Goodbye Google Nest

For years now I’ve had a low opinion of Google products, particularly their hardware. Since taking over Nest, their poor treatment of customers have infected them too. Which is a shame, as I have a houseful of their products.

Why you should ditch Google Nest

Why the dislike? Because it’s far too easy to buy a Google product and they just stop supporting it.

Only last year I suggested not buying any more of their products, when they stopped supporting their Nest security system. Since then they’ve announced they’re going to stop early Nest Thermostats from continuing to work online from the end of the year, stop selling new Nest Protects (the smoke detectors), plus have decided to (once again) push up the cost of saving your Nest camera recordings on their cloud platform. Just bear in mind, there is no local storage option, so you can only use this option. Essentially, you’re locked into this pricey monthly subscription.

Enough is enough, especially as I continue to have issues with 2 of my cameras for no apparent reason.

I understand there will be financial reasons, hopefully, related to these decisions but some make no sense. Not selling the product is fine, but preventing earlier Nest Thermostats from connecting online? They’re not saving video, or anything – it’s used for communication only. They work otherwise, it’s Google’s choice to make them stop working. Is this to push is to newer models? No, because, in Europe, there isn’t one – Nest no longer sells a Thermostat in Europe, apparently because all the different types and standards of connectivity makes it more difficult to make one. Somehow they’ve managed to do this in the past, but now it’s a problem. So, those on the earlier models, and are in Europe, have no choice but to move to a different company. For the sake of some online server communication. It’s hard to believe really.

And they won’t be truthful about it, either. When they transferred Nest products from their own (excellent) app to Google Home (which is pretty poor, imo), they don’t move the Nest Protects. Customers started asking questions and Google denied anything was happening with them. Until they did.

Google seems to be concentrating very much on cameras, in all their guises, I’m guessing because you can charge a regular subscription for those, for cloud storage. One-off fees for a piece of hardware seems to be a thing of the past. Indeed, Google have withdrawn all the Nest hardware I own, other than the cameras.

No, if you’re seriously looking at Google Nest products right now, really don’t.

What I’m doing about it

Already I’ve purchased a new doorbell and new cameras to replace all that I have – these are all from Aqara and I’ll post another time about how I get on with these. However, these stream to Apple Homekit, using storage I was already paying for as part of an existing Apple subscription – for me this means saving £140 a year immediately from not having to pay for Nest’s cloud storage. Oh, and I can use local storage as well if I want.

Next will be my Thermostat, which will likely be replaced by Tado X.

The Protect smoke detectors will be the last Nest device I get rid of, thanks to their being no equivalent product – at the moment – in the UK. The problem here, and one of the benefits, is that they’re all interconnected, so if one detects an issue, they all alert you. But, now, if one needs replacing, I face the option of having to buy an alternative that doesn’t connect with the same system.