Google announced the end of support for early Nest Thermostats in a support document earlier this year that largely flew under the radar. As of October 25, first and second generation units released in 2011 and 2012, respectively, will be unpaired and removed from the Google Nest or Google Home app.
Users will no longer be able to control their thermostats remotely via their smartphone, receive notifications, or change settings from a mobile device. End-of-support also disables third-party assistants and other cloud-based features including multi-device Eco mode and Nest Protect connectivity.
I’m imagining some poor rube who bought fully into the IoT. Like every appliance they own is smart. Then one day they wake up to their entire house no longer functioning because the smart devices can’t connect to whatever services they need. Can’t even work the smart locks on their doors.
I dipped my toes into “smart” thermostats with a Wyze. Meh. I don’t really need to set the temp from my phone, or any of the other features, beyond having a simple schedule. I’m seriously considering reverting all the way back to an old-school bimetal strip, dial on the wall type, in private protest of all this crap.
(Don’t get a Wyze. I think they’ve been discontinued anyway. The damn thing loses connection to the wifi three or four times per year, then I need to go through the ENTIRE setup process again, from the very beginning. The wifi antenna is in the closet not three feet away. POS.)
Tech feudalism needs to be made 100% illegal.
The biggest mistake I made in my home was installing $3k in Nest gear, right before they were purchased by Google and the forthcoming Homekit support was abandoned. I cannot wait to get my Ubiquiti camera drops wired so I can stop paying the whopping $20/mo for cloud storage that was $8/mo when I started.
Tl;dr: Fuck Google
Buy something based on open standards and you won’t need to worry about this.
nah, just keep pumping into those corpos. one day they’ll stop abusing consumers, they “promise”.
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and Open Source Hardware (OSH) for the win!!!
See also: Enshitification
Twenty years ago Google was a small, fun startup that was easy to be a fan of. How the mighty have fallen. “Do no evil,” huh? Disgusting.
No, no. It was “Don’t be evil.” A much lower standard, because it allows and encourages occasional evil acts. That meant being slightly less evil than M$.
Oh how kind of them! They force disconnect an appliance but give you a coupon to buy the latest model.
And the newest model is different how? It’s a thermostat after all.
Whole reason I got one was because of the promised savings (never saw any, from the learning, just bullshit offers that allowed the electric company access…).
Guess it’s back to the tried and true mercury thermostat.
or digital, or one that doesnt use mercury.
Yeah if my thermostat starts talking to the internet, its getting buckshot in it.
Think thats lead, not mercury tbh.
(Unless you are not a shit hunter that miss som much you can afford the vismuth)
During winter no less! :/
There is a
class action“mass arbitration” against Google for this: https://www.classaction.org/nest-thermostat-support-arbitrationAdditionally, the Fulu Foundation has a bounty reward out for anyone who is able to get these working with something like Home Assistant.
The pot is currently at $12,856.00 https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/nest-learning-thermostat-gen-1-2
In the U.S., since doing so would circumvent measures put in place on these devices, publishing how to do this would go against sec. 1201 of the DMCA. This has a risk of a maximum sentence of 3-5 years in a Federal Prison. You can still privately show the Fulu Foundation how it is done, and they will be able to use this information to help their case in their attempt to reform this law.
If you live in the U.S., you can also help by letting your representatives know about this. Here’s an ActionNetwork page that Fulu set up so that you can easily do so: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/right-to-repair-reform-section-1201-of-the-dmca
Allowing these massive corporations to completely subvert our rights and force “arbitration” is fucking criminal. The fact that this is just accepted practice now in the US is pretty fucking infuriating.
The website you linked to says that it’s not a class action suit, but a “mass arbitration” which I’ve never heard of. It also claims that Google has a “no class action” clause in its warranty/user agreement. I don’t see how that’s legal, but whatever. I also wonder if that clause was there at the time of purchase for gen 1 and gen 2 thermostats.
Thanks, I missed that detail. It’s probably because of the “no class action” clause that this is a “mass arbitration”.
Unfortunately that usually means that Google is paying a specific company to decide on the outcome of the case. in this case it looks like American Arbitration Association has a contract with Google.
They’re supposed to be fair for both sides, but it’s been shown that they almost always rule in favor of the company that has pre-selected them.
If anyone is in this situation, they will likely have a much better chance by convincing a judge to allow a different 3rd party to arbitrate the case.
If you live in the U.S., you can also help by letting your representatives know about this. Here’s an ActionNetwork page that Fulu set up so that you can easily do so: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/right-to-repair-reform-section-1201-of-the-dmca
Do you still have a representative government where you live? I have a Republican House rep and trying to get him to do anything even remotely consumer friendly is just masochism.
If you can point out to republican voters how the DMCA fucks them too, you can bury your shitty GOP rep in calls and letters which might make them change.
Maybe.
Until they get a small bribe, and then they won’t give a shit again.
On the other hand, one can understand why Google doesn’t want to continue to pour resources into an ancient platform just to keep it on life support.
Bullshit. “Pour” my ass. Issue a legacy build of the app that controls them and walk away. What horseshit. This is shameful. The only reason it won’t blow up into a huge debacle is that these products targeted wealthy early-adopters in the first place and those folks can afford to upgrade, and most probably already have.
Absolutely fucking correct… You can maintain locks on my so-called smart devices for as long as you maintain your services… You want to pull the plug, you should be forced to open source and expose the tech so that we can keep it working on our own private servers. Proprietary tech is a bullshit excuse as well… The vast majority of these devices are about 10% of in house code riding on 90% of open standards, protocols, and packages. None of them are building the wheel from scratch.
For fucksake most of these devices could easily be implemented on decentralized architecture, if it wasn’t for all the pesky data mining they are doing
This isn’t “end of support.”
This is “loss of functionality.”
Totally inexcusable.
Samsung did something similar with one of their tablets when they remotely removed an app that provided an IR remote function - a primary reason for my purchase. Samsung’s support not so politely told me, “Too fucking bad.” when I objected.
There was something I could do about it though. Even though a replacement 3rd party app was less than $5 I haven’t purchased another Samsung consumer product or service in almost a decade.
They were rude to you about it too? Jesus. I’m pleased to say I’ve never bought any Samsung product.
Yeah. And even “loss of functionality” makes it sound passive; as if it just happened by accident. They Intentionally broke a working product.
Heh I guess this is my work self showing through. I’m a software developer and “loss of function” is a very severe term to me :D it’s only surpassed by loss of data, accessibility/legal issue, and security/privacy breach. On the less severe end we have loss of telemetry, degraded function (meaning there’s still a workaround) degraded performance, and finally cosmetic defect.
As most of our tech.
Being someone that yield to my tech stuff as long as possible I really love to live in a world where a company is forced to opensource everything related to a specific product if they opt to stop maintaining it.
This is exactly why I didn’t buy one of these or the Amazon version. I didn’t trust that the devices would work as long as they could function and was correct.
I bought one a bunch of years ago. Maybe 10 years. It worked fine. Did it’s thing. Then for no reason google chooses to kill it. Fool me once.
Then for no reason google chooses to kill it.
That’s kind of their thing.
I wondered how long it would take for that url to pop up. I will never ever rely on any Google product. Except maybe Gmail but I have an alternative plan should that go belly up.
What this list tells me is wait five years before trying any new Google product to see if they’re serious
What the list tells me is that if you do that, they might just kill it in year six anyways.
there is now, they probably want one with AI/spying controls.
I replaced mine with a Sensi. 4 months with Nest, and it decided to confuse hot vs cold signals. Middle of August, it tried to “cool” my house at 3am, instead turning on the furnace, and just kept on going due to the temperature rising. For a week straight, I awoke to 90 degree temps in my house at 3:30 to 4am, and a nice heating bill. I had an hvac friend come over ad tell me in fact, yep, it’s sending signal to furnace, not ac. He checked the wiring, all good. He admitted he knew little of Nests, but said only an idiot would design a thermostat that could allow for a hot/cold signal switch without rewiring.
Heat/cool wiring is rarely correct, many thermostats will have a software option to reverse the wiring.
Sucks that yours got reset for no good reason but it’s probably for the best
I mean, I’m not a trained tech, but it isn’t hard to open up the heat pump and look at wires going in and looking at the thermostat and making sure they match. Although I admit someone ran stranded wire instead of solid core (one day I might try to fish a new wire). For now I just tinned the ends.
There’s nothing wrong with stranded wire, it just means if it’s carrying voltage and a few strands snip or break (leading to greater than 15% voltage loss) it can cause issues. Solid is simply an all or nothing kind of wire. This is more of an issue though if you don’t get every stand under the terminal, otherwise it can be beneficial due to the fact that there is plenty more “wire” to name contact with each other in case a stand breaks in some way along the middle or not at either end. (Bearing being crushed, chewed, or other thing where the wires no longer make any contact with the rest of the wire)
The only thing I use solid core for is fire alarm systems (where all or nothing is crucial), certain audio equipments, and anything nearing high voltage which a thermostat generally doesn’t reach. If it does take 120v+ then wow what why.
Tinned tips though always help for sure, definitely makes it easier to remove/insert the wire.
Been a technician for the last 10 years now an thats my understanding of it atleast.
I have a Sensi and didn’t program it correctly, though my wiring was on point. HVAC guy puzzled over it a few then called me over to show me what the cryptic options meant. Been solid for a few years now.
I’d like to see those options in the app, but if those were included people would fuck them up and blame the company. 🤷🏻
I’ve got one but I bought it from Nest, not Google. TBH I’m surprised it was supported this long, not in a thankful way but because Google is so anti consumer. I didn’t realize the app didn’t work until I saw this post. I’m glad to find out now, not during a heatwave where I’m trying to cool the house when I’m driving home.
I got 11 years out of mine. I had been wanting to upgrade it because it did not accept sensors.
Does it suck that it was still functional? Yup.
I mean they could just unlock the dang things at let some industrious hacker make them useful again. Hell I’d pay like $10 for a firmware that would work with home assistant.
Are API calls to the device signed or whatever? At a minimum one could snoop traffic to rev-eng the API, then recreate it on a lan-only segment
I haven’t snooped on the traffic but at the very least it was encrypted back to google. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also signed somehow.  If it was easy, somebody would’ve already cracked it, especially with all the brouhaha about them dropping support.
I would have paid for that as well. I would pay for that for my truck’s infotainment center as well.
Honestly I’d pay as much as $50 to unlock my Microsoft sync to CarPlay on my old explorer.
I think car manufacturers that put closed systems in vehicles and then abandon them should be required to either open source the system or push a final update that adds Android auto/apple car play (or whatever they are called)
Something that might have been a result due to software laws after “stop killing games” initiative
I wish I could upvote this 100 times
Dumb thermostats last for multiple decades.
As do smart thermostats that don’t rely on the continued goodwill of any corporation to function.
Which ones are those?
My Honeywell one is not Internet connected, but it seems plenty smart. It knows the time and day, is programmable for four different periods each day, can handle all sorts of heating and cooling equipment. It also learns how long it takes to get your house to the right temp, then starts working before then to make it happen when the time arrives.
I saw the photo with a person for scale and I thought…why?
One of the apartments I lived in had a Honeywell wifi connected one that worked pretty well.
Anything that supports HomeKit should work indefinitely. I have an ecobee4 that works great with Home Assistant via HomeKit.
Z-wave thermostats don’t require Internet connectivity to function or control remotely. They do require something like Home Assistant for that remote control.
Yup, this is what I just did. Replaced my two first generation Nests with Z-Wave Honeywells.
A simple open api could extend the life of these things by decades.
I think legally this suggestion makes you a pirate, a thief, a terrorist and a mass murderer.
I’m already on a bunch of lists. What’s a few more. I should collect them like steam cards.
Uhh, isn’t this just turning them into dumb thermostats? It says you can’t control it via phone. Not that it stops working altogether.
I’ve got one of those with bi-metallic strips, it’s 35 years old, works no problem.
Surprisingly, these still work as dumb thermostats after the cutoff date.
There is an open source project to replace the innards:
While an interesting idea, that project wants what amounts to the cost of a new thermostat in exchange for a kickstarter project. Might as well just buy a new thermostat.
Omg, a sustainable, repairable, and open source project costs the same as a closed source, non repairable, locked down option … Those are totally the same thing!
/S
Jokes on them, I block my Nest from talking to the Internet so my electrical company cannot control the damned thing. They had control even after I opted out and Google insisted they unenrolled me in the energy savings plan. Don’t enroll in these plans [insert it’s a trap gif].
That “Smart Energy” discount has shown up in mailings for the last few years and I’ve considered signing up despite my general dislike of allowing any company more control of my life than they already have.
Why do you say they’re a trap? Did they change your thermostat settings far more than they claim or pull other BS you didn’t expect?
Smart Energy Discount issues from the personal view of a consumer.
These plans work by sending you notifications that they will be reducing your thermostat for you when there is an energy crunch.
Sounds good so far, here’s the issues I had:
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Let’s say you are a good consumer and let them change your thermostat to 85’F when it’s 100’F every single time… You saved… $5!!! and got to sweat profusely in your own home in the process.
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Let’s say you were working in the yard and come in sweaty and needing to cool off or you have a hot flash for some reason. If you change that thermostat while they are in control of it, you lose your whole $5 for not just that day, but the entire billing cycle.
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Let’s say you want to exit the plan. Now you’re on the hook to wait on hold with your energy company for hours waiting for the one department and probably one person who can unenroll you. Chances are likely even then that they can screw it up and like in my case, both Google and my southern California electrical company claim ignorance anything was done wrong yet keep me enrolled.
In short and in summary: It’s a trap because the savings is far, far too small for the sacrifice.
Thanks for that write-up. I’ll continue to ignore the electric company’s marketing efforts and remain blissfully disconnected.
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This sort of thing is one of the reasons I chose a RainMachine irrigation controller over other options, because they specifically marketed their cloud-independent firmware design. It was vindicated a couple years ago when they started going defunct and grasped for recurring revenue by billing for proxied remote access, but even then they emphasized that everything else would continue to function without their servers.
The onus is on the consumer to reward cloud-independent designs like this. While it has been sad to see RainMachine’s collapse, my device indeed just keeps working. Hopefully it isn’t ultimately killed by firmware or app security vulnerabilities since it’s now thoroughly unmaintained.
The problem is, the real money is in either the data that it acquires or in recurring monthly costs.
Unfortunately, making a good, reliable product with no MRCs and no spying means fewer repeat buyers. Which is especially a problem for a niche community like selfhosters and privacy-conscious. You sell the product once and…that’s it. Eventually the market is full and some people are upgrading but now your product is selling on the secondary market.
This is business in the 21st century. They can’t survive without forced obsolescence, telemetry, and/or MRCs.
I don’t think market saturation was RainMachine’s specific problem, but you’re right in general. Our capitalist dystopia demands infinite growth, and planned obsolescence is part of that.
They don’t make ‘em like they used to, whatever the consumer product in question. I have a few tools that belonged to my grandfather and they still work just fine, partially because there’s no plastic to crack and the bearings all accept either oil or grease.
You’re probably also right that selling user data to advertisers is now a reliable source of recurring revenue, which all the MBA C-suite people want at any cost, even the alienation of their customers. This timeline sucks.
What’s an MRC?
Monthly recurring costs (i.e. some kind of subscription service)
