The untold story of Google I/O 2019 - The irresponsible attempt to kill "Works with Nest"

This type of action without coordinating with partners to ensure smooth transition to new ways of performing tasks that were possible before the change, is not only market bullying, but it shows how immature the smart home industry really is. Even if Google may attempt to rectify the fiasco they’ve created, in one way or another, it is still a wake up call for everyone that IoT proves once again to be as the most skeptics call it: volatile

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I think the difference is in the details. Blink shut down some of the power user avenues to integration, obviously like the one that Rboy was using, but they left the IFTTT channel open as well as some other integrations.

So I think the usual plug-and-play customer was much less impacted by that acquisition.

@Rboy

I did say almost.

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Ha ha there is also another change Google made yesterday…


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I don’t think it’s market bullying so much as it’s google running scared ahead of coming privacy regulation.

Google has been fined more than $9 billion in the last two years by the European Union for various kinds of transgressions. And they haven’t even gotten to privacy yet.

Meanwhile, inaccurate stories about nest cams being hacked keep spreading, and rumors are that the portal has not sold as well as they expected. ( The nestcams themselves weren’t attacked, so far all the reported cases have been credential stuffing on customers who used the same password on multiple websites.) and confirmed reports that their high-end phones are not selling the way they hoped.

The stock was hit pretty hard after their most recent earnings report.

So I think they need to shake things up in a big way, and this is part of that.

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Perfect for baby monitoring! Nothing like shining a light in baby’s eyes to make sure they wake up screaming like someone took their toys away :confused:

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At least that one’s fixable for people whose concerns are the light being annoying to a baby or someone with obsessive issues. :sunglasses:

This is the brand I use, but there are lots of similar products.

https://www.amazon.com/LightDims-Original-Strength-Electronics-Appliances/dp/B00CLVEQCO/

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You have got to be freaking kidding me.

I think it has a lot to do with corporate strategy. Even within Blink/Amazon there was a push/pull for a long time on what they wanted their experience/environment to look it (and other factors like cost, support, market growth etc). Anyone noticed that the cost of blink cameras have come down significantly recently.

Here it looks like Google made the decision to bring the experience into a closed environment they can control. I’m sure it has many facets to it which have been considered before they finally decided to do this. It would have included everything the Amazon/Blink dealt with and more like privacy, regulations etc. It wouldn’t have been a light decision for sure because moving from an open API to a closed environment is a big move.

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My heart sank when I saw the news article and then the subsequent emails. I have 1 thermostat, 2 cams, 1 protect and 3 temp sensors. I use tonesto nest-manager for smartthings integration, and Alexa for voice control. I’ve loved the products, even if the API integration from Nest has been spotty. I have so many routines and skills connected, that I cant imagine life without this crucial integration. From tablets mounted in each room that show the outdoor camera feed, thermostat control and smoke visualizations. Then there’s the away modes, the night modes and so on. Not sure what to do yet, but it won’t be me getting a goggle home control

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Google mentioned some kind of local sdk that would run on a google home hub. Maybe something will materialize from this that could let us integrate with ST?

It’s the assistant processing power that Google was bragging about yesterday that they were able to compress it so it could run on the phone instead in the cloud. I doubt that they will let others tap into that power… "we developed completely new speech recognition and language understanding models, bringing 100GB of models in the cloud down to less than half a gigabyte. With these new models, the AI that powers the Assistant can now run locally on your phone. "

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I have Nest Protects (which BTW saved my house a year and a half or so by SMSing me before boiler blew up - so I’m very attached to them) - but if we’re at home and it can’t turn on all the lights through SmartThings and/or Hue… that’s a big problem. Hadn’t thought about that. Might need to get a Google Home just because of that, which kinda bugs me.

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Make sure you have a phone that runs Google Assistant nearby when you get the SMS before your boiler blows up next time, because you will need to say: Ok Google, turn on my lights as Google Nest thinks my boiler is about to blow up" … Alternatively, if you get a Google Home, you could drive home and repeat that phrase to Google Home. Either way, works, just not like you think. Routines in Google Home MUST use voice activation.

They can really only be activated by voice??? wow

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  • as of today, yes. But things may change as we approach August 31st :slight_smile:

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Voice or time of day. For now.

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Not OR … Voice is required, time is optional… …

Update…
@JDRoberts Well I take it back :slight_smile: Voice is “required” because it’s the name of the routine, but it does run at specific time

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These features are changing so fast by the time you finish typing a post there’s probably something new. :wink:

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