News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old smart-home devices. Parent comment

Re:Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old sma... by mrrsm on Monday April 04, 2016 @04:00PM (#11425015)
Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time. In the case of electronics I would hope they last a significant amount of time. If my hardware can work still at least give me a way to write my own code for it or use it as is with the "cloud" portions disabled/removed. If I get a new cell phone my old one doesn't need to become a paperweight because the carrier isn't pushing out updates. I can still use it as is or update it myself.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old sma... by jasonlaramburu on Monday April 04, 2016 @06:16PM (#11426202)
Not sure the analogy works. You would still need to pay some carrier an ongoing service fee to use your cell phone. Here we are talking about a connected device where the software service is offered for free.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old sma... by jpindar on Monday April 04, 2016 @07:06PM (#11426482)
Only if you want to use the carrier.

I have old phones that can't make telephone calls, but they still work fine as connected devices via wifi. They still work as cameras, mp3 players, gaming machines etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old sma... by jasonlaramburu on Monday April 04, 2016 @04:31PM (#11425329)
>Hardware has that upfront cost which consumers take as this should work for x amount of time.

What is X?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google's Nest is disabling some of its customers' old sma... by mrrsm on Monday April 04, 2016 @06:07PM (#11426133)
I think it depends on the product and the cost I am paying. x for a checkout lane electronic keychain that I paid $1.99 for I don't expect to last very long a month or two maybe. When I am paying $300 I would hope to get many years out of it before there may be hardware (rather than fixable software bugs) failure from a bad capacitor. Even then if you have the electronic knowhow you can replace the parts and keep it working. What lifetime do you expect out of a new TV you purchase? Should it stop working after a year or two or just continue to work as long as the hardware works?
[ Parent | on HN ]