomm makes disposable products. Now, I do think it's awful that Google built thing in such a way that the router is entirely unconfigurable after it runs out of support. That's absurd. But I do pity Google for using one of the only options available to them & it being an absolute awful unsupportable shit show. It's part Qualcomm & part community, but we are starting to see a lot more work upstreaming Qualcomm drivers. It gives me hope that some of the openwrt routers folks buy today will remain good & usable & secure & reasonably capable, even in 10, 15, even 20 years.
Trias11 3y ago
I used Nest and my experience was that no matter settings I configure, Google always override something with what "they think" is better for me. We eventually sold the house, otherwise frustration would continue

goosedragons 3y ago

TBF Airport Extremes stopped getting updates years ago. The last update was 7.9.1 from 2019. Granted you can still change settings and not being able to do that after discontinuation is pretty inexcusable.

doctor_eval 3y ago
I scored a handful of these years ago, and they still run my house internet. Airport utility still works too. On all devices. They are great little APs.

knolan 3y ago

I love my Time Capsule. It worked flawlessly for a nearly a decade when the disk inevitably failed. I still use it in my office for backups with a new disk. I wish Apple still made them and made swapping disks tool free.

bombcar 3y ago
I had an AirPort Express as an audio bridge to my stereo for years, maybe a decade? Thing was bullet-proof and the only reason I finally put it down was all the new stereos have built-in casting of some sort. https://www.ebay.com/itm/203874699472 https://www.ebay.com/itm/203874699472 was great, had everything you could want in a compact size, and was compatible with the power adapter cables (which are still the same these days)!
katbyte 3y ago
Is time capsule any different the Time Machine backups to networked eogtage?
- knolan 3y ago
  No, but the hardware was neat.

largepeepee 3y ago

I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default. Such a pity, Google used to be the most respected of the SV big tech.

hackernewds 3y ago
I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.
- Drakim 3y ago
  It's crazy, when I remove the YouTube Shorts pane it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days". It feels like a slap to the face by some promotion seeking Google Manager who tells me that he knows better than me. It's crazy. I didn't stop using YouTube like you did but I was darn close. I guess they do know better than me, in a way.
  - robin_reala 3y ago
    It’s the same in Instagram: removing recommended posts only has an option to remove for 30 days. The consistent enshittification of products with these sorts of behaviours just makes me want to use them less. Unfortunately I’m sure they’ve got data that shows that my reaction is a minority.
    - netsharc 3y ago
      Black Mirror anyone? https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=99&v=5P_HqwgDFJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=99&v=5P_HqwgDFJM Fascinatingly this content is narrated by a robot voice...
  - 3y ago

hackernewds 3y ago

Same happened to me with investing in the Fitbit ecosystem. Hope they don't botch Reminders next with their migrations to Tasks

voakbasda 3y ago
When Google bought Fitbit, ours went in a drawer. We know how they operate, so we outright do not trust them. I wonder how many other people take a similar approach to products that Google buys.

yellow_mixer 3y ago

If you’re looking for a good read, pick up a copy of Tony Fadell’s “Build”. There are a few interesting chapters where he writes about the process of selling Nest to Google.

MR4D 3y ago

The Nest situation is actually even worse - you specifically need a Gmail account on a Google domain. If you have a Google hosted domain on gmail like I do, it won’t work. I’ll never buy a nest again either.

therealdrag0 3y ago
Why is that such a problem. Just make a throwaway account that you log into once a year for the nest. Just like you would if it was some other random company(create a new account).

linsomniac 3y ago

That is the TP-Link router, right? I had one of those, recently replaced it with a used Ruckus R610, and oddly enough, the coverage of a single R610 seems to beat the coverage of 4 of the Google WiFi points.

titzer 3y ago

Prior to replacing my furnace I had a mercury thermostat that was easily over 50 years old. The new one is digital but isn't "smart". I don't expect 50 years, but 20-30 seems reasonable. Somehow software people have forgotten that physical things last a long time, and people want them to keep working and stay the same as long as possible. My thermostat doesn't need "upgrades", and anyone who thinks they are going to "upgrade" my home remotely via software can get fucked.

13of40 3y ago
Same here, but I want to say some bad things about old thermostats. My first house had propane heating, in a big tank that they would periodically come by and fill, so I had a visceral connection to how much fuel I was using. The previous owner had left the original 1960s mercury thermostats running the place, which meant that barring any initiative on my end the temperature was the same no matter if I was sleeping, at work, or whatever else it is people do. When I finally got around to replacing it with a digital programmable one, it cut my propane bill in half. Do you need to hook it to your smart phone? No, that's dumb. Do you need to choose between bleeding money vs. adjusting everything manually as part of your daily routine, like your grandfather winding the hallway clock? No, also dumb. Local digital is the way to go.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Even that isn't a binary decision (haha). I have a 60 year old dumb analog thermostat and it solves that problem by having a big knob on it with time to set Heating and Cooling. No winding required.
- Espressosaurus 3y ago
  That's what the parent is saying. The new digital thermostats have some nice features without the stupidity that is IoT connectivity that allows the parent corporation to screw you over when they get bored. I personally would not consider anything IoT because anything connected to the internet is a) a vector for intrusion into my network and b) has a lifetime measured in single digit years. Anything going into a home should realistically have a lifetime of at minimum ten years. For capital improvements like a furnace or thermometer connected to it (or a washing machine, or a stove), it should be measured in decades. Even lightbulbs aren't that disposable anymore thanks to LEDs. Google discards things after a handful of years. Anything cellphone related has a lifetime of 5 years max, and for most it's more like 2 to 3. Keep that shit away from my home and my car.

13of40 3y ago

It's kind of the way of the world now, not just Google. I've accumulated a ton of stuff that just doesn't work anymore or works in a crippled local-only mode because the service doesn't exist anymore or drivers/software stopped getting updates. What's really sad is buying something, having a little bit of fun with it, then going back to it a year or two later and finding out it's a brick now. Or just buying something "new" and finding out it was born into the grave.

SomeHacker44 3y ago

Recently I noticed I could not turn my Nest thermostat "off" anymore, on the device or on the app. Wait, what??? Any ideas?

toast0 3y ago
I've never seen that? But pull it off the baseplate and it'll be off. ;p

ksec 3y ago

>I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. Apart from increasing ad revenue, there isn't a single thing that Google's leadership has been succeeding.

dheera 3y ago

> Another example was my old Nest thermostat. Speaking of Nest, I got rate limited trying to access images from my own Nest camera. WTF? I paid for it and I own it. I will get as much rate from it as the hardware can support.

jahewson 3y ago

I’m using Nest without a Google Account. It nags me to migrate but I’ve never done so. I deleted my Google account because I was using a custom domain and Google moved that functionality to Workspace and wanted to charge for it, while half of Google products don’t support it fully and there was no migration path to a regular account. I could pay for something broken or loose all my data. So I wrote some scripts and migrated to iCloud.

sho_hn 3y ago

Hardware companies get a lot of flak for inadquate software. On the other hand, software companies have no idea what kind of commitment it means to launch a product line. Hardware companies don't do this without determining lifespan/support window ahead of time and designing for it; sw companies basically do whatever, you can always shut it down.

ChuckMcM 3y ago

I could not agree more with this sentiment. On an abstract level it is really interesting to me to see if this is how open source eventually wins all the things. I have an ASUS WiFi AP that has been running DD-WRT->OpenWRT for 15 years at this point (changing the underlying hardware twice, once to get 802.11n, and again to get 802.11ac). I look forward to the day when there are "standard schematics" for this sort of gear which has the level of interoperability that has been achieved in USB and WiFi.

Corrado 3y ago
Funnily enough, there used to be "standard schematics" provided with electronic things. I think my first computer (VIC-20?) had pretty detailed information on the external ports (joystick, power, printer, etc.) I also look forward to the time when we get back what we used to have.

flanbiscuit 3y ago

I had the same router they stopped supporting, it worked great but I ended up buying their newer nest wifi because I also wanted a mesh point. They work great as well. I am waiting for the day they also stop supporting them. What's the alternative? What company makes good routers that would get updates over many years? My guess is that I should be looking at ones where I can flash a open source firmware (OpenWRT?)

midoridensha 3y ago
>What company makes good routers that would get updates over many years? My guess is that I should be looking at ones where I can flash a open source firmware (OpenWRT?) Yes, that's exactly it. You have to look for routers that are well-supported by OpenWRT or DD-WRT or Tomato. You can't trust any company to support their product over a very long time period any more.

George83728 3y ago

For all their faults (I no longer buy their products) Apple is, or at least traditionally was, a company that makes money by making and selling things, so they try to be good at making things. Google is an advertising company that occasionally tries making and selling things to cope with the insecurity they feel about being an advertising company. But they've never been good at it and never will be.

rektide 3y ago

It'll be interesting to see if this repeats. I have a little bit of sympathy for eliminating a 6 year old wifi router, largely because it was built around some Qualcomm chipsets on what was probably at that time a 2+ year old linux kernel. This is Qualcomm's fault. Qualcomm provides awful Board Support Packages with limited shelf life. Qualcomm makes disposable products. Now, I do think it's awful that Google built thing in such a way that the router is entirely unconfigurable after it runs out of support. That's absurd. But I do pity Google for using one of the only options available to them & it being an absolute awful unsupportable shit show. It's part Qualcomm & part community, but we are starting to see a lot more work upstreaming Qualcomm drivers. It gives me hope that some of the openwrt routers folks buy today will remain good & usable & secure & reasonably capable, even in 10, 15, even 20 years.

Trias11 3y ago

I used Nest and my experience was that no matter settings I configure, Google always override something with what "they think" is better for me. We eventually sold the house, otherwise frustration would continue