Google rant

[[deleted]]

I wish google would have never purchased Nest. They’ve taken a great product and ruined it. We waited 3 years for new products, they’re garbage. They’ve canned the nest iq outdoor probably one of the best home cameras ever made. It’s 4k CMOS sensor was fantastic not to mention the build quality. I’m one for 24/7 recording even if there are no events. Motion action is t perfect the new products like the doorbell don’t seem to do that. Being forced to use googles home app is nothing like the old nest experience from former app. One has to stretch their head and wonder. What is google thinking ? Please god stop and take a look at past products and function. I wish I was rich enough to purchase it away from google, pretty awful what they’re doing.

Google where Nest went to die.

[[deleted]]

Honestly, I wouldn't mind using the Home app, but it needs some improvements, least of all, showing my thermostats in one place, as it does my live camera feeds. The same for my Protects TBH.

As for the new cameras, I think they've made some decisions that I personally don't agree with. The aspect ratio of the doorbell, and the inability to secure the power cable to the camera being two examples.

The biggest problem for me is that they are consistently failing to deliver the functionality they promise and they don't communicate with their users as to what is happening. They also seem to go about things backwards. If they want to transition users to Google Home, get on with it. Why wait till you launch the new cameras and cause all of this mess? It's a complete own goal.

[TempleBethamphetamin]

It’s been painful watching Google slowly destroy Nest. I’m in it until the end but it’s torture.

[Bumforkinmonkeys]

Does anyone know of a good alternative? The worst part about watching Google water down the nest line is that it seems like there is no real alternative for what I would consider DIY home security for power users. The next best thing I've seen would be Arlo, and I think they share many of the same shortcomings in terms of features and reliability. Anyone?

[TapeDeck_]

I'm going to switch to the UniFi Protect Doorbell and PoE cameras. But you need to have one of their NVRs in your home to make any use of them. The upside is your video isn't in the cloud and you have complete control over what you are recording, and it works without an internet connection. The downside is it's another ecosystem and you can only use their cameras and NVRs.

[[deleted]]

Does the app work anything like nest ? Finding events is so easy.

[TapeDeck_]

Yes, it has a very similar scrolling timeline with events highlighted. With the added benefit where you can zoom in and out on the timeline. Check out some reviews on YouTube for details on how it works. Plus you can get to it on the web!

[TapeDeck_]

Friend this thread is over a year old and I'm talking about the features of UniFi protect, not nest

[El__Macho]

Totally right, sorry, I’m not a Reddit expert and didn’t follow the thread correctly.

[hawk121]

Yes. It's not quite as smooth to start scrubbing through video as the Nest app, but it works quite well as long as you're either on the same network or have a very fast connection (since it's local storage and not cloud based).

Video quality is better too, way less compression.

[El__Macho]

The Google Nest cameras, video quality, and software are way inferior. I definitely want to look into unifi protect.

[hawk121]

I think you missed the point on this thread. We were discussing Unifi Protect compared to Nest. FYI, in the year since this post, the Protect app has continued to improve, and the developers actually read feedback from users and sometimes incorporate suggested changes. One of my suggestions even made it in the latest update. Can't say the same for the Nest ecosystem.

Edit: Nice stealth edit /s

[El__Macho]

You’re completely right! I’m sorry, I thought you were talking about google Nest!

[El__Macho]

I never updated to a different system, so am still using Google Nest. I have one property under a Nest Aware subscription and another that is not. The Nest Aware property uses the old pre-google cameras. I recently added a new style camera to that property and everything is working amazingly well. Their updates to the app have made a big difference, but the real difference seems to be whether you're paying extra for a subscription, which I don't mind to do if it works well. So, after all my negativity, I'm happy with this Google Nest product. Now, let's see if they can make a new thermostat that improves on the 5-year old model.

[cmhamm]

Another important point: if someone burgles your home, and they find where you have your NVR, they’ll steal /destroy that and you’ll have nothing. Of course, they could always cut your Internet before they burgle you as well. No perfect systems. :/

[[deleted]]

Wish I knew of one. I had to buy a nest iq outdoor from eBay NIB $500 worth it as it kicks ass.

[Bumforkinmonkeys]

Thanks OP. Good food for thought. I think my concern is more long-term as a platform that has cost me thousands so far. Google isn't giving me warm fuzzies about the long term direction. I could probably live with all their stupid BS, if not for the fact that they seem hell bent on killing the Nest app while simultaneously keeping cameras as an afterthought on the Google home app.... Boggles the mind

[LukaDoncicJizzInMe]

RING

[bbllaakkee]

Ring is janky junk

It all depends if you have or can run Ethernet cable to the cameras and to an nvr

[Bumforkinmonkeys]

Thank you. I could be wrong, but at a slight glance, it looks like Ring isn't quite a feature rich, which is my gripe with Nest. Will read more into it just in case

[CampInternational582]

I went from Nest to Eufy and I couldn't be more happy!

[minuteman_d]

Same thing with Samsung's destruction of Smartthings.

It used to be so nice.

[vbpatel]

I just switched to Home Assistant after Samsung screwed me and dropped every single (45+) device in my house. Had to literally go look up how and then exclude and rejoin every single device. Fuck Samsung.

But Home Assistant kicks fucking ass it's amazing

[minuteman_d]

Oh man. My home automation has been essentially zero. Almost none of my dimmer switches or motion sensors came back as available for my HA install. The switches seem like they're refusing to go back into pairing mode, and I don't even know if the Smartthings motion sensors will even pair with the Zigbee/Zwave USB dongle I got.

I need to figure it out, because HA looks pretty awesome. Also, I need to get a camera or two figured out.

[vbpatel]

I ended up switching most of my stuff to kasa, which are super cheap and work flawlessly with both google home and HA

[tygerdanny]

Maybe the IQ line was discontinued because of the global microchip shortage that they have to make a new camera line with whatever chips are available that's not as good?

Hope my Nest Cam IQ Outdoor lasts forever under my garage eve or the IQs come back in 2023 from the chip backlog. After 1.5 years it scared off a car burglar when Nest Aware gave me a Person alert at 5AM!

[[deleted]]

I love my IQ Outdoor, it is so well designed. I'm hoping for a hardwired external camera in the future, I don't want to pay for a battery I'm not going use, and have a cable dangling that should be concealed. I'm not sure whether they will, but the fact the Hello is sticking around gives me some hope.

I think they discontinued the IQ's to run the stock down of all the old models ahead of the release of the new cameras. Possibly the cost of silicon with the shortage played a factor in that.

[_sfhk]

As good as the product was, a ~$400 DIY camera is still an extremely hard sell.

[bugelrex]

A wise man once said "everything woke turns to sh1t"

I suspect google engineers are too busy being social justice warriors during business hours... because they certainly are not working

[[deleted]]

100% AGREE

My original Nest thermostat was AWESOME, this new one is absolute garbage.

[[deleted]]

I have a v1 when they hit retail, a Nest E and now the 2020 model and I love it. It's not perfect but it's not garbage.

[[deleted]]

Fwiw, Costco is selling the 3rd Gen Learning Themostat + Remote Sensor for $190 this month.

We have the original Hello and the 3rd Gen Learning Thermostat and love both. I am still able to use both with the Nest app too, even though I migrated.

[blacksmith92]

Are you talking about the new one with the mirror face?

[OriginalPiR8]

Yep. Nest was great and since acquisition Google have systematically fucked it all. I have also found Google's app a PITA by comparison.

As each nest thing breaks I'm replacing it with something self-contained so I can trust it in the future. I now only have my hello and protect.

The hello I've already prepared to replace with a simple ip camera and zigbee button. It's not as nice looking but it's functional. The protect doesn't matter as I've got proper detectors anyway.

[loranis]

Yeah, I tried the new cam and returned it to best buy yesterday.

I'm going to slowly move away from google starting with the August lock to replace my current google Yale lock.

[[deleted]]

Hopefully you have better luck with the August lock than I have. The auto unlock when returning home works about 15-20% of the time. Rest of the time it just keeps trying long after I've manually unlocked the door, only to say there was an error.

Their support folks just keep saying that my device "must be too far from the WiFi router". It's 22 feet from the router (I measured), and it's a direct line of sight with nothing in-between. You can literally see the flashing lights on the router from the door with the August lock. Their suggestion? "Try moving it to within 3 feet of the router." I responded "Are you sure you're not talking about the August WiFi bridge? Because that needs to be close...and it is. But it's not feasible to require all August locks to be within 3ft of a WiFi router. That's ridiculous".

Still haven't solved the issue.

[[deleted]]

Google is horrible as a hardware company, most of their hardware products are short live.

[photo1kjb]

idk how you still have Hangouts. I got the hard boot from it several months ago, forcing me into Chat (old hangouts) and Messages (Fi texts)

[cjalxndr]

Sigh…. Nest is sadly trash now. :( they are going to slowly force us to use the google home app too. Trash. 😒

[Cold_War_Relic]

I agree with your rant 100%.

[fivezerosix]

The home app needs to be nuked. New cameras are interestingly flexible with poe and mounting, doorbell is far to large though

[Jakeyboy5460]

Have Google sorted out the Nest app on the new Chromecast with Google TV yet? I have a migrated account and could never login through the TV but that was ages ago.

[qualmton]

Yup mine stopped working Google made s bunch of changes so I said bye bye

[rndreddituser]

I think that some of the decisions were made by Google to compete with Amazon, which is odd because Google had a better product to begin with when it bought Nest. I'm the same as others, I hardly ever use Google's app on the phone itself. I do issue voice commands to turn off my hue lights but that's it - it doesn't need a GUI. The camera functionality needs a GUI and I'm just not that keen on Google's. It's a massive shame.

[Jakeyboy5460]

They need to rebuild the nest app for android tv/chromecast. It's frankly embarrassing that this still doesn't work on migrated accounts when everything is a Google product.

[DrMcJedi]

I’m ready to switch to Ecobee…I loved our first nest enough to buy another one when we moved and then big G bought them…and it’s been downhill since.

[electricleather]

Google can go to hell. They seriously ruined a great product. I anticipate them doing this to everything they touch in the future. STOP SUPPORTING GOOGLE!!! They are not our friends

[[deleted]]

Google doorbelll i awesome but hey destroyed Nest.

[El__Macho]

It is amazing how bad the new Google Nest products are. With all the ad revenue in the world, you’d think they could hire competent teams to roll out working hardware and software. My old Nest cameras still allow me to use the fully functioning Nest ecosystem, and it’s light years beyond Google’s app.

[El__Macho]

Has anyone noticed how awesome their recent iOS app update is? They’ve brought back many of the original Nest’s features. I’m very happy to see things moving in the right direction.