Nest Reminds Customers That Ownership Isn't What It Used To Be (eff.org)

Alphabet-owned Nest recently announced that it will be turning off Revolv Hub next month. An anonymous reader shares an article on EFF, a privacy rights group: Nest Labs, a home automation company acquired by Google in 2014, will disable some of its customers' home automation control devices in May. This move is causing quite a stir among people who purchased the $300 Revolv Hub devices -- customers who reasonably expected that the promised "lifetime" of updates would enable the hardware they paid for to actually work, only to discover the manufacturer can turn their device into a useless brick when it so chooses. This is far from the first time that customers' software and electronics have been downgraded by manufacturers. Updates can disable features the customer paid for that have fallen out of favor with the vendor, as when Google disabled privacy settings on Android or Sony took away the ability to run GNU/Linux on a Playstation 3. Manufacturers can even render a device unusable until the customer "agrees" to new terms of use, as Nintendo did with the Wii U. Other software and devices, including some video games, are designed so they simply stop working when they can no longer dial home to a server run by the vendor.

Comments

This sh*t again?

[BarbaraHudson]

Look, we were already over this earlier this week, with the story that lied about them bricking the hubs. There's nothing to stop anyone from reverse-engineering the protocol and getting the devices to work as intended again - nothing but money. This is what you get for trusting the cloud.

You wanted an app that could work from your phone from anywhere else in the world? Either run your own server, pay someone else to, or do without the remote functionality.

Yet another IoT fail.

Re:This sh*t again?

[gstoddart]

Look, we were already over this earlier this week, with the story that lied about them bricking the hubs

The product will 100% stop working as sold. Period.

They don't even dance around it, here is Revolv's FAQ.

"What happens to my Revolv service?

As of May 15, 2016, Revolv service will no longer be available. The Revolve app won't open and the hub won't work"

Sure, it's not technically bricking the device, but they're throwing all functionality away, telling you it won't work, and basically saying you could feel free to replicate the service by writing your own app, server, and re-engineering the protocol to recreate what you have to recreate the functionality.

But it's a completely dishonest thing to claim that article lied about bricking the device.

You will 100% end up with a non-functioning device, and none of the parts to make it work without a considerable amount of engineering going into it. Like, a massive bit of engineering and creation of infrastructure.

This is kind of like Boeing saying they'll no longer support your aircraft, but you're free to go and build your own aircraft maintenance program by reverse engineering the plane you have. It's pretty much bullshit.

The product has neither functionality nor value without the stuff which makes it work, so for all intents and purposes, they really have bricked the damned thing, because it will entirely cease to function as sold to you.

The hub will DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING after that date. That's not just remote functionality, that's all of the damned functionality. And that's what Revolv's own FAQ says.

How you can claim that making it 100% useless is any different isn't the same as bricking is beyond me.

You hardware is now obsolete...

[__aaclcg7560]

Welcome to the future of the Internet of Everything!

Re:To any Canadians

[Anonymous Coward]

A good reminder as to why we americans consider canada our escape plan.

People are buying this stuff

[bangular]

I hate to say it, but the general population doesn't really care. If they did, they wouldn't buy/use this stuff and the companies would go out of business. It's not a situation where people aren't informed, they just don't care.

Re:Why don't they release the source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because limiting control to vendor-only is part of the "smart" in "smart home". If the owner (or "inhabitant") has control, then its automatically dumb and anti-progress. Your homes become the colonization ground for the big tech companies. And you even pay for it, willingly. What a great accomplishment of the marketing department.

If a majority of the people don't like it, the companies will find ways to lure them to do that deal. But they always will do products as restricted as possible, that still sell, because with that they can make most money. That's the new business model of the digital age. It will come to other areas too.

In the end we will have re-introduced serfdom, you don't own anything anymore, but the companies control every tiny part of your life. The owners of the companies will be the new upper class.

Re: It's not Nest, it's Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically Alphabet was created to protect the Google brand from the evil they do.

KISS

[Moof123]

Seriously, I've never had a light switch or door key get bricked by the manufacturer. The more I go through life the more I want less electronics in places where the value is dubious. My time is worth a lot, and having to unearth documentation, or deal with software revisions is a real pain. I want the Easy Button for all the day to day stuff I don't want to think about.

There will always that small subset (over represented here) that get joy and fulfillment fiddling with things for the sake of fiddling with things. In some parts of my life I am the same. Home automation is not one of them. Having the source code to compile my own distro for home automation is not desired, I want it so simple and bullet proof that I never have to think about it after installation, or I don't want it (no matter what "it" is).

My fridge should never phone home, get viruses, get bricked, lose/gain features, spy on me, or have a touch panel. It should make cold using the smallest amount of energy for as many years as possible, full stop.

Re:Google likes to hose hardware

[fermion]

One reason I did not buy a Nest was because Google bought it. Google does not have a good track record of supporting or maintaining consumer products. With software, particularly when they are giving it away, this is no problem. But with hardware that costs money, this is. Just another data point in not trusting Google.