As the owner of a nest thermometer, a couple nest cams, and a nest fire alarm I sure hope that nest reverses their policy on the Revolv hub. I have been pretty happy with my nest products so far, but this makes me seriously reconsider buying any more.
Well... they just told you: You don't really own those devices. You're paying upfront for a lease that lasts until they decide to deprecate the service. Yay, IoT!
Reminds me of a short scifi story I read in the ~1992, cant remember the title of the novel or the book it was published in :(
Deep space mission is send to a distant solar system where signals of civilisation have been discovered. As they approach the planet all the signs, radio waves, artificial lights, etc progressively disappear. Meanwhile on the planet we are introduced to the civilization that solved all of the world problems by providing everyone with a job, all thanks to invention of a timed catalyst able to disintegrate any matter after coded period. Every item on the planet is programmed to turn into dust when expired. Clothes one year, car 3 years etc, perfect planned obsolescence on a global scale. Unfortunately there is an accident at one of the catalyst producing plants at the time deep space mission approaches. Giant spill creates chain reaction eating everything on its way. Narrator goes back to the space mission, now landing on a barren planet, with astronauts embarking and looking around confused at the sight of an empty world.
Found it! It is "...et in pulverem reverteri", a short story by Janusz Zajdel, one of the best polish scifi writers, think Lem/Asimov/K.Dick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel
Just do what Japan does and put into place super strict vehicle maintenance and emissions standards...that go into full effect when the car is six or so years old. Though in this case it wouldn't be a truly complete obsolescence, since the owner could just spend more to keep up with the standards.
I was considering upgrading to a nest smart home, but this has shown they don't care about customers. They have lost my trust and gained animosity... I won't give them a penny and I will discourage anyone from buying their products.
Just stick with basic thermostats and controls. Using these over-engineered devices will be a nuisance if you decide to sell your property or temporarily hand over control to someone else. Never mind the problems with cloud based vendor lock-in.
I "own" a Nest Protect alarm. I liked it and was planning on outfitting the rest of the house with them during renovations this summer. I will not be buying any more Nest products/services now. The risk is too high to have them in my home.
I got given one for Christmas. It appears to work as advertised. But it also slightly spooks me that it is an Internet-connected black box with a microphone, and the kind of thing that under the UK's proposed Investigatory Powers Bill the government could probably insist be hacked to spy on me. (The microphone is used as part of the self-test routine, to check the thing is sounding properly).
INSTEON does a solid job. Their protocol is proprietary, but the devices aren't cloud dependent. You can either use a cloud hub device, or just a serial adapter to a PC or third party controller. They have no ability to take away my Insteon thermostat's functionality, or mine data from it. Because all translation of it's communication protocol goes through my computer, and is interpreted by open source software.
We bought a Dropcam, which worked great until they decided they no longer wanted our non-US credit card. Replaced with Ubiquiti UVC cameras. What a waste.
I think they'd have major legal issues to shutting off people's thermostats. Losing control over heat and cooling could be a major health and safety risk.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if nest cams were on the chopping block.. despite how many parents use them for monitoring infants.
You are reconsidering. And you admit that you are heavily personally invested in the brand. What will it take for you to not buy any of them any more?
We like to protect our investments. These investments are in time, money, effort and psychological face. We would rather wait and see if our investment still is worth something after all we put into it.
Brands, if we have invested in them sufficiently, are able to get away with much more than other companies because the consumers who have invested so much are unwilling to lose their investment.
