Google's parent company is disabling old smart home devices

[Desert_AIP]

Smart items
 
Like RFID chips embedded in the seams of clothing and a washer with RFID reader and a database of items.
Throw clothes in the washer, the washer knows if there is a red sock in with the whites.
It knows whether the load is whites, colors, delicates, etc, and selects the proper wash profile, temperatures and products (stored in bulk inside the machine) for the items inside, automatically.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Millions of dollars/pounds/francs/marks/etc and countless CENTURIES were spent in the creation of print and typography.  Desktop Publishing and the advent of xerographic transfer printing (aka laser printers) pretty much obsoleted them overnight.  So clearly the amount of time and money spent means little in the face of transformative disruptive technologies.  

 
The problem is everyone comes up with these analogies but the examples are often about how to do one specific thing. Creating a smart home is not one thing. Replacing a printing press with a laser printer is just one way to print out something vs. another. The person who wanted to print something never really had to know much about either.
 
A more relevant comparison would be, where is that 'build your own car for $2000' technology? There's been almost two centuries of car manufacturing by now. Why can't I go buy all of the parts and easily put together my own car? Because building a car requires knowing a lot of things, just as putting together a real smart home does, many of those things have little to do directly with cars or home automation. 
 
BTW, the printing press is hardly dead. How many books in the library do you figure were printed on a laser printer? I'm pretty sure they still use printing, though it's now I think using a lithographic plates instead of moveable type, and I doubt that any average person could remotely figure out how to operate the process. 
 

You speak of the IoT initiative as if where something 'too simple' for people to bother with.  Why?  Doesn't their 'cutting their teeth' at the low end build a smarter customer in the long run?  Clearly you're not prepared to sell to them now.  So obviously they've not going to be your customer, nor any of the suppliers above your price tier.  The smart money would seem to lie just ahead of that point.

 
There's nothing wrong with it. It's just that it's not getting any of those people any closer to a smart house (despite the somewhat heavy hype to the contrary), nor is it encouraging the growth of technologies that would do that (which are on a different scale altogether.) It's a very piecemeal world, whereas truly smart homes are a very integrated world.

 

[wkearney99]

Better detergents and more efficient machines have probably done more to help laundry day than would RFID tags.  
 
Case in point, the wife bought a blouse while on vacation to St. Maarten last week.  $20 from a beach vendor stand.  Turns out the dyes weren't very fast and even cold water from a drink caused them to bleed on her white jeans.  I don't foresee the blouse vendor going with RFID tags anytime soon.  
 
But I get your point, there's definitely some helpful decision making processes that could come from use of items.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Here's where we disagree.  The complexity is not in the environment.  It's in the people using the environment.

 
You are just wrong about that. It's the environment, and this is easily proven. Name almost any truly smart aspect to a home, and look at how it has to be done to be robust and reliable and to be significantly customized to the gear the user has and how he wants it all to work together, and it's the environment that's the limiting problem. It will require setting up hardware and logic that 99.9% of people either cannot understand or don't want to take the time to understand and to actually do.

 

[wkearney99]

The problem is everyone comes up with these analogies but the examples are often about how to do one specific thing. Creating a smart home is not one thing. Replacing a printing press with a laser printer is just one way to print out something vs. another. The person who wanted to print something never really had to know much about either.
 
A more relevant comparison would be, where is that 'build your own car for $2000' technology? There's been almost two centuries of car manufacturing by now. Why can't I go buy all of the parts and easily put together my own car? Because building a car requires knowing a lot of things, just as putting together a real smart home does, many of those things have little to do directly with cars or home automation. 

 
Countering what you consider one bad analogy with one that's even worse isn't exactly a compelling argument.  Having been involved in automation efforts for both I'd say you're bordering on making an Olsen-like mistake with regard to personal transportation.  But it'd be a waste to further argue analogies.
 

BTW, the printing press is hardly dead. How many books in the library do you figure were printed on a laser printer? I'm pretty sure they still use printing, though it's now I think using a lithographic plates instead of moveable type, and I doubt that any average person could remotely figure out how to operate the process. 

 
I didn't say the press was dead.  Volume certainly benefits from scale.  Individual expression in print, however, has blossomed quite well with the advent of desktop publishing. 
 

There's nothing wrong with it. It's just that it's not getting any of those people any closer to a smart house (despite the somewhat heavy hype to the contrary), nor is it encouraging the growth of technologies that would do that (which are on a different scale altogether.) It's a very piecemeal world, whereas truly smart homes are a very integrated world.

 
Life IS PIECE-MEAL.  Where a lot of automation attempts bog down is in failing to accept this as a core premise.  Sure, there's lots of things that are predictable and many can be scheduled or otherwise grouped.  But more often than not 'very integrated' results in limiting factors that degrade the experience.  Issues like tech can't be made to work together seamlessly (let alone reliably) or the logic used to build the automation has such limited flexibility as to be more annoying than helpful.  It's the classic hassle of "do what I mean, not what I say".  Or more accurately, not what I've been paying $100/hr for the automation geek to incorrectly implement.

 

[wkearney99]

You are just wrong about that. It's the environment, and this is easily proven. Name almost any truly smart aspect to a home, and look at how it has to be done to be robust and reliable and to be significantly customized to the gear the user has and how he wants it all to work together, and it's the environment that's the limiting problem. It will require setting up hardware and logic that 99.9% of people either cannot understand or don't want to take the time to understand and to actually do.

 
Wow does that come across as tone deaf.  
 
Well, I guess time will tell.  

 

[tmbrown97]

OK - admittedly I stopped reading just into page 3...  but wanted to post a thanks for the tips on the Dash - my 5yr old will be happy! My 7yr old has the Infocast which I had to patch a couple years ago, but the Dash just died recently... sounds like I'll be reviving it this weekend.
 
The kids use these to play pandora to fall asleep to.
 
I will say though, that this whole IoT / Cloud movement with everyone in the world trying to get into home automation has actually turned me off quite a bit.  Now *everyone* thinks it's accessible by going to Lowes and buying some cheap components and magically it all works - but those systems aren't as nice, as unified, or as comprehensive as what I've had for the last 10 years.  Granted, thanks to the cloud I can tie in geofencing with IFTTT, but I'm quite happy having all my automation logic living in my home vs. on the cloud.

 

[wkearney99]

I miss using my Chumby gizmos.  They were really ahead of their time.  Bravo to Duane and the community for keeping them going.
 
There's a part of me that recognizes there's a sort of mis-placed jealousy that existing members of a community often have toward new initiatives that come across as ignoring those that came before them.  It's not new, likely as old as communities of people, regardless of tech.  
 
The upside to IoT and the newbies is they're bringing sales revenue into the equation.  Sure, it's perhaps not coming with the same profit margins as before, but this has happened countless times before.  And somehow the industries evolved and moved forward.

 

[pete_c]

OK - admittedly I stopped reading just into page 3...  but wanted to post a thanks for the tips on the Dash - my 5yr old will be happy! My 7yr old has the Infocast which I had to patch a couple years ago, but the Dash just died recently... sounds like I'll be reviving it this weekend.
 
The Chumby movement and devices  was one of many cloud based (for free), flash OS's.  It was way more than just an alarm clock.  You can also take it to the next level of using 32 bit Debian / with a Linux GUI on it to get a bit more.  I think I documented that step by step here or on Homeseer way long time ago.  It was a manual build of the OS and a changeroot to a bigger drive.  Here for a bit kept up a subscription to it such that I could download and archive the custom flash applications (they get cached on the Dash - Chumby device with nonsensical numeric names).  The bigger screen Sony dash did utilize the smaller Chumby CPU versus the larger Infocast / Chumby 8 boxes. (IE: little Chumby / Infocast had a Freescale iMX233 ARM926EJ-S 454MHz CPU, Big Chumby/Infocast had a Marvell PXA168 ARM9 800MHz CPU and Sony Dash had a Freescale iMX233 ARM926EJ-S 454MHz and it looked nicer than all of the above).
 
On the forum here have posted much about the OpenPeak O2 Joggler which really was similiar to the Chumby using cloud based flash files.  It was supposed to sort of be Skully's get even with Apple hardware device.  Only difference really was it was based on an Intel Atom CPU and used an EFI boot ROM.  As it was a bit faster it was easier to replace the OS in it's entirety.  (today it'll run Ubuntu, Android, Wintel and Mac OS's).  It uses a glass capacitance screen and did include a Gb port, WLAN, Bluetooth, SIM card, DECT chip and Zigbee chip by default on the standard release Openpeak hardware.  I also got a peek at the cloud management software instruction manual for the device. I was amazed what could be done from the cloud to the devices - a bit scary big brother stuff I suppose.
 
I am curious how would you convince a 5 year old that Santa Claus exists after hearing otherwise from Alexa.

 

[pete_c]

Personally here an unrelated / related to iOT stuff recall in the 1980's when utility companies local to Rochester Hills, Michigan put in separate electrical infrastructure such that they could just turn off everybody's AC during the hot summer seasons and brownouts concurrent with making statements about keeping AC levels at 78 ° F.  
 
The Utility company OpenPeak Joggler had a direct connection to your thermostat and electrical meter.  I have a few of these (beta testing ones?) from West Coast / Midwest Utility companies.  Just like the first Zigbee ZIM for the OmniPro 2 panel.
 
Here envision all of those little devices in your home constantly being monitored (well and consumer is paying for the technology cuz it just wiz bang remote control stuff on your cellular phone).  Well then getting an email or text or home alert making a statement that the iOT device is misbehaving and that residence will get fined or that the device will just be shut off if not replaced with an approved iOT low energy device or whatever.
 
It is fun to play with. 
 
I just want my own personal AI automation box (not part of the fold)  in the house that just takes care of me and my family (I am selfish) using the internet maybe taking from it selfishly in a one way sense and regurgitating or spewing out what I do not need.
 
I am all for the efficiency of green energy here.  Technology is there but too bad so sad that interest ball valved relating to the making much money (well and scared utilities companies reducing profits). 
 
With the all of that rigmarole we will need to start depending on nuclear energy sooner than later.
 
GE brings good things to life

 

[Dean Roddey]

There's a part of me that recognizes there's a sort of mis-placed jealousy that existing members of a community often have toward new initiatives that come across as ignoring those that came before them.  It's not new, likely as old as communities of people, regardless of tech.  

 
You're doing it again. It's condescending. I have no jealousy that new initiatives are ignoring me. I'm unhappy that they are getting so much attention for doing something that really isn't moving us in the right direction. That makes lots of people think that pressing a button on a smart phone and turning on a light is automation. 
 
As to the margins, there again, the problem is that low margin, inexpensive stuff isn't going to get us where we need to be. This is an area that needs real investment and broad vision towards ubiquitous *integration*, not fractional solutions given away in an effort to make money on ads or selling customer data (or to just get bought out by a big company who doesn't understand the space and fails to ever monetize it and eventually shuts it down.)

 

[Madcodger]

What's the old saying? If a frog had wings...

I just laugh when I see people ranting about the direction of a market, that doesn't suit them (and yes, I've done it as well). The market will go where it wants to go. Saying that it's the wrong direction or that it's "not automation" is not going to help you or change that direction or speed. People en masse will spend whatever amount they want, on whatever technology they want. You can go there with them, or find another niche, but "automation" as a market will define itself.

 

[pete_c]

Yes it is marketing and audience these days.
 
Think about the why of the marketing audience for this easy button remote control of lighting brought to you by GE commercial.
 
It is such an easy sell these days. 
 
[youtube]http://youtu.be/zmq_sYXu64w[/youtube]
 
 
Here is an optimistic view of AI tomorrow.
 
[youtube]http://youtu.be/jP0QdjMt_nI[/youtube]

 

[Dean Roddey]

What's the old saying? If a frog had wings... I just laugh when I see people ranting about the direction of a market, that doesn't suit them (and yes, I've done it as well). The market will go where it wants to go. Saying that it's the wrong direction or that it's "not automation" is not going to help you or change that direction or speed. People en masse will spend whatever amount they want, on whatever technology they want. You can go there with them, or find another niche, but "automation" as a market will define itself.

 
Well, there are 'wrong directions' wrt to achieving a goal that somehow everyone seems to want, e.g. the 'smart home'. What's happening now is wreathed in smart home hype, but it has nothing to do with creating a smart home. That's not just whining about something happening that you don't like. It's pointing out a real divergence between the portrayal and the reality.
 
And, actually, talking about it can help, in the sense of getting people aware of the issues. I've helped a lot of folks who are just getting into this stuff understand that pressing a button on a phone to turn on a single light really isn't automation, and it's literally not automation, it's just simple control no different from an IR remote. So many of them really don't understand the larger issues and my posts have helped them understand the differences between individual, standalone 'smart' doodads and the benefits of highly integrated automation.
 
We have no desire whatsoever to get into an uber-commodity market, so it's sort of irrelevant to us. It's not likely that anyone buying into those simplistic systems would have been a customer anyway (and the same applies to other companies who are selling more pro level solutions.) To the degree that people get tired of messing around with their starter kit bits and want to move up, we'd benefit from that. 

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

You make a good point Dean.  I started by wanting my newly installed outdoor lights controlled by a remote (and started with X-10 and a palm pad over 14 years ago).  Then it was to see about a sunrise/sunset option.  Then I thought about wanting this in the entire home, then that brought up more options which lead to a larger system.
 
So, let people tinker with their button presses on a phone to turn on a lamp...hopefully it will lead to something larger.