Google Nest server outage leaves US, European smart homes acting dumb
- Reference: 1605641048
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/17/google_nest_outage/
- Source link:
A widespread outage means that smart home customers are unable to login to their accounts, use their smartphones to view video livefeeds, adjust thermostat controls, or interact with any of Nest’s product range. Users in North America and Northern Europe have been hit the hardest.
[1]
Bad news for some of Nest's core markets. Source: Downdetector. Click to enlarge
The outage was noticed early Tuesday morning at Google's Mountain view home base and at 0725 PST(1525 UTC) the company’s Twitter support account [2]posted that it was “aware of an issue affecting some Google Nest devices and the Google Nest App and are currently investigating.” Two hours later, it [3]claimed to have identified the issue and readied a fix but has yet to deploy it.
The outage was an unfortunate reminder to Nest customers that their expensive equipment is almost entirely reliant on Google’s servers to be useful and that the Chocolate Factory’s ongoing efforts to pull Nest into the fold continues to cause significant problems. It suffered a [4]similar outage in February which went on for 16 hours.
Last month, Google’s product-kill culture surfaced within Nest when it [5]stopped selling its Nest Secure security product, along with its smart sensors and keyfobs, without making an announcement and left the issue of future support for the product hanging. The decision came two months after the company paid $450m for a [6]7 per cent stake in security provider ADT.
OK, Google, please do a half-hearted U-turn: Stay of execution for smart home APIs after Big G goes cuckoo in the Nest [7]READ MORE
Before that, Nest users were infuriated when Google tried to force them to switch over to Google accounts - which would allow the tech giant to directly connect their use of Nest products to its vast database of personal information gleaned from its other products.
Faced with a wave of criticism, Google [8]relented - but only for a short period of time. Nest users will be required in future to shift to Google logins and users are constantly prodded to access their accounts through Google.
Earlier this month, Nest also [9]killed the ability of UK customers to place calls to mobiles and landlines through Nest speakers free of charge without a subscription or dedicated handset. The service is still currently available to US customers.
There has also been a flurry of technical problems as Google has tried to re-engineer Nest products to [10]work with its standards and protocols, and only partially succeeded, causing service outages and conflicts.
Today’s outage is just one more sign that Google’s culture and skillset is seemingly a poor match for what Nest represents - or used to represent - high-quality, non-invasive smart home hardware. The poster child of the smart home increasingly looks like a washed-up child star heading to rehab. ®
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[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/11/17/nest.jpg
[2] https://twitter.com/googlenesthelp/status/1328720928423829504
[3] https://twitter.com/googlenesthelp/status/1328751179866599424
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/25/google_nest_outage/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/02/in_brief_security/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/03/google_adt_partnership/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/16/google_works_with_nest_api/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/16/google_works_with_nest_api/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/03/google_nest/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2016/12/13/google_settles_into_nest_folds_dev_platform/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
That's what you get for trusting Google.
or any cloud service to run your home.
All that lovely data being slurped. Who goes in, who goes out. When you do stuff. when you are out.
Have you informed your home contents insurer of the google invasion?
None on this IOT crapware is coming into my home if it needs to phone home in order to work.
Big Brother was supposed to be fiction and not a handnook on spying and mass control of the citizens.
The article reads like a list of reasons not to buy a Nest.
Thanks for saving me
There are Some Use Cases
There would seem to be some valid use cases for many IOT type devices. Remote viewing of security cameras, adjusting thermostats in areas that are intermittently occupied, limiting access to people who have legitimate current access needs etc, etc, etc. But in many situations, it is unlikely that there will be enough users to justify mass production. So it's likely that much of this connected trash will be designed in ways that maximize profits rather than actual user needs like security, reliabilty and such. Cheap, but annoying and maybe even dangerous. In a lot of cases, I suspect users will be better off sticking to old fashioned manual devices.
Re: There are Some Use Cases
"Remote viewing of security cameras"
I've had that at home, for cheap, since the CROMEMCO Cyclops came out in 1975.
"adjusting thermostats in areas that are intermittently occupied"
My greenhouse's "smart thermostat" has been running for over a third of a century. It maintains the temperature to within 2 degrees either way quite nicely. I can set it from anywhere I have Internet access.
"limiting access to people who have legitimate current access needs"
Realestate agents (and others) do this with little lockboxes for the actual key. Change the code for the lock boxes to suit, and Bob's your Auntie.
Remind me again why any of these solutions need to go through goophabet servers?
Re: There are Some Use Cases
My greenhouse's "smart thermostat" has been running for over a third of a century. It maintains the temperature to within 2 degrees either way quite nicely. I can set it from anywhere I have Internet access.
ah, but if you can't do something with an app you can't do it at all! /s
so sad
... so sad to see Google becoming stupid before becoming evil ...
And presumably the IQ of the US goes up a trifle ...
... as a couple thousand people freeze to death in the dark.
"The Cloud" is highly overrated
"all eggs" "one basket"
yeah, THAT'll work well, right? Look at how much we save in baskets!!!
nevermind if multiple servers are involved, it STILL b0rked and went TITSUP for a while...
Since Google took over, the Nest iOS app seems to get worse with every update. The video playback freezes and I have to restart the app. The current build has a corrupted U/I element (The button that changes the view from a timeline to a list of events). I refuse to move to a Google login because I will lose access to the Apple TV app, which I actually find quite useful.