In a totally stunning move that no one could have ever seen coming, Google has decided to abandon the Nest Secure line of products, as reported by Android Police.
Regular readers of this site will know that I have quite a few issues with the way Google treats their products (see here, here, and here). Their history of long term product support is abysmal, and they have a frighteningly solid track record of completely abandoning products after a short run. For example, there was Google TV. Or Google Nexus Q. Or a slew of cell phones I could care less about. Now you can add the entire Nest Secure lineup to the list. And if I were an owner of Google OnHub, I’d start shopping around for a new router since it’s pointless with Google Wifi in the world.
If you bought into the Nest Secure ecosystem, you likely spent hundreds of dollars, possibly over a thousand dollars to get set up, and here three years after release you’re being told the product line is discontinued. And that there’s not going to be a successor. And that Google is totally going to continue to support existing customers for some amount of time that they’ll specify in the future. This isn’t the kind of treatment you want from your expensive smart home tech. (Of course you probably also didn’t want super secret hidden microphones either, but Google said they didn’t mean anything by it.)
The smart home thing is a hobby for Google. It’s barely a blip on their balance sheet, and they can afford to throw shit at the wall and see what sticks knowing that people will forgive them. They got into the smart home world when they acquired Nest and have since treated it like a red-headed stepchild. The Nest/Google app situation is confusing as hell, Works with Nest getting killed off was a huge bummer for the whole smart home world, and even the “Google Nest”/”Nest”/”Google Home” branding can be confusing.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think Google makes great products. I use many Google products. But I have to caution you if you plan to hitch your wagon to Google that you may wake up one morning and find they’ve run away with the metaphorical horses.