Alphabet's Nest To Deliberately Brick Revolv Hubs

Nest, a Google-owned company, will deliberately break one of its own products come May 15. The company has announced plans to disable Revolv, a hub that allows customers to electronically control lights in their homes. Entrepreneur Arlo Gilbert raises some important questions: Google/Nest's decision raises an interesting question. When software and hardware are intertwined, does a warranty mean you stop supporting the hardware or does it mean that the manufacturer can intentionally disable it without consequence? Tony Fadell seems to believe the latter. Tony believes he has the right to reach into your home and pull the plug on your Nest products. [...] To be clear, they are not simply ceasing to support the product, rather they are advising customers that on May 15th a container of hummus will actually be infinitely more useful than the Revolv hub. Google is intentionally bricking hardware that I own. That's a pretty blatant "fuck you" to every person who trusted in them and bought their hardware. They didn't post this notice until long after Google had made the acquisition, so these are Google's words under Tony Fadell's direction. Revolv was acquired by Nest in 2014, and it is believed that all Nest wanted from the acquisition was talent and workforce. An older version of Revolv website reveals that its hub was marketed to have "free lifetime service subscription," "free monthly updates for additional device support," and "free future firmware updates to automatically activate new radios." James Grimmelmann, a professor of Law, tweeted, "I didn't realize that Revolv promised free lifetime service. That makes the shutdown a deceptive trade practice as well as an unfair one." Aaron Parecki, co-founder of IndieWebCamp, wrote, "Your friendly reminder that without open standards, you're not "buying" smarthome hardware, you're renting it."

Comments

Put Lifetime in quotes

[Anonymous Coward]

I've found that "lifetime" warranties are often for the product's lifetime, not the life of the owner.

So a lifetime warranty on a dishwasher might be 10 years. Not sure how they get away with that, but I've seen it more than once.

Re:Put Lifetime in quotes

[Registered Coward v2]

I would imagine (hope?) that at the very least the "lifetime" period is specified in the fine print somewhere.

From their FAQ:

The Revolv Lifetime Subscription, which is included in the $299 you pay for the solution, enables GeoSense automation and remote updates that allows your Revolv to work together seamlessly (and continually update) with the products you already own; for the lifetime of the product.

It would appear they have decided to euthanize the product an thus it has reached date end of its lifetime.

The question, as I see it, is given the vague definition of lifetime in the FAQ, and absent any clearer one in the TOS that everyone reads in great detail too be sure they understand what they really are getting and not just click "Accept" does Google's EOL'ing of the Revolv constitute a breach of the promise of lifetime service? The products are still serviceable except for the lack of a server, so should there be a remedy for the people whose live once revolved around home automation but are now at a standstill due to Google's actions?

Re:Put Lifetime in quotes

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK the expected lifetime of a product is determined by courts. For something like a laptop computer, it's typically 5-6 years, for example. It depends on the cost of the product, how it was marketed, what a "reasonable person" (legal term) would expect etc.

We actually have really great consumer laws covering this. If something breaks during a manufacturing/design defect within it's reasonable lifetime you can get a fix or partial refund. For example, if a laptop expected to last five years broke in year four due to a flawed cooling system you could get a 20% refund.

I don't even know what exactly this thing is supposed to be, but it's some kind of home control system so courts would probably lump it in with stuff like light switches and consumer units. Reasonable lifespan of 10 years or more. This seems to be very much a design flaw (can be remotely bricked by discontinuation of the service) so you could probably take the vendor to Small Claims Court and win.

It's the vendor that pays out, not the manufacturer. That's why Amazon had to partially refund that guy whose PS3 had the "other OS" feature remotely deleted by Sony.

Re:Nest biggest problem is Google

[Godai]

You realize that was debunked, right?

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1...

I mean, it's great because it fits the assumed narrative, but there's actually no evidence to back up the claim.

That doesn't apply to this Revolv thing though; I have no idea what the hell they're thinking here at all.

Re:“Intentionally Bricked”

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Basically what I’m trying to say is read the fine print and check your entitlement. You chose to pay money for a product that was dependent on someone else’s charity to keep working.

The not-so-fine print at the time of purchase actually said "Free lifetime service subscription." That sure sounds like an a liability the parties would have had on their radar when valuing the acquisition. In fact, after the acquisition was complete, Nest reiterated the commitment: "For existing customers, the service will continue to be available and we will continue to offer customer support."

Reasonable people thus might well view the ongoing service as something more along the lines of a contractual obligation rather than an "entitlement" or "charity."