Nest Will Now Work With Your Door Locks, Light Bulbs and More

An anonymous reader writes with news about 15 new brand partnerships Nest announced today. "When Google purchased Nest Labs – the maker of Internet-connected thermostats and smoke detectors – the search engine giant saw the potential to create a software platform for controlling the myriad everyday devices and gadgets in consumers' homes, a central hub for the so-called "Internet of things." This vision took a major step towards becoming reality Monday morning, when Nest announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that 15 new partners were joining its "Works with Nest" developer program. Soon, everything from washing machines to light bulbs will be connected with the Nest platform."

Comments

Internet of Hype ...

[gstoddart]

A bunch of people with money they need to part with. The rest of us will continue to not give a crap.

I neither trust, nor do I want this ecosystem of interconnected crap which puts my house on the internet so that I can access it via my fscking cell phone.

So, buy into this, suckers. Get your house hacked, or your personal habits sold, or whatever.

I'm going to continue to assume that most of the vendors jumping on this are a) interested in the analytics data for advertising, and b) grossly incompetent/indifferent to security. I trust neither the intention nor the competence of these companies.

Get off my damned lawn with your pointless gizmos. I have a key and a programmable thermostat which isn't connected to the interweb.

Re:Internet of Hype ...

[TechyImmigrant]

>I neither trust, nor do I want this ecosystem of interconnected crap which puts my house on the internet so that I can access it via my fscking cell phone.

If a hacker wants to pwn my thermostat, that's probably the least of my problems.
However being able to set the thermostat with my phone is excellent.

If there are other excellent internet connected gizmos for which control by smartphone is excellent, I'll be buying them. But I don't see the door lock being one of those things due to the more significant security issue.

Re:Internet of Hype ...

[dontbemad]

It never ceases to amaze me how "stop liking what I don't like" posts get moderated to +5 Insightful.

Where is the insight here? Other than the clear insight into the poster's fear of experimental, new technologies and applications.

Re:Internet of Hype ...

[gstoddart]

Hey, in all honesty, you are free to conclude I'm a crank. That's OK, my wife would agree with you.

But after 20 years in the tech industry, and 30+ years playing with technology ... this is just another new bit of hype, which stands at least a 50/50 chance of utterly failing, and which provides little compelling need for 99% of us.

Go ahead, fetishize technology, lament how we don't have flying cars, and walk around all pie eyed and dreamy about the awesome future. I've seen enough to assume it never turns out as rosy as promised, and comes with a new bag of shit most people didn't think of.

I'm not saying "stop liking what I don't like", because I don't give a rats ass what you like.

I am saying that, like Microsoft's Smart Home they've been hawking for 15-20 years ... this is overhyped technology which will never see the light of day for most people, and which is purely in the domain of people who have surplus money they wish to part with. It's the epitome of first world problems, and should be treated as such.

For the most part, I consider most forms of futurists to be deluded people who think The Next Big Thing is going to change all of our lives. And in 20 years will be laughed at in by going through old issues of Popular Mechanics.

Of course, these days, nobody will have a stack of old blogs, so they won't even remember it.

Once you've seen a bunch of "Next Big Things" become last years "Dumb Fucking Idea", it becomes a default position. :-P

Re:Internet of Hype ...

[gstoddart]

Nope. It's a thermostat. It works. It's $100 one time and you stick it on your wall.

No, you're kind of missing the point.

See, we already all have those now. Nest doesn't really bring anything new here until you connect it to the internet.

What I'm saying is the entire Nest platform, with it's interweb connnnectivity, and sending all of your data to Google ... that's the thing I expect/hope to fail.

Let's not confuse the reality (phone controlled thermostats) with the strawman (smart homes riddled with security flaws).

I can almost guarantee you that Nest has a security flaw in it. That the mechanism by which you can control your thermostat with a cell phone will have a security flaws in it. And that the companies who make things for this ecosystem will create crap with security flaws in it.

If you think it is either possible or likely these things don't have security holes in them, you probably haven't been paying attention. Because companies who make internet connected devices are either indifferent or incompetent when it comes to security.

There is no straw man here.

This is technology, which is piggy backing on smart phones and the internet, providing marketing and analytics data to the mother ship, and which almost certainly will be demonstrated to be exploitable.

I think the entire premise of the Nest ecosystem is of dubious value, and of even less reliable security.

I think having a Nest thermostat means you already have a "smart" home riddled with security flaws. And every connection point to that doubles the ways in which it can be exploited. And, it makes sure Google has access to information from inside your home it never had before.

I'll pass on the entire technology. Because, as I initially said, I trust neither the intentions, integrity, or ability to implement security of anybody involved in this.

Re:Internet of Hype ...

[gstoddart]

Connecting it to the internet makes it even more

Stupid.

Sorry, but no. Having my house connected to the internet doesn't sound like it has any upsides to me.

Having it providing all of that information to Google and who knows who else ... well, that's kind of my point. I don't want a thermostat and technology infrastructure in my house whose privacy policy can be rewritten any time they like.

I'll give you a privacy policy: no internet connections to crap like thermostats and washing machines; No security problems, and no problems which originate from Google et al being bigger assholes than they admit to.

I'm not prepared to provide my location information to Google so that it knows I'm not home. Fuck that.

If I'm on the tinfoil hat end of the spectrum ... WTF would I add connectivity to my house for random appliances and enable more tracking for?

I'm staunchly against that kind of crap. I have no interest in that kind of crap. I'm actively avoiding that kind of crap. Nest is precisely that kind of crap in my opinion, and therefore not trustworthy.

Most of us recognize you're as get-off-my-lawn of a regular as Slashdot has

LOL ... that's the nicest thing anybody has said to me so far this year. ;-)

Is the NSA/FBI/Local Police on that partnership?

[RingDev]

"Nest Will Now Work With Your Door Locks, Light Bulbs and More"

So anyone who can access your Nest network can now determine your living habits and unlock doors on demand?

I'm not typically a paranoid libertarian, but really, there are some things I'm 100% fine with handling on a closed network or with my own two hands.

-Rick

Will it load my washer for me

[Anonymous Coward]

If not, then what's the point?

Re:I want this, why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it can be both.

I'm just waiting for the day when some internet thugs not just encrypt your data, but hold your whole house for ransom until you pay up.

Get ready...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You will be able to unlock your front door after viewing this short ad."

Here's the insight

[Okian Warrior]

It never ceases to amaze me how "stop liking what I don't like" posts get moderated to +5 Insightful.

Where is the insight here? Other than the clear insight into the poster's fear of experimental, new technologies and applications.

The insight is that this is a subscription model without subscription value. It's an MBA thing, and comes from studying the model without the context in which it is successful.

Companies see the subscription model as a cash revenue source, and there are several successful examples currently working: NetFlix, iTunes, internet service, phone service, and so on. Get your customers to sign up and sit back and watch the money roll in.

The problem is when the subscription model doesn't give ongoing service. Fitness monitors comes to mind - you purchase the unit to measure your daily activity level, but you *have* to use their online service to see your results. You can't [easily] download the data to your local computer, and the interface is obscured or encrypted to prevent the user from intercepting it.

There's no reason for the online subscription, except that it makes money for the company. People eventually realize this and stop using the service and the devices fade into obscurity. See CueCat for an example: This *might* have been useful and *might* have defined a paradigm for website tie-ins in print media, except that the User has to register with zip code, gender, and E-mail address, and the vendor has to purchase a code. Little or no functionality and registration required.

Companies are drooling over this IOT stuff because they see it as a subscription model and they can sell the user info for even more money, but they don't realize that there is no real value being given in exchange for the subscription. There's really little value in being able to turn your furnace up/down remotely, or unlock your door remotely, or start your dishwasher remotely... and absolutely no reason to do this under a subscription model.

Joel Spolsky's term for this is "feeble business idea". The attractiveness of the model outweighs the impracticality of the solution.