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posted by takyon on Thursday April 07 2016, @11:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the daily-reminder dept.

An article at The Electronic Frontier Foundation goes over a recent decision by the home automation company Nest to disable some of its customers' devices in May:

The Hub debuted in 2013 and was discontinued after Nest acquired Revolv in late 2014. One selling point was that the one-time payment of $300 included a "Lifetime Subscription," including updates. In fact, the device shipped without all of its antennas being functional yet. Customers expected that the antennas would be enabled via updates.

Customers likely didn't expect that, 18 months after the last Revolv Hubs were sold, instead of getting more upgrades, the device would be intentionally, permanently, and completely disabled.

The article also highlights the legal grey area for customers who attempt to keep their own hardware functional, due to "conflicting court decisions about the scope of Section 1201" (of the DMCA).

The EFF article links to a medium.com posting which goes over the experience of a user of the hardware in question:

On May 15th, my house will stop working. My landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working. This is a conscious intentional decision by Google/Nest. [...] Google is intentionally bricking hardware that I own.

Originally spotted at Hacker News.

Previously: Google Shows us the Future of Cloud-Dependent Home Automation


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 07 2016, @04:17PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 07 2016, @04:17PM (#328524)

    A warning label for tech devices... I like that idea actually. If people want to make dumb purchasing decisions based solely on convenience, if there's a warning label informing them of the pitfalls, then at least they've made an informed choice.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday April 07 2016, @05:15PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Thursday April 07 2016, @05:15PM (#328560)

    "Warning: Any recent, sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Think less "flying-carpet", and more "Sorcerer's Apprentice" type magic."

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday April 07 2016, @09:26PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday April 07 2016, @09:26PM (#328687) Journal
      Any sufficiently crude magic is indistinguishable from cloud technologies.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford