Google has officially turned these Nest thermostats back into dumb thermostats (makeuseof.com)

65 pointsby gnabgib11 hours ago55 comments

Crunchified 10 hours ago

If someone says Google can't be trusted for purchases of long-term, capital-style goods like a thermostat (or smoke detectors), I'd have to agree. The Nest I bought way back when may still be installed in the home I sold 10+ years ago.

But I didn't buy it from Google, I bought it from Nest (pre-Google) - a company that designed and sold high-tech gear that was designed to be permanently installed and (presumably) last a good long time. The acquisition was not a good match, but it is what it is - lesson learned and reputations lost.

(and the design, honestly, was more down Apple's lane than Google's - I thought the former would be more likely to buy them out, not that it guaranteed any different results).

soraminazuki 9 hours ago

> lesson learned and reputations lost

I think that's an overly optimistic take, because we've been through this over and over, and it's only getting worse. We collectively are clearly not getting the message, and we don't own anything as a result.

colechristensen 9 hours ago

one if the problems being the freedoms companies can be bought for the purposes of being destroyed

izend 10 hours ago

What a coincidence, I am working on deploying the https://nolongerevil.com/ on my 2nd Gen Nest Thermostat, my wife has bugging me for weeks to either fix it or buy a new one.

I am actually going to self-host and vibe code my own cloud service on Cloudflare.

tonymet 9 hours ago

how do you flash? do you need uart ?

forsalebypwner 9 hours ago

You just need a microUSB cable IIRC

deadmutex 8 hours ago

nice, how do you plan to secure it?

29083011397778 2 hours ago

Why bother? Block WAN access at the router, put the entire thing behind a VPN (Tailscale or Wireguard, dealers choice), and move on. If you really care, put everything you vibe code or consider security-abandonware on its own VLAN.

Keep it off the WAN and you'll be streets ahead of commercial vendors, and your weird, one-off, vibe-coded app means those same commercial vendors are the easier, more widely-deployed targets anyways.

gerardnico an hour ago

I turn mine to dumb again as the smart functions are not smart enough and I spend more money than a basic calendar.

The procedure is simple. 2 fix periods : one in the morning one in the evening and in between if somebody comes home he/she turns the heat manually.

I didn’t see any advantage more inconvenient: * saw people at home that were not * started to heat the whole house while I just work in my office.

I have not yet found a practical case except that I can turn it off remotely when I’m on vacation if i forget.

Are any people here getting any advantages?

regnull 9 hours ago

Nest is a disaster. Same with their fire alarms. I spent a small fortune buying those, just to rip them out and dump into garbage. Google hardware - never again.

tonymet 9 hours ago

100% agree. i had a thermostat and 4 cameras. abysmal software, and the hardware started dying . The thermostat died after 3 years, due to faulty "smart" HVAC circuitry . The doorbell camera (with built in lithium battery, ) died after 5 years.

> $1200 in hardware, practically worthless.

SoftTalker 9 hours ago

Meanwhile my mercury-bulb thermostat from the 1960s still works perfectly.

tonymet 9 hours ago

i marvel at simple mechanical-electric solutions . e.g. toasters, simple coffee pots, thermostats. 100+ year duty cycles. amazing elegance and resilience

rr808 8 hours ago

My wife bugs me to replace physical light switches with smart one. Sorry I'm too busy for that one lol.

deadmutex 8 hours ago

They might've not regressed, but those things were bad UX.

Those things are really hard to control, and no scheduling, no remote control, no sensors, etc.

SoftTalker 7 hours ago

They are simple to contol, turn a dial to the temperature you want. Remote control and sensors are just things Google has convinced you to think you need so you'll buy their fancy thermostat (that is now e-waste).

deadmutex 3 hours ago

That gives you a false sense of precision. I had a bad experience with an old one. 100% would not buy the old mercury tech over anything else "smart" or not available today

michaelmcdonald 9 hours ago

Did you move to a different “smart” smoke detector? Just go with an old school “dumb” one?

idunno246 8 hours ago

not the parent, but when my nest protects died i switched to dumb ones. all co2 detectors expire after ten years, nest decided the appropriate action is to just brick it when they were ten years old. the only feature i really used was using the app to silence it when cooking got smoky. but theres very few options for smart ones, lack of interconnect compatibility got frustrating if i wanted to mix smart and dumb, and it would have easily cost twice as much(i have 6 detectors).

ive considered connecting the interconnect wire to my esp32 (that replaced the security system) and get it pushed into home assistant, but without the ability to silence, a push notification that it is going off just didnt seem worth it

folkrav 9 hours ago

On one hand, I obviously can’t legitimately expect the manufacturers of these things to support their older hardware offerings ad vitam aeternam.

On the other, it’s a freaking thermostat controller. An appliance. I don’t want to have to replace appliances before they break, and software breaking it is unacceptable.

I’ve been largely holding off on domotics because so much of it reeks of premature obsolescence... Maybe someone over here has good experience with Home Assistant et al?

tonymet 9 hours ago

They could easily license the server component to allow you to run it, or unlock the bootloader so you could run third party firmware.

They've had 10+ years to plan ahead for this eventuality, and it's not rocket science.

gosub100 9 hours ago

I was looking at wireless cameras on eBay and had to stop because I realized I can't just check specs and price. I have to make sure they don't require a cloud connection and or a service plan.

CamperBob2 8 hours ago

I just bought a couple of Reolink RLC-810A cameras, and realized too late (after receiving them) that they require an app just to enable communications and configure the baseline RTSP functionality. Claude found https://github.com/TinKurbatoff/reolink-init# and took care of the issue nicely.

I will probably buy a couple more of the RLC-810As, since I can only assume that newer models will be harder for the owner to actually own.

joshfee 9 hours ago

I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect. I expose all my devices to Google Home as a convenient frontend, but all the actual devices are mine and locally controlled so I can replace Google at any point. I tried home assistant years ago, but aside from the wealth of plugins I didn't find its approach particularly convincing. I have on occasion used it simply as a bridge between node red and HA plugins before though which is nice for niche devices or integrations

roughly 9 hours ago

You could expect them to support the product for the lifespan of the product, though.

colechristensen 8 hours ago

plenty of things should have a mandatory sort of twenty year supportability warranty. not necessarily free repairs but an enforceable promise that a thing / "ecosystem" can be used for a reasonably expected lifetime

for a thermostat that's measured in decades

paxy 8 hours ago

It still works as a thermostat.

bagacrap 7 hours ago

Also I assume it still can be controlled from your phone? Only the "learning" features are gone.

nickthegreek 6 hours ago

device screen only. i tossed mine and got an ecobee.

jochem9 an hour ago

I've recently set up Home Assistant again after a 5 year hiatus. All my old devices still work fine.

I primarily use zigbee, which is fully local and very reliable. Home Assistant supports a lot, including older hardware. I have a 2010 Philips LivingColors lamp (predecessor of the Hue) that talks early zigbee and still connects to a 2026 zigbee dongle + Home Assistant install.

I avoid any cloud dependency for the reason you give. Anything local, especially with open protocols and an active community, will probably work for a very long time. Likely the lifetime of the appliance.

shiandow 10 hours ago

The emudhra debacle might turn out to be an accidental boon for keeping devices like this running.

To a point anyway.

tonymet 9 hours ago

wouldn't they have to be an emudhra customer (their ssl certs signed by emudhra)?

matkoniecz 9 hours ago

If I understood correctly, emudhra was able to issue certificate to any website.

Therefore if some device trusts emudhra root certificate...

onedognight 9 hours ago

Google usually does certificate pinning. They know that the CA root store is not to be trusted to sign for their own domains.

jayd16 9 hours ago

How much could it possibly cost to keep these working?

tonymet 9 hours ago

in theory AI can produce the ongoing software support. and the compute bill is trivial compared to even a single AI assistant customer (1/500). something doesn't add up

htrp 8 hours ago

why keep the software up when you can force people to buy another every 5 years

bagacrap 8 hours ago

These things are 15 years old. Are you still using an iPhone 4?

deathanatos 7 hours ago

Should you throw out your entire home every 1–2 years, just because a corporation would like you to?

It's not a phone, so we're not necessarily expecting the lack-of-longevity we'd expect of a phone. (Although even a lot of phones are basically corp "can-you-upgrade-every-2-yr-or-more".)

bagacrap 8 hours ago

If it depends on some services that are being sunset then the cost of getting them working again approximates the cost of getting them working in the first place.

paxy 7 hours ago

The opportunity cost of people upgrading.

tmaly 8 hours ago

I wonder if someone could just reverse engineer the firmware and made your own updates and app?

grishka 9 hours ago

Another case of a smart home device that unnecessarily needs someone else's servers. They could've made it controllable over the local network and that would've solved, like, 80% of this issue.

I have a z-wave hub I bought about 8 years ago. Admittedly, it's shit, but it does one thing right — you only need the manufacturer's cloud services if you want to control it from outside of your LAN, or if you want integrations with other services.

GuestFAUniverse 4 hours ago

As if dumb thermostats last really that long. Ours from Brötli died after around four years. The replacement has a manufacturing date from 2008 -- what a joke. The firmware in those things has bugs (like switching some, but not all programs at midnight) that will never get fixed; it works, but not flawless.

Considering this I wouldn't mind a smart solution that lasts /only/ ten years, but gets bug fixes during its lifetime.

synergy20 8 hours ago

is there nest alternative somewhere that does not need cloud

throwaway81523 4 hours ago

How much does the upgrade cost to turn the Nest thermostat dumb? It's probably cheaper to buy a dumb thermostat in the first place.

guelo 9 hours ago

The law should require that if a company sells hardware that depends on an internet service, and later discontinues that service, it must open-source the communication protocol and provide a way to connect the hardware to alternative services. This requirement should cover every feature that was functional when the device was sold.

Fortunately Nest owners got lucky this time and there was an escape hatch that allowed projects like No Longer Evil. But there's a long list of devices that have been bricked when their manufacturers shut down a proprietary backend.

deadmutex 8 hours ago

Someone has to write 'The law', and we need to prioritize politicians that do (instead of those that are trying to get views on social media by getting quips/gotcha moments).

plagiarist 9 hours ago

I would never buy an appliance that requires a third-party server. Google cannot remove the value from a Zigbee or Z-Wave thermostat like this.

gnabgib 9 hours ago

The Matter standard[0] (+HomeAssistant) starts to fix this, but almost all "smart" appliances have this flaw. From Lutron, GE, Apple, Amazon (ring), Philips(Hue), Samsung, LG, Control4, Ecobee, ADT, Schneier, Chamberlain, Tapo.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_(standard)

wolrah 8 hours ago

Matter only sort of solves it because a lot of Matter devices (most in my personal experience) use WiFi and often intentionally neuter their Matter support to "encourage" you to use their app and/or cloud integration with a major voice assistant.

I have a pair of Govee ceiling lights that have a RGB+CCT primary downward facing light and an addressable RGB accent ring. The ARGB ring only exists in their app. As far as both their Matter support and their official API are concerned these units have a single element which is the downward light, the ARGB ring is not controllable from any third-party systems.

If these were using Zigbee, Z-Wave, or Matter over Thread they wouldn't be able to do this but because they use WiFi they can.

I'm going to be opening one up soonish to see how hard it'll be to just replace the controller with one running WLED (or even reprogram the controller already in it).

gnabgib 8 hours ago

Agree.. although that brand isn't very reliable/a good industry indicator/always pulls that nonsense (I have some of their devices, all paired to an old phone on a vlan without internet.. the features "require wifi" but only because they want their app to overshare).

wolrah 8 hours ago

One of many reasons I prefer home automation hardware that uses ZigBee, Z-Wave, or Thread over using WiFi. If it uses WiFi it almost always wants to connect to or worse requires a cloud, where the dedicated home automation network tech is basically the polar opposite and requires that it work entire directly locally or with a local hub.

Other major reason being that "IoT" devices usually have the shittiest WiFi radios that usually don't even support 5 GHz and almost never support WiFi 6/7 modes where they aren't wasting a ton of airtime on their low-bandwidth communication.

genldd 9 hours ago

Honestly, given the surveillance capitalism of it all, I take this as a win. The termostst should have been dumb the whole time, not an avenue for harvesting our data.

More dumb electronics please.

paxy 8 hours ago

This thing was released in 2011, and can be replaced in 5 minutes for like $100. This is probably longer than any "smart" device from any manufacturer has ever worked. Not everything needs to be an anti-Google crusade.