Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by dreamcompiler on Thursday October 17, 2019 @04:32PM (#21286095)

I loved my Nest thermostat when I first bought it. I could change the set point with my phone without getting out of bed, or set the house to the right temperature before I got home. It would automatically go into energy-saving mode if nobody was home. I could track my long-term energy usage with an app on my phone.

That was all very nice, but then Nest blew it. They kept forcing firmware updates to the thermostat that I had no control over. Some of them bricked the device for a period of time; some merely changed the UI so that options on the thermostat moved around or literally disappeared. I finally got fed up and reset the thing and refused to give it my wifi password. Then Google bought Nest which made me doubly sure I'll never connect the thing again.

Now it just works as an ordinary dumb thermostat. A rather expensive dumb thermostat, but it does the job. The extra features that came from connectivity are not worth the company's disrespect for my right to control the devices in my home.

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by homero on Thursday October 17, 2019 @06:42PM (#21287017)

I got a dumb but wifi Sensi thermostat, glad i did

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by rbritton on Thursday October 17, 2019 @07:09PM (#21287206)

I replaced my Nest with a Sensi once Google took over. In doing so, I extensively researched the available options searching for an acceptable one that could be used without a cloud server somewhere, but those just don’t exist in any decent-looking package. Choosing the Sensi was a compromise on settling for a company not likely to go out of business or discontinue the device within the near future and whose core business doesn’t conflict with keeping any data private.

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by dreamcompiler on Friday October 18, 2019 @12:10AM (#21288604)

From the Sensi website: "As existing features are enhanced and new features are released, your thermostat software is kept up-to-date automatically."

No thanks. Been there, done that. With a simple device like a thermostat, I don't want the thing changing all the time. Security updates are fine but every update needs to be under my control and the device should be designed with a mechanical switch that restores the previous version of the firmware.

And really even security updates should be unnecessary if the code is written in a type-safe language with good security practices.

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Re:Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests e... by jkestner on Friday October 18, 2019 @02:53AM (#21289216)

I don’t want my complex devices changing all the time either. Just updated my desktop to last year's macOS and it caused a cascade of changes from dependencies I wasn’t ready for. Same with the latest version of Xcode, and the auto-updated text editor that went to subscription for the features I had paid for already.

I got Sensis too. Best compromise I could find, avoided connecting to the internet until I couldn’t find another way to program them. Suppose I could disconnect them now.

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