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posted by Woods on Friday June 27 2014, @01:54AM   Printer-friendly

Nest is going to share data with its parent, Google.

Matt Rogers, a co-founder of the smart-thermostat maker, said in an interview that Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, allowing Google to know when Nest users are at home or not.

Users will have to opt in for their information to be shared with Google, Rogers said. "We're not becoming part of the greater Google machine." The news comes as Nest said it will allow developers of appliances, light fixtures, garage door openers and more to access user information, part of Nest's bid to be the operating system for the smart home.

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Google/Nest Announces New "Smart Home" API 27 comments

Nest has officially announced a new developer program and API (reference) that will allow other companies' smart devices to communicate with Nest's Protect smoke alarm and Learning Thermostat. Among the companies that Nest is partnering with for this initial publicity push are IFTTT, Jawbone, LIFX, Logitech, Mercedes-Benz, Whirlpool, Chamberlain, and Google itself. The latter two companies will release Nest-compatible features this fall, while the others are all available today.

The API lacks the ability to set Home or Away status and no ability to set a boundary of upper and lower rather than a single temperature. For developers perspective, it can be described as pretty meh. No behavior pattern learning is exposed in the API. The API exposes temperature and heat, cool, and fan status. And possibly the ability to set setpoints. It enables you tell if someone is home, and when they set the time for when they were coming back. Add dropcam and the lesson to the perils of cloud based devices to get the larger picture. For developers a few 8-bit microcontrollers with RS-485 transceivers + cheap wall mounted tablet will easily get you the same functions without the cloud or radio link dependence.

This is an API for a Google-hosted service that is in total control of your "smart home" device(s).

Ask Soylent: Smart Home Tech? 48 comments

We are in the very early stages of building a new house and I would like to incorporate "Smart Home Tech" into the house.

I've been doing a little research on the subject and it will quickly make your eyes bleed. Everyone from Amazon to Samsung and dozens more I've never heard of are getting in on the new industry. And I'm not sure I trust any of them.

The primary lessons I've learned thus far is that this stuff is expensive, "interoperability" is a foreign word said companies want nothing to do with, and security is a late afterthought at best.

My questions to the community are: does anybody have experience with smart home tech they could share with the rest of us? Is there a specific system that works better than others? Is there a good non-biased place a novice could go to properly educate themselves on the in/outs and comparisons of the competing technologies? And is any of this secure enough to actually use or should we all run away?

For the sake of the community, I would like to open the floor to pretty much anything that is "smart tech". Personally, I'm interested in lights and door locks. I'd love to be able to hit one button as I left the house and lock all the doors and kill all the lights. However, I'd be nice if all systems were linked together. Google's Nest seems to be trying to accomplish a unified control center for all things smart tech, (Kwikset makes a bluetooth door lock that links to Nest, neither of which seem like a good idea to me). But the (in)security of letting Google in my home scares the crap out of me.


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  • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Horse With Stripes on Friday June 27 2014, @01:57AM

    by Horse With Stripes (577) on Friday June 27 2014, @01:57AM (#60687)

    Of course Nest wants to share their data with their new parent company. Is this a surprise to anyone?

    Google wants to know everything about you at all times. Can these Nest devices pick up sound? Will they be listening to what you're watching on TV or your computer? Can they hear your music? How about more personal things like your conversations or how often you and your partner decide to sweat up the sheets?

    If I want Google to know when I go to the bathroom I'll post it to their Twitter account. Until then they can stay the hell out of my home.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 27 2014, @02:09AM

      by frojack (1554) on Friday June 27 2014, @02:09AM (#60692) Journal

      Well, Nest bought Dropcam, and with dropcam you can remotely turn on and off your own camera and microphone.
      There is no indication that your microphone is on.
      There is a blue Recording light on when the camera is recording. (However this is user configurable).

      Clearly anything the user can set, Dropcam/Nest/Google could turn on.

      I now keep my Dropcam unplugged, except when I am going to be away for extended periods. I won't be renewing my subscription, and I might be asking for my money back and cc'ing the FTC.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1) by takyon on Friday June 27 2014, @03:25AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday June 27 2014, @03:25AM (#60705) Journal

      Worst headline confirmed.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @02:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @02:06AM (#60690)

    Don't Want Google in Your House? Some Home-Tech Startups to Watch [xconomy.com]

    Note that while they are not-google, that doesn't mean they aren't necessarily also trying to spy on you in your own home.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday June 27 2014, @04:55AM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday June 27 2014, @04:55AM (#60723) Journal

      Nor does it necessarily mean that they remain non-Google.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @03:48AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @03:48AM (#60710)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li-fi [wikipedia.org]

    "Li-Fi, or "light fidelity", is the branding name of a "post Wi-Fi" technology, that can be a complement of RF communication (Wi-Fi or Cellular network), or a replacement in contexts of data broadcasting. Li-Fi can be also bidirectional, like Wi-Fi, as a high speed and fully networked subset of visible light communications (VLC).

    It is wireless and uses visible light communication (instead of radio frequency waves), that is part of the Optical Wireless Communications technologies, which carries much more information, and has been proposed as a solution to the RF-bandwidth limitations. A complete solution includes a standardization process, as proposed by the Li-Fi Consortium."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @04:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @04:37AM (#60720)

    http://www.zoneminder.com/>

    There are alternatives. Don't want Google then get something different. What is there to complain about? It isn't like dropcam was the only option. This is just a story to get 9 comments on how evil Google is and how every aspect of your life is so important. Do you think Google cares when you crap? And why is there a camera pointing in your bathroom? Now that would be an interesting story.

    • (Score: 1) by TGV on Friday June 27 2014, @05:02AM

      by TGV (2838) on Friday June 27 2014, @05:02AM (#60724)

      No, not "just a story to get 9 comments on how evil Google is". When Nest acquired Dropcam, Reuters reported: "Dropcam [...] will adopt Nest's privacy policy after the acquisition, the latter company said in its blog post. That means data will not be shared with any other firm, including Google, without a user's permission, it said.". A few days later, and that promise is already eroding.

      And it's also not about "how every aspect of your life is so important." You don't care about everyone's privacy? Fine with me. But the fact that you need to resort to the extremely unlikely "camera in the bathroom" is telling.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Foobar Bazbot on Friday June 27 2014, @11:52AM

        by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Friday June 27 2014, @11:52AM (#60806) Journal

        No, not "just a story to get 9 comments on how evil Google is". When Nest acquired Dropcam, Reuters reported: "Dropcam [...] will adopt Nest's privacy policy after the acquisition, the latter company said in its blog post. That means data will not be shared with any other firm, including Google, without a user's permission, it said.". A few days later, and that promise is already eroding.

        Can you explain how "Google will connect some of its apps to Nest, allowing Google to know when Nest users are at home or not. Users will have to opt in for their information to be shared with Google" (emphasis added) is an erosion of "data will not be shared with [...] Google, without a user's permission"? Because it looks like the exact same thing to me.

        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 27 2014, @02:17PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 27 2014, @02:17PM (#60860) Journal

          The opt-in gadget is fake. If the data is available it will be used.

          • (Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:53AM

            by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:53AM (#61232) Journal

            What you're saying is that you don't believe their current "opt-in" promise -- which is fair enough. I don't really believe it either, though my expectations lie more along the lines of making the "opt-in" look like just the next step in setting up an account (which makes it not really an opt-in), as they now do for G+ when you set up a new Gmail account.

            But that just means you shouldn't (and probably didn't) believe their earlier "not ... without a user's permission" promise, either -- it doesn't justify saying that the earlier promise is "eroded", just that neither of them is worth the paper it's metaphorically written on.

            • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 28 2014, @03:08AM

              by kaszz (4211) on Saturday June 28 2014, @03:08AM (#61236) Journal

              The meme is like "If it's available then it will be used". Why believe in any promise that can't be proven?

              (and the second meme is "If it used it will eventually by abused".)

        • (Score: 1) by SecurityGuy on Friday June 27 2014, @04:14PM

          by SecurityGuy (1453) on Friday June 27 2014, @04:14PM (#60921)

          It's just a reasonable fear of incremental shift to sharing whether you like it or not. Surely you've seen that happen with other companies.

          I kind of agree with them. Nest has some pretty slick design. I almost bought a couple dropcams. Knowing they'll likely feed the Google collective, I won't now. There are some things I don't mind the advertising behemoth knowing. I searched chainsaws because I wanted to buy one, and suddenly I see lots of ads for chainsaws. No problem. I don't want them knowing when I'm home and when I'm not. I don't want them collecting video of my home. That's too much.

          I'd like to see immutable privacy policies, or failing that, privacy policies that have some teeth. Something like "We'll never do $BAD_THINGS, but if we change our mind and do them later, we'll send you a check for $NONTRIVIAL_SUM." Right now, privacy policies are meaningless because they always have a clause that says they can change them later.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @06:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @06:12AM (#60739)

      > Do you think Google cares when you crap?

      Yes. They would love to know when you crap. If you missed your regular crap, the next ad they show you on your phone/pc/tv might be for a laxative. It is one more data point in the dossier they are trying to create for each and every person on the planet.

      FWIW, I bet that within 5 years Google will either buy or partner with a "smart toilet" maker. [wsj.com]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @12:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @12:34PM (#60819)

        There is your problem. Don't get a phone, tv, tablet, glasses or anything made by Google. There are options but instead make sure you by everything Google and then bitch about it. love to complain but doesn't stop buying the Google. Let me guess, you hate Pepsi but it is the only thing you drink.

        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 27 2014, @02:20PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 27 2014, @02:20PM (#60862) Journal

          How long before those other options get fewer and more expensive. That's why abusive behaviour shall be ostracized right away before it escalates.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @01:01PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @01:01PM (#60825)

        My tv doesn't do ads and there aren't random ads on my phone either. Go use Bing , yahoo, excite, askjeeves... Who ever. I am sure they don't take your info.....oh wait, they do. Yall want to bitch and complain but not do anything. If there are that.many people who don't want Google, get together, don't use it, make your own, and go about your business.

  • (Score: 1) by knorthern knight on Friday June 27 2014, @08:21AM

    by knorthern knight (967) on Friday June 27 2014, @08:21AM (#60772)

    > The news comes as Nest said it will allow developers
    > of appliances, light fixtures, garage door openers and
    > more to access user information, part of Nest's bid to
    > be the operating system for the smart home.

    Everything that is touted as a benefit could be done without an OS, e.g. timer on the thermostat, burglar alarm, etc. An operating system opens up a ton of vulnerabilities, with no benefits to the end-user. Probably big money for the company that vacuums up your data and data-mines and/or sells it, but nothing for the user.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 27 2014, @02:23PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 27 2014, @02:23PM (#60863) Journal

      Because code is way easier to design than physical wire routing and transistors. The culprint is allowing these smart home devices onto the internet. They shouldn't really have WiFi either.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @11:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @11:43AM (#60800)

    In Star Wars, people had droids which could interface with what was essentially a dumb, SCADA-like system. Any droid, even R2-D2 (this was before security became an issue), could plug into any system (like a Death Star). The droid had the logic in it, not the system. You could take your droid from place to place, and it would learn your preferences. Systems were standardized, so you could plug any droid into any system (even a decades-old Naboo ship repair droid could run systems on the Death Star). You had full control over the logic and personal data, not the system itself. You did not depend on an external "cloud".

    Why don't we build dumb systems and smart droids?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AsteroidMining on Friday June 27 2014, @02:49PM

    by AsteroidMining (3556) on Friday June 27 2014, @02:49PM (#60881)

    Rogers said. "We're not becoming part of the greater Google machine."

    Either Mr. Rogers is lying outright, or he doesn't understand what a corporate buy-out is.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @07:50PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @07:50PM (#61035)

    In my opinion, smart people would view 'smart homes' as critical systems. The default programming language for such systems would be something like ADA. Furthermore, you would expect the programming interfaces to be designed in an ultra rule-based, debuggable, mission-critical manner just like in the Aviation industry.
     
    Given the fact that the summary comes across to me as not much more than money-grabbing ideas by corporate cowboys, and given the complete lack of input and discussion from professional regulatory bodies, university research departments and prominent people in the world of electronic/electrical engineering......
     
    .....I say this to Nest+Google: "Thanks for the idea guys, bye bye, careful the door doesn't hit your ass on the way out".