Slashdot Mirror
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.
Dear Canucks, under your provincial consumer protection laws(varies by province) you are likely entitled to a full refund of the product price regardless of when you bought it. Revocation of a lifetime agreement, even when the company is bought out is considered a breach of said warranty and support agreement under the law, and you are permitted to a full refund. Remember, if refused it only costs $20-40 to file in small claims court over this, and you do not have to settle for arbitration in Canada, jumping through that hoop is not required.
Om, nomnomnom...
They disabled LTE on my Nexus 4 with an update. Nothing like a "flagship" device that has 3G...
Why doesn't Google just release the source code and/or the protocols needed to make it work? They can keep proprietary bits that they don't own the source for (radio drivers, etc) as closed source blobs and open the rest of the code that they own.
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.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Welcome to the future of the Internet of Everything!
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.
I wonder if the high level of technological obsolescence (whether planned or just practical) makes the notion of "lifetime support" kind of wink-and-a-nod sort of thing where most people think that lifetime only matters for the next three years and that nobody really expects support for the next 10 years.
If technology lasted as long as my washer-dryer, I might take lifetime more seriously.
(Yes, you in the back taking notes on a Palm Pilot, you are an outlier.)
It's just that all those lovely cloud servers it relies on to do useful stuff will go away. You still own the hardware though. Feel free to use it as a paperweight or door stop all you like.
As an aside, are there any decent non-cloud-dependent home automation controllers that a) don't cost a fortune (aka most commercially available ones), b) actually work properly*, and c) work with common off-the-shelf protocols like zigbee and zwave?
*and by that, I mean something who's primary property isn't being a Rube Goldberg contest entry?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
We are shutting down your pacemaker at the end of this month as we are focusing on artificial hearts instead.
We recommend getting your affairs in order prior to that date.
As a sign of thanks for your years of loyalty, we've randomly picked the exact time that your pacemaker will stop working, so your actual death will still be genuine surprise.
We hope you continue to use our products for years to come,
Technically it's Alphabet which owns Google which purchased Nest and brought it under the Alphabet umbrella. Nest is still an independent company and calling their own shots for the most part.
Yet another example of:
"The lesson everyone should take from this is: you don't own something which requires a network connection and can be updated via the network."
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/03/cisco-locks-customers-out-of-t.html
Technically Alphabet was created to protect the Google brand from the evil they do.
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.
Verizon just recently discontinued their XBOX and Smart TV apps, giving us exactly two weeks notice. I was using this service to avoid renting cable boxes at $10/mo each. When I called to complain they said "Rent some cable boxes." Instead I used the opportunity to cut the cord. Bye Bye Verizon!
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
he Internet of Things falls into a few categories:
1) Devices that are to be used against you.
Example: The "Smart Meters", which form a 'mesh' network, and can be turned off remotely to 'save power', etc. Water meters have been made doing the same thing, "to save water". Expect them to first be 'voluntary', and then 'mandatory'. Usage patterns will then be flagged, for 'suspicious' behavior.
2) Devices that function like the extension of the supermarket loyalty card.
Example: The "Smart refrigerator" which keeps track of your diet, what's inside, and what your ordering from the supermarket. All helpfully passed onto 3rd party marketeers. You are the product being sold.
3) Devices that monitor you for 3rd parties.
Examples: Smart TVs & Consoles. The smart device watches you, while you watch it. I've read that some refuse to work if they are unplugged from the internet (I think one example was LG TV). I've also read that the manufacturers have worked on image recognition, so they can keep track of who comes & goes during which program segments, to help tailor the audience for advertisers.
Obviously, I'm a Luddite, and have none of these devices. But I also don't believe that my personal life is any business of an uninvited 3rd party, nor do I believe that when I purchase an appliance, it's the right of the manufacturer to maintain control of it.
no. you are just doing mental gymnastics to justify their theft. my deed says i own the property my house sits on. i never signed anything placing my house as collateral if i failed to pay "rent" on the land.
they are taking what's not theirs and the law needs to be changed.
Business is too one sided. The buyers need to be much more assertive regarding their rights. When a company abandons a product, they should not be allowed to have any rights over it. It all has to be put into the public domain. If we don't demand it, then we will continue to suffer.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I get the point with the Nest that It's easy to configure through a web browser on a computer screen compared to the typical programmable thermostat, with a tiny monochrome screen and something like three buttons. The thing is that you don't really need to go through a cloud service to accomplish that. They could implement it like the internal configuration page of a broadband router or a printer, operating only within your own LAN. That's how I would want such a device to operate. If you really wanted to adjust your heat from outside, you could use a remote desktop application to get into your LAN. Any statistics could be computed and kept right on the device. There is just no benefit to the consumer of using a cloud service for these functions that I can think of. So, I think the Nest was designed to be a data collection device. It was not designed to serve the customer.
I would like to see a button in Android that disables all Google functions, applications, and connectivity to Google servers.
The FCC, or perhaps the FTC, would be wise to force this.
I would rather not see the European Union mandate this "forced feature" - the U.S. still lacks the "right to be forgotten" (AFAIK).
There are many who omit gapps when they load Cyanogenmod, but the carriers are making a wipe of /system increasingly difficult.
There are times when I want Google completely off of my devices. I own the device, it's my prerogative, and I would very much like to see a legal entity with appropriate jurisdiction make it happen.
why I refuse to put any of my home systems under control of anything that depends on the Net to function. I've been looking for simple Bluetooth-enabled thermostats (etc.) for a long time, and Nest is not the solution.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
It was always "Don't, be evil".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Just wondering why the main story links to another slashdot article, which itself doesn't track back to any original "source" article. Revolv.com is more concise and without the vitriol. I can appreciate commentary now and again, but reading "news" through somebody else's interpretation and opinions - which I don't necessarily share... Is there an RSS expectation and formatting convention that prevents linking to source pages, or is the slashdot feed automated and posts a link to whatever web address is supplied by a post submitter?
Didn't you get the memo? We're Libertarians. We don't like taxes, government, or civilization. Oh, and we put the rights of the business ahead of the rights of the individual. I've been hearing people tell me that's what I believe for a while now. The funny thing is, I was with the party when they were first getting going - way back in the 1970s. Well, they'd been around a bit before that but things started to get a bit formal then.
And yet, I've never once minded paying my taxes. I don't even complain about my taxes.
What's funny is they say go to Somalia. I've been. They're not suffering from a lack of government. No, they've got more government than the EU and the USA combined. They're governed left, right, and center. It's no less a government when it's a war lord. It's just not an officially recognized government - it's still a government and they've got a whole bunch of 'em. Hell, they've got paperwork and bureaucracy too.
Really, the misconception is kind of silly. It's like they don't actually notice the whole "liberty" part of the word. You don't get a whole lot of liberties in an anarchy, not really. To be fair, we sure do have a whole bunch of idiots who self-identify as Libertarians. I can't say that I really blame people for being confused. It's not like we're about to take the microphone from them, so they get to shout the loudest. I think the vast majority of Libertarians think that Ayn Rand was an idiot and know that Rand Paul is not a Libertarian. We're just not as vocal as the others. We probably should be, someone needs to counteract them. I keep starting and stopping - the tide's just a bit too strong to deal with on my own.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."