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Google kills the Nest Ecosystem by blackwater 05/11/2019, 7:38pm PDT
Nest's smart home platform is dead




Google is killing the "Works with Nest" platform. This was a smart home platform that would let the Nest thermostat act as a hub and coordinator for a lot of your other smart home products. A notice on the "Works with Nest" webpage reads, "Works with Nest is winding down." Google's smart home strategy will now revolve around only the "Works with Google Assistant" program, and Nest's ecosystem will shut down in a bit over three months, on August 31, 2019.

I'm sure there are "Works with Nest" ecosystem users out there that bought products specifically because they "Worked with Nest." When the service shuts down in August, it sounds like all of those (probably expensive) third-party smart home products will stop working with any Nest-based automation workflows. This mandatory feature removal situation is pretty much a smart home owner's worst nightmare.

Nest-branded products will continue to work with each other, but since "Works with Nest" was a program that let other services talk to Nest, a lot of third-party integrations will be going away. The Verge has a good rundown of just how many services are going to break, and it's a brutal who's who of smart home products. Amazon Alexa, Philips Hue, IFTTT, Logitech Harmony, Lutron lights, August Home, and Wemo switches will all be affected.

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"Works with Nest" users will be facing a broken smart home and will have to pick up the scraps of their smart home ecosystem and MacGyver together another solution out of the pieces.


Google is also coming for your data.


As part of the Googification of Nest, Nest accounts are being phased out of Google's smart home strategy. Existing users won't have their Nest accounts taken away, but the FAQ on Nest.com "strongly recommends" Nest users migrate to a Google account. Nest's FAQ warns that "As Nest offers new connected home devices and services in the future, many of those will only be available to our users with Google Accounts." New Nest users will be required to use a Google account.

Migrating to a Google Account means turning all your Nest data over to Google—data that previously had been kept separate. Google says it will use your Nest data in accordance with the Google Privacy Policy. Nest data includes a lot of scary feeds from motion sensors, cameras, and microphones...
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Google kills the Nest Ecosystem by blackwater 05/11/2019, 7:38pm PDT NEW
 
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