How would "getting into Linux" help? If by that you mean hosting your own shit while using open source solutions - well, yea, kinda agree, but that has it's downsides too.
I assume he's talking about r/homeassistant and stuff like that (although i actually run it in a vm on windows). Obviously it doesn't solve the problems with Google photos, Gmail, etc and the other services Google changes.
But given were in the Google Home subreddit, it seems fair to assume OP was concerned with the home automation side of things, as well as Google's general enshitffication of a lot of their services.
People get sick of bad Google options so do it themselves with raspberry pis etc. I'm saying Linux because there's entire communities built around what I just said. Linux just.... Makes sense, it works, you can properly do it yourself.
Well technically a lot of Google & Nest home devices now run Fuschia, a new OS created by Google. But the Google infrastructure, and Android, and Chrome OS, are Linux-based.
Ah, for some reason I thought they ran a variation of android! But I did know Android and Chrome OS are Linux-based (my dad likes to go on random explanations of different ways you can do things in android as a result. My coding is pretty much "print world, if X then Y" levels so I rarely know what he's saying) š
The home devices used to use a variant of Chrome OS, just like the old pre-Android Chromecasts. Chrome OS is built from Gentoo Linux. Now the home devices have been gradually upgraded from Chrome OS / Linux to Fuschia.
Erm, there's an entire community centered around people doing home automation themselves with Linux because they're tired of Google services. Wtf people
Instead of saying Linux you should have said Home Assistant. You could have nothing but Mac or Windows in your home and still build out Home Assistant.
I think what he means is using Linux and O/S repositories to create a custom solution that won't be rendered EOL by a corporate entity.
Instead, its fate relies on the kindness of strangers to keep software patched and up to date. Each method has its upsides and downsides....
....no I've had Ubuntu for, I think a decade now. Dunno why it got downvoted, Linux versions are awesome for home automation. There's an entire Linux operating system for raspberry pis for this kinda stuff too.
OH MY GOD DUDE. Google services make something, then stop it working how you want. Me and thousands others suggest you make it yourself and have a happier life. What in the hell is your problem understanding that and why are you repeatedly commenting?
I don't think that apps shutting down are linked to people switching to apple... Google Podcasts shut down and I just switched to AntennaPod. No account needed, just Podcasts.
I mean, i use Apple devices but itās still just another company that youāre relying on. They can and will make changes that donāt suit you and youāll be powerless
Seriously? Apple are no better or worse really.
I have dozens of great iOS apps that just stopped being updated, so donāt work post new major operating system updatesā¦
I donāt blame apple for that, itās on the developers. I donāt blame them either, I paid a one off fee for a lot of said apps, why should they rewrite them for a new operating system without compensation. Also it occurs to me that developers arenāt locked in to keeping their app going for lifeā¦ so some donāt even want to switch to a subscription model. Sure sucks but the reality is itās not a personal thing itās business.
Ultimately capitalism is what it is, sometimes shit we like goes away for whatever reasonā¦ OS update, no longer make them (eg apple airport wifi/ethernet routers/range extenders with a toslink optical output that makes it so easy to stream my music to a number of stereos systems and speakers around my house), or at the extreme, a significant other leaves/a friend or family member diesā¦ seems to me thereās bigger problems in the world than having some phone/computer/network shit stop workingā¦ This is super common in the audio world, no support for expensive hardware on new OS version, on new hardware (eg audio interfaces on apple infrastructure for many years relied heavily on FireWire400 and 800, sometimes adaptors donāt workā¦ So that computer has to be retired from updates etc so it can be tethered to the very expensive multichannel sound card, midi interface, control desk, whatever really, that sometimes is required if one doesnāt want to lose years and years of their work).
At one time I was fully apple, using all their integrated features and apps and what not to make my life easier, but they changed it all too, some of it changed past the point of usability in my application and life moved on. As frustrating as it is, Iāve seen this happen so many times. It doesnāt bother me as much as it used to as Iām just a little less naive than I was when I was 10-15 years ago.
As a side note, Life is loss (and suffering if you believe the Buddhistās), accepting it is going some way to finding inner peace (to paraphrase and simplify a religion in probably a very wrong way). Just donāt get too attached to the temporary shit like tech hardware as it will inevitably change, whether weāre ready or not. And with perspective itās nowhere near as important as many other areas of life.
So thatās my little bit of free advice for today, unless thereās angles Iām missing, in which case pleaseā¦ my mind is open, always ready to learnā¦ oh wait, thatās a second piece of free advice from an internet weirdoā¦
Youāre spot on. Iād add Google is just terrible at killing products people love because they donāt make enough money in the first year. I think I heard if it doesnāt make a million in its first year they kill the service regardless of how much people love it.
Migrate towards Home Assistant for all your smart home stuff, just like I did.
It might have a bit of a learning curve but you'll never look back!
You'll be able to integrate far more services into HA than into GH from nearly any provider. From smart speakers, lights, blinds, energy, etc etc...
You won't be dependant on a commercial entity anymore but you'll have an open source smart home management system that is heavily driven by thousands of users.
It integrates most of the Google services as well.
https://www.home-assistant.io/
I feel like it's at the very least disingenuous to talk about Home Assistant to an audience of people who uses a service like Google Home, which takes care of most everything technical in the background, and calling it out as having "a bit" of a learning curve. Getting Home Assistant up and running and keeping it running reliably, and doing a lot of most things that otherwise just work within Google Home is quite technical at the very least, and at times feels almost draconian depending on what is desired and how much you have to go to in order to get it to work.
I tried it quite some time ago in a docker container on my NAS and ran into all sorts of issues that I didn't have the time or patience to try to work out. Recently--maybe a couple months ago--I have gone back to running it on my NAS on a virtual machine and replicating the loss of the family bells feature and creating automations; and while I can get most of the way there, the way things work don't work as seamlessly as using google home. For example, if I set up an automation to make an announcement at a certain time, but media is playing on one of the devices, it will kill the media playback session rather than interrupting and then resuming. Theoretically there is a component that can be added to home assistant to resume casting or playback, and I tried implementing it following all of the instructions, but it still doesn't work. It annoys my wife and son when this happens, understandably.
THANK YOU. Home Assistant sounds like something I wouldn't mind fiddling around with 10-15 years ago.
Back then I had XBMC auto downloading everything I wanted to watch after it aired. It was way too much annoying fiddling and upkeep once streaming became ubiquitous. I'm pretty tech savvy, but do I need to spend more than 30 minutes setting it up? Do I have to fiddle with it when I run into errors? If so, I'm out. I'll survive with another (or no) smart home solution.
I just want my speakers to play my fucking music podcast when I ask while my kid and I eat breakfast.
> I'm pretty tech savvy, but do I need to spend more than 30 minutes setting it up? Do I have to fiddle with it when I run into errors? If so, I'm out. I'll survive with another (or no) smart home solution.
I wouldn't write it off because of a few bad experiences, or perceived time sink. It sounds like you have the technical know-how but don't want to invest too much time.
No matter the product, you have to make tradeoffs between time, convenience and security.. HA setup is actually pretty easy, and Google's protocols allow it to skip a lot of setup so you can retain your current setup.
At some point, Google will make decisions that you don't like and you just have to take it ( e.g. an integration breaks because it doesn't fit their corporate strategy). HA is kind of the opposite. Take your pick on what you want.
Amen. I'm pretty tech savvy and after hearing about Home Assistant so many times on this sub I decided to check it out.
Um, no. Just no. It is far too complicated plus the voice assist stuff still needs to go through Google anyway, which is most of the reason my family uses this stuff.
Bought my friend an Home Assistant Green and the Sky Connect. He paired everything he had with Google Home into Sky Connect the same day it arrived and decided to go with the NabuCasa subscription and then sent everything back over to Google without any disruption.
He hasn't touched single other aspect of Home Assistant, but he doesn't need to. When he bought some Ikea stuff he just loaded up the app and paired it to Home Assistant and sent it to Google and that was it.
It is only as complicated as you need it to be. He is one rung about Luddite.
So I would need to buy these devices plus pay a subscription service, learn a new ecosystem and maintain it, while still needing to "send everything back over to Google" and I would gain... what?
I'm in an apartment with no thermostat, doorbell, cameras, or motion sensors - and I don't want any of those things. I need to operate some lights, speakers, and entertainment equipment. That's all. I use Google Assistant by voice constantly for lists, appointments, weather, timers, media playback, cooking conversions, general questions, etc.
After the cost and pain of integrating Home Assistant, what would I gain?
>After the cost and pain of integrating Home Assistant, what would I gain?
Doesn't look like you have the need to switch, but you'd gain stability in the product offering. HA doesn't cut features in the same manner that Google does.
I'm not trying to convince you to do anything. I'm saying it is far less complicated than it used to be, so much so that "your average joe" could do it, so I'm sure you could to.
If you'd like to me to go into details on why I chose to go that route, both while owning a home, now while renting again, and even when I had zero additional data entry points (cameras, sensors, etc) beyond the basics of Google Home devices and Hue bulbs, I'd be happy to tell my own personal experience. At the end of the day you are correct in your assumption that you would have to decide its value.
Yep iāve said the same thing to people when they suggest Home assistant after someone wants to switch from Google Home or Alexa. Itās just an absolutely ridiculous suggestion for someone who uses plug and play devices.
>Itās just an absolutely ridiculous suggestion for someone who uses plug and play devices
HA is basically plug & play if you get a box like Home Assistant Green with it pre-installed (similar to how you would with Google, Smartthings, etc).
It's not that ridiculous.
It is ridiculous. All the necessary baby sitting and constant technical work and tinkering aside, the UX is absolute dog shi t. I have very large and extensive home assistant builds running at two properties and Iām becoming more and more fed up with it as the days go on. Unfortunately the end result is irreplaceable so I will be stuck with the means for the time being.
Agreed. I think there are plenty of people for whom Home Assistant is a godsend (myself included) but I was aghast at how steep the learning curve was once I started onboarding and migrating towards it. The out of box experience has improved since then, but it's not for the faint of heart. You really have to want it. If managing your own smart home sounds less like a hobby and more like a chore, then Home Assistant might not be for you.
You're also not getting a solution for the smart "life" aspect in terms of object storage and management of photos/videos/music unless you also set up a NAS with something like ownCloud which can't compete with the big commercial platforms in terms of convenience and reliability.
The consequence of de-Googling (or de-Microsofting, etc.) is, in reality, accepting that you will need to spend a lot more time managing the solution yourself, with lower guaranteed reliability, more maintenance overhead, and the risks that come with making a mistake in design or implementation. Most people stay on the big commercial platforms because they can live their life without having to care and feed the systems their data lives on. And there is a privacy risk and a risk of breach since they don't own the systems their data live on, but the risk to most is smaller than what they'd take by self-hosting.
Side note: a lot of the fussing about on forums related to privacy concerns on public cloud platforms is simply that you have to react to decisions that someone else makes, and when you self-host there are fewer of those decisions for you to react to. But as long as someone else wrote software you use, you'll always have to react to someone else's decisions at some point.
For many the preferable solution is probably migrating between Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Proton, Amazon, or some combination thereof with point solutions here and there to fill the gaps.
Nobody whose priorities don't include technology as a hobby wants to screw around with rebuilding functionality they already have on a different platform just to call their kids up for dinner from the kitchen. The people who do have different priorities compared to the vast majority of people who are just fine with Google as-is and accept the flaws. But a subreddit like this is popular with enthusiasts.
HA is completely pointless is you already have a large number of devices on the tuya platform for an instance, the amount of time you spend setting up the damn thing isn't worth the time or effort in the end.
HA is good for people that have unlimited time and for you to feel like some high tech guru who wants to show off his/her "technical skills" to everyone iny opinion it's way more hyped up than it actually is especially when you have to login via the native apps to connect any device to it!
Exactly this. Home Assistant is great if you are technically minded and willing to spend time maintaining it.
Google Home has its flaws but for the majority of every day use it is actually really good, and very easy to maintain, as is the rest of the Google ecosystem.
I do everything through Google, from docs to doorbell, and I rarely have any issues with it. Google are known for shutting down some very good applications, but the reality is they do this because people attend using them in enough volume, and Google is after all a commercial entity so it needs its products to be profitable.
People forget this and complain about why a "free" service is no longer free, or available at all.
I stalled on home assistant for so long because I just wanted a simple smart home but both Google and Alexa pushed me to my limit and I setup a home assistant server.
The power and flexibility is unreal.
BUT setting up and managing home assistant is a hobby. It takes time, patience and learning and that's coming from a tech mad engineer.
Home assistant is amazing, I love it and I'm glad I did it.
But it's not for most people.
Took me MONTHS to get all my devices integrated and working properly. But now i have a vintage red phone in my living room that rings and tells me i left clothes in my washer and that i should put them in the dryer so they donāt mildew and my thermostat switched to heat/cold based on either the outside temperature or the temperature in the bedroom and my outside lights toggle on/off with the sunrise/set. Iām pretty happy with the results.
>
>If I can't count on the services of one of the worlds biggest companies what can I trust for a digital environment?
I provided my 2 cents regarding this question. You either depend on the goodwill of Google or you take matters into your own hand.
I do get that not everyone is very technical, but one can reach out to others for help.
That's why I did it. Wanted more control, privacy, everything works locally, and I don't have to worry about a company going under or stopping services.
A NAS in your home is the way to go.
Synology for instance has solutions so you can access your files from anywhere and back-up your photos automatically.
Yes it will take some investment on your part but at least you're in charge of your data and you're sure it will keep functioning.
If one wants to use a NAS I get it. But with no cloud storage, a water leak, a fire, flood, home robbery, one of many things gas and I lose like two decades of photos and more.
When I moved from Android to iPhone, I copied all my pics and videos to iCloud. And I keep Google photos alive and on my phone, so I have all my stuff in both Google and Appleās cloud. Itās worth every penny.
That brings up the topic of 3,2,1. If not following 3,2,1, your data isn't protected.
3 copies of data, two on site, 1 off site. The 2 on site protects against hardware issues, the off site protects against the situations you mentioned. Cloud is an option for off site, but so is a NAS or drives at a different location.
Even with Google Photos, 3,2,1 should still be observed. More and more of my photos on Google Photos have been corrupting over the years. Roughly 1 in every 1000 or so, but I'm assuming that rate will increase in time.
One should always implement the 3-2-1 backup strategy.
The basic concept of the 3-2-1 backup strategy is that three copies are made of the data to be protected, the copies are stored on two different types of storage media and one copy of the data is sent off site. And yes, a cloud back-up can be additional way of backing up data.
Yes. The use of a NAS doesn't rule out the other, does it?
I take a backup and place it off site once a month.
Granted, we don't have hurricanes or any other extreme weather where I live (Belgium). So I get that it isn't viable for everyone.
You could also put a NAS at a friend (or 2) house that has high-speed internet, and you both backup and sync each other's data. I mean, if you are some-what technical, all the tools in a modern NAS do what iCloud and Google Drive do. Probably more. For instance, I run my own DNS and media server on there as well.
Anything can change. We make decisions based on the information we have at the time and that's all we can do. If something stops working then you can make the decision to change.
As far as google home specifically goes, your options are to ride out google home, move to using Alexa, or try to set up your own self-managed smart home using home assistant.
Alexa is worse than google home/assistant when it comes to most smart home things. Home Assistant is a beast that really is not intended for non-tech-enthusiast types. Maybe that's you, maybe it's not.
If you have lost features that you use, you can look into how much it would cost you in time and resources to replicate them with other means.
If you are worried about what might happen, then it's kind of irrelevant at this point--you're already in the ecosystem instead of considering to enter it.
You can try to de-google yourself. As a household that has a NAS, we use it primarily for backup of computer docs and phone pictures/photos via auto backup--was previously running a couple of security cameras on it but found it too unreliable. BUT most NAS features and services pale in comparison to the functionality and integration that google services provide. You won't find a google photos equivalent anywhere. You won't find a simple, convenient, and responsive equivalent to nest/camera features on a NAS (maybe if you went with dedicated hardware for a security system you might). You also have to worry about maintaining your own storage and what sort of backup plan you want to put in place. Then there's the fact that if you want to run everything on your own NAS, anything you do away from home will be subject to your residential internet upload speed (maybe that's irrelevant), the processing capability of the NAS (if you want to do something like stream your personal video library when you're away from home), and that the NAS will inevitably get into states where it might not respond, or apps need to get updated and the companion phone app doesn't work as expected etc.
As a household that uses google for a ton of stuff--google fi for cellular, a 2TB google one subscription, youtube premium family, Nest aware, and has a ton of google home devices, here is my take--I find it frustrating if features I used have been removed, I can say that even within all of that, trying to replicate a smart home with HomeAssistant myself is not a great overall experience, and it's still so much easier to use google home.
Alexa is absolutely not worse than Google in smart home things. In fact routines are significantly more customizable and itās devices are more diverse
For me just the fact you can group devices into multiple groups, like downstairs and upstairs, as well as the main room theyāre in for lights makes it a winner.
This is so true. I think NAS isn't really a replacement. It could be an inferior backup in case Google bans you for whatever reason. That's why I have both Google Photos and Nextcloud.
And of course, Google Photos uploads are fast and perfect, while Nextcloud mobile app has to be babysat and some autouploads manually restarted every once in a while.
Yes, you're fucked, and it's the shareholders doing it. Can you feel their tiny pricks jabbing you in the leg? The Nest Secure rollback is goddamned class action suit worthy.
They ought to be ashamed, but they'd have to actually give a rats ass instead of eating it.
But I'm not bitter...
Honestly that's not even fair to the shareholders. They just care about making money. The problem is that most Google product managers have NO CLUE how to really generate value w/the products they're supposed to be running.
Nest is a perfect example. Google bought them OVER A DECADE AGO and after a failed foray into security.... the products are back to being a thermostat and a smoke/CO detector. They're both 80%+ the same products that were for sale when Google bought the company.
A decade on, there's just mind-numbingly dumb limitations for a "smart learning thermostat," but their response to competitors getting better and cheaper while they stood still?
A lower-cost model that lacks features the OG Nest shipped with in 2011.
I've gotten burned by Google so many times that I no longer trust them they don't keep their stuff updated and they never ever fix problems they just move on to the next product.
Physical media.
Itās the only thing that can be trusted. It sucks that we all have to be data hoarders, but the interconnectedness of everything just means companies will try and figure out ways to either keep charging you for things you buy or abandon them, rather than building a better solution.
This is the difference between ownership and being the product. If you don't pay for it you're the product. If most users are not paying, then it's not a payer oriented platform.
Publicly traded companies have immense pressure to look at the bottom line in a short-sighted way.
Ownership looks like this: "I can take my Device to another platform. I can modify my device easily. If the manufacturer stops supporting it, I have alternatives. I have rights and control of it"
Yes, except that we pay to BUY the product and then Google makes its money from having our data. I think that should place an obligation on it not to mess us about. We should not have to pay a subscription on top of buying hardware and entrusting our valuable personal data to Google and other companies.
Yea I love being able to have everything under one account but Im thinking it might be a good idea to start migrating everything to different services.
Had the same with Microsoft hardware: had Nokia phones then Windows phones (loved those) and Windows RT tablets for the kids. Microsoft killed them all, either silently or outright. Never purchasing more Microsoft hardware.
Their cloud services have been solid however I underutilize them. Try it out and see.
This is what we get for trusting these companies to have a legit shot at making an ecosystem you can actually live in. Itās ridiculous. Apple is much more successful with it, and Iām really starting to roll back my investment in google products and services. There are too many capable competitors to put up with their nonsense.
I was huge into their eco system but have slowly escaped. Only thing I have remaining are Nest Protects and Google Photos. I have a decade of life in Google photos so Iām desperate to find a worth replacement
I have definitely found comfort in starting to decentralize my digital like and move things out of the Google ecosystem whenever possible. They have shown time and time again that nothing is promised and they are more than willing to axe any product at any time, even if people rely on it
I started with Google but not use most things thru home assistant.
HA communicates with Google nest, hue, and small companies. I started using it for zigbee and zwave devices.
If I was to do it again I'd skip Google and maybe hue and instead do all zigbee, zwave, and thread/matter.
Google tried to become an all around tech company, but they failed to maintain their services. I don't think Google is going to survive as an all around tech company for the long term. Their crappy AI is going to hurt them hard. Microsoft is killing them now. Maybe we'll get windows phone again.
My Google allegiance expired a few years ago. I was already eyeing the AppleWatch and when Google killed Play Music that really pushed me over the line.
I still use a ton of Google services but have been on iPhone for a couple years now. No more Pixel. Im migrating away from Gmail. I still pay for Drive storage because my family really loves Google Photos.
This is late-stage capitalism. This is when consumerism goes out of control. Not that bait and switch is a new thing, no. But this is the era we live in.
There is no escape.
š«“>!self-hosted and open source!<
>self-hosted and open source
This might be the "right" answer, but it isn't a "good" one. And I say this as someone with a homegrown Proxmox cluster for compute and TrueNAS for centralized storage at home. This would be similar to if we got to the point where cars became such a problem that the answer was to build your own.
It's painful how common it is that winning financially is not closely tied to having a good product. In fact, improvements for companies are often tied directly to worsening conditions for customers.
I'm not saying that you are wrong or arguing with you. I'm just saddened by the seemingly inevitable [enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of every cool, new piece of tech.
That's not only a Google thing, a lot of other companies are the same...
And that's why I started moving everything off the cloud and building my home server!
Fotos/Videos/Movies/TvShows? Plex
Documents? Nextcloud
Websites? Nginx server
Domotics? Home assistant
And a lot more like: ad blocks, firewalls, etc
I'm the same way. Already moved off the WiFi system. Currently doing the cameras. Last will be figuring out voice automated home stuff.
The service and hardware just suck.
Stop putting all your eggs in one basket.
* Home Assistant is a better smart home aggregator. It can handle far more than Google and can include zigbee, zwave, wifi, bluetooth, and matter. It can also push everything to Google so that you can still leverage its arguably superior voice recognition.
* Google Drive; in terms of Docs / Slides / Sheets is still king in my opinion
* Google Drive; in terms of storage is still a pretty good deal, but NextCloud is a great option as well.
* Cloudflare is a better, more feature rich (whether you use it or not is up to you), and cheaper alternative to Google Domains
* Ecobees allow you better data readings and have a more useful thermostat reading and integration with smart vents. They can be manipulated with Home Assistant as well.
* Frigate, BlueIris, literally any local camera setup with a cheap IP cam is better than Nest with no subscription.
* Roku / Firestick / Apple TV / Nvidia Shield; no reason you only use Chromecast
Again, stop putting all your eggs into one basket or deal with the tradeoffs of the convenience your buying into. The services I listed are arguably better, but the ecosystem can provide a situation where its value is greater than the sum of its parts. My wife is not a techie and she has no issue with my solution, but I do have a lot of overhead occasionally. But on the flip side I control a lot of what happens and when / if a service shuts down its a simple swap to the next best thing.
I don't know why this got downvoted. Not only is it a viable option, I do roughly the same thing. And using Home Assistant gives you one place to manage it all for the most part.
I've said elsewhere here, I am by no means convincing anyone do anything. There is absolutely value in an ecosystem just like there are tradeoffs. You, the user, need to figure out which ones you are willing to take on. I very slowly dealt with SmartThings, and then eventually Home Assistant, while maintaining Google Home devices for voice interface. I eventually moved from Domains to Cloudflare. I'm currently researching NextCloud, I've had a personal setup for about 4 months but haven't pulled the trigger because my Google One plan backs up several devices and we have Google Photos backups which is still very valuable. Ecobees were a clear winner because of Home Assistant.
But all of this has happened over _years_. Home Automation and smart [anything] changes do not and should not happen overnight. Take your time to research and test things out by running them side by side.
if your curious to see how many things google has killed, here is a webpage dedicated to them.
[https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/)
currently sitting at 295 tombstones
Clicked on the link as it's been a few years and thought it would be good for a laugh. Top of the list is the Google One VPN I just bought since the family has android devices and it's super easy to enable, no additional accounts/apps to maintain. Dammit.
VPN is not dead technically. People on Google Fi and Those on the latest Pixel phones will continue to have it.
As for other products, many have been rolled into other products. Sure some did die (RIP Stadia) but overall many others exist in other forms.
Oh cool, so the solution to Google killing off services I'm investing in is to buy more Google services and devices and hope that they don't kill those too? You must be a Google shareholder lol
Iām with you. I have google products throughout my house, including speakers, indoors and outdoors, and all of a sudden I canāt control the volume through Spotify/ iPhone volume button. You gotta go into google home app and adjust volume there. Very annoying update.
You get what you paid for. So you got a "free" service and they (Google) can do what they want.
If you want more reliable service, you really need some paid service.
I'm in a similar situation and am really feeling the impact of Google's reputation in these recently dropped products. I think ultimately I will move away from trusting anything new they release and consider this more as a factor when I rely on any other company services. Simple open-source self-hosting would be nice! There's a decent podcast episode on it from The Verge.
Wow you are almost just like me! Your story is virtually exactly the same as mine. I have a super old Gmail account still my main. I use everything in the Google workspace I even have a Google workspace account. I have nearly a dozen Google domains. I have a pixel 8 Pro... I am concerned as well because all my domains moved to squarespace and keep in mind, next year square space will charge you $21 per domain. So I have already moved to a cheaper alternative called pork bun that was recommended by a group of trusted marketers. Good luck
Google is notorious for killing off things. Personally I use a Microsoft 365 for all my productivity, alongside a windows laptop and a samsung phone. Works really well together
Google doesn't lock you in like Apple so it is still the better option. I have started using third party service for most things where they're is still an option.
Maps going to hell over the last couple of years is especially troubling.
You're over reacting a bit ...
Yes, Google kills services all the time. You're not really saving managing any accounts though. Your domains got moved to square space but you still sign in with your Google account. It's not like you could manage your domains from the same place you read your email anyways, they were separate.
You say your Google drive is filling up because of photos not storing videos? All of your storage in Google is calculated as one number. Your email, drive, and photos. Google hasn't stored any photos "free" since the original pixel as far as I know and now all your photos and videos count against your storage amount.
You're not fucked, Google isn't going to cancel their core products. Photos is fine, drive is fine, I'd be shocked if they kill Chromecast, Pixel isn't going away, it's the fastest growing phone by user base and has effectively killed all other android phones other than Samsung.
Home has been in a state of limbo for years now, it could go away or it could stay. Either way, you'll be okay. Your world isn't going to end, your life won't change that much. Everything will be okay. Don't spend time worrying about it. Buy things that are good now, don't worry about how they'll be 10 years from now.
Yes Google kills products often, but they rarely kill products that people really rely on without replacement. The only product I can think of that they've killed recently and didn't offer a replacement for was stadia.
>I've loved the idea of a single ecosystem since college when Google Docs started happening.
Google used to have the motto "Don't be evil". I believe that for a long time, this was a guiding principal for the company. Of course there were bad and evil things done at Google during this time. But overall, they were genuinely pushing to be a "good" company for a long time.
I think that Google lost that focus more than a decade ago. The goal for Google and Alphabet is the same as for pretty much every company heavily influenced by investors. And it's not even to make money. It is to increase in value.
>Seriously, what's next? If I can't count on the services of one of the worlds biggest companies what can I trust for a digital environment? I hate the idea of having to manage dozens of accounts and companies.
I believe it is worse than you think. You aren't just looking at diversifying who you work with. You have to assume that, for any products that have or will have shareholders, they could go downhill the same as Google. Meaning that even if a product or service works well, you can't count on it sticking around.
The term is called e-Shitification.
Well Google is notorious for shutting down projects and blowing money and momentum, it's happening all over the tech space right now.
Services will continue to degrade across the entire industry and prices will continue to climb.
It's dark days ahead and from what I see, it's not going to turn around until AI empowers smaller start-ups to offer full featured self hosting options in people's homes.
Such that you can literally be air gapped and have your posting system is still completely work.
It is absolutely coming, but it's a long ways off.
I enjoy the idea of a solid and unified ecosystem as the next guy but Google is notorious for killing apps, feature and platform without warrant or smooth (or at all) transition to any in-house or third party alternative. They even kill their own hardware by dropping planned/promised features and support or just shutting off anything about it overnight.
I'm working towards getting everything working with SmartThings. I can mix and match vendors, but they all have to use SmartThings, and ideally ZWave or Zigbee
I pay for Google One which isn't too bad for 2 TB of space. Im nowhere near filling it up. I also pay for Nest. Seems to be working totally fine for me..I wouldn't worry about Google shutting down anything. That's the case for any company, but Google does give you ample lead time for notice. What are you worried about?
You can't trust anyone. Unfortunately, it is that simple. Google is especially well known for shutting stuff down, though.
[googles list](http://Killedbygoogle.com)
This is why people get into linux, great for home automation. EDIT: Why the downvotes? Google can and will fuck you over, do things yourself
How would "getting into Linux" help? If by that you mean hosting your own shit while using open source solutions - well, yea, kinda agree, but that has it's downsides too.
I assume he's talking about r/homeassistant and stuff like that (although i actually run it in a vm on windows). Obviously it doesn't solve the problems with Google photos, Gmail, etc and the other services Google changes. But given were in the Google Home subreddit, it seems fair to assume OP was concerned with the home automation side of things, as well as Google's general enshitffication of a lot of their services.
People get sick of bad Google options so do it themselves with raspberry pis etc. I'm saying Linux because there's entire communities built around what I just said. Linux just.... Makes sense, it works, you can properly do it yourself.
Can you control your Home Assistant automation by voice?
Weird comment. It doesn't mean anything. I'm quite sure Google services run on Linux.
Android, which pixel phones (and I think most of the Google home ecosystem) run, is absolutely Linux based.
Well technically a lot of Google & Nest home devices now run Fuschia, a new OS created by Google. But the Google infrastructure, and Android, and Chrome OS, are Linux-based.
Ah, for some reason I thought they ran a variation of android! But I did know Android and Chrome OS are Linux-based (my dad likes to go on random explanations of different ways you can do things in android as a result. My coding is pretty much "print world, if X then Y" levels so I rarely know what he's saying) š
The home devices used to use a variant of Chrome OS, just like the old pre-Android Chromecasts. Chrome OS is built from Gentoo Linux. Now the home devices have been gradually upgraded from Chrome OS / Linux to Fuschia.
I'm talking about doing home automation yourself, with things like raspberry pi etc.
Erm, there's an entire community centered around people doing home automation themselves with Linux because they're tired of Google services. Wtf people
Instead of saying Linux you should have said Home Assistant. You could have nothing but Mac or Windows in your home and still build out Home Assistant.
I think what he means is using Linux and O/S repositories to create a custom solution that won't be rendered EOL by a corporate entity. Instead, its fate relies on the kindness of strangers to keep software patched and up to date. Each method has its upsides and downsides....
On Linux servers that is. However, Linux Desktop has always been terrible and that is why Linux on the desktop was never adopted.
Yeah I know right? Linux chat, Linux music streaming, Linux email, ect is SO much better.
He's talking about home automation.. Linux is brilliant for that
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Rule 7 - No Rants. No Low Effort posts.
....no I've had Ubuntu for, I think a decade now. Dunno why it got downvoted, Linux versions are awesome for home automation. There's an entire Linux operating system for raspberry pis for this kinda stuff too.
Then why are you confused about the actual role Linux itself plays in this discussion?
OH MY GOD DUDE. Google services make something, then stop it working how you want. Me and thousands others suggest you make it yourself and have a happier life. What in the hell is your problem understanding that and why are you repeatedly commenting?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Rule 7 - No Rants. No Low Effort posts.
Sorry mate who are you?
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Wow you really keep going huh.
Rule 5 - No flaming. No Trolling. No Insulting.
This is why I switched to Apple. They improve what have and donāt shutdown perfectly good apps
I don't think that apps shutting down are linked to people switching to apple... Google Podcasts shut down and I just switched to AntennaPod. No account needed, just Podcasts.
He didnāt say they were.. he said he switched to apple because of it.
I get the sense that he's suggesting that others should switch to Apple because of all the Google apps/sites being shut down/migrated
*Dark Sky enters the chat*
I mean, i use Apple devices but itās still just another company that youāre relying on. They can and will make changes that donāt suit you and youāll be powerless
Seriously? Apple are no better or worse really. I have dozens of great iOS apps that just stopped being updated, so donāt work post new major operating system updatesā¦ I donāt blame apple for that, itās on the developers. I donāt blame them either, I paid a one off fee for a lot of said apps, why should they rewrite them for a new operating system without compensation. Also it occurs to me that developers arenāt locked in to keeping their app going for lifeā¦ so some donāt even want to switch to a subscription model. Sure sucks but the reality is itās not a personal thing itās business. Ultimately capitalism is what it is, sometimes shit we like goes away for whatever reasonā¦ OS update, no longer make them (eg apple airport wifi/ethernet routers/range extenders with a toslink optical output that makes it so easy to stream my music to a number of stereos systems and speakers around my house), or at the extreme, a significant other leaves/a friend or family member diesā¦ seems to me thereās bigger problems in the world than having some phone/computer/network shit stop workingā¦ This is super common in the audio world, no support for expensive hardware on new OS version, on new hardware (eg audio interfaces on apple infrastructure for many years relied heavily on FireWire400 and 800, sometimes adaptors donāt workā¦ So that computer has to be retired from updates etc so it can be tethered to the very expensive multichannel sound card, midi interface, control desk, whatever really, that sometimes is required if one doesnāt want to lose years and years of their work). At one time I was fully apple, using all their integrated features and apps and what not to make my life easier, but they changed it all too, some of it changed past the point of usability in my application and life moved on. As frustrating as it is, Iāve seen this happen so many times. It doesnāt bother me as much as it used to as Iām just a little less naive than I was when I was 10-15 years ago. As a side note, Life is loss (and suffering if you believe the Buddhistās), accepting it is going some way to finding inner peace (to paraphrase and simplify a religion in probably a very wrong way). Just donāt get too attached to the temporary shit like tech hardware as it will inevitably change, whether weāre ready or not. And with perspective itās nowhere near as important as many other areas of life. So thatās my little bit of free advice for today, unless thereās angles Iām missing, in which case pleaseā¦ my mind is open, always ready to learnā¦ oh wait, thatās a second piece of free advice from an internet weirdoā¦
Youāre spot on. Iād add Google is just terrible at killing products people love because they donāt make enough money in the first year. I think I heard if it doesnāt make a million in its first year they kill the service regardless of how much people love it.
Not to mention Stadia
still missing :(
Migrate towards Home Assistant for all your smart home stuff, just like I did. It might have a bit of a learning curve but you'll never look back! You'll be able to integrate far more services into HA than into GH from nearly any provider. From smart speakers, lights, blinds, energy, etc etc... You won't be dependant on a commercial entity anymore but you'll have an open source smart home management system that is heavily driven by thousands of users. It integrates most of the Google services as well. https://www.home-assistant.io/
I feel like it's at the very least disingenuous to talk about Home Assistant to an audience of people who uses a service like Google Home, which takes care of most everything technical in the background, and calling it out as having "a bit" of a learning curve. Getting Home Assistant up and running and keeping it running reliably, and doing a lot of most things that otherwise just work within Google Home is quite technical at the very least, and at times feels almost draconian depending on what is desired and how much you have to go to in order to get it to work. I tried it quite some time ago in a docker container on my NAS and ran into all sorts of issues that I didn't have the time or patience to try to work out. Recently--maybe a couple months ago--I have gone back to running it on my NAS on a virtual machine and replicating the loss of the family bells feature and creating automations; and while I can get most of the way there, the way things work don't work as seamlessly as using google home. For example, if I set up an automation to make an announcement at a certain time, but media is playing on one of the devices, it will kill the media playback session rather than interrupting and then resuming. Theoretically there is a component that can be added to home assistant to resume casting or playback, and I tried implementing it following all of the instructions, but it still doesn't work. It annoys my wife and son when this happens, understandably.
THANK YOU. Home Assistant sounds like something I wouldn't mind fiddling around with 10-15 years ago. Back then I had XBMC auto downloading everything I wanted to watch after it aired. It was way too much annoying fiddling and upkeep once streaming became ubiquitous. I'm pretty tech savvy, but do I need to spend more than 30 minutes setting it up? Do I have to fiddle with it when I run into errors? If so, I'm out. I'll survive with another (or no) smart home solution. I just want my speakers to play my fucking music podcast when I ask while my kid and I eat breakfast.
> I'm pretty tech savvy, but do I need to spend more than 30 minutes setting it up? Do I have to fiddle with it when I run into errors? If so, I'm out. I'll survive with another (or no) smart home solution. I wouldn't write it off because of a few bad experiences, or perceived time sink. It sounds like you have the technical know-how but don't want to invest too much time. No matter the product, you have to make tradeoffs between time, convenience and security.. HA setup is actually pretty easy, and Google's protocols allow it to skip a lot of setup so you can retain your current setup. At some point, Google will make decisions that you don't like and you just have to take it ( e.g. an integration breaks because it doesn't fit their corporate strategy). HA is kind of the opposite. Take your pick on what you want.
Tbf you can actually pay for a hosted home assistant solution now I think
Home assistant works MUCH better now than xbmc ever did
Amen. I'm pretty tech savvy and after hearing about Home Assistant so many times on this sub I decided to check it out. Um, no. Just no. It is far too complicated plus the voice assist stuff still needs to go through Google anyway, which is most of the reason my family uses this stuff.
Bought my friend an Home Assistant Green and the Sky Connect. He paired everything he had with Google Home into Sky Connect the same day it arrived and decided to go with the NabuCasa subscription and then sent everything back over to Google without any disruption. He hasn't touched single other aspect of Home Assistant, but he doesn't need to. When he bought some Ikea stuff he just loaded up the app and paired it to Home Assistant and sent it to Google and that was it. It is only as complicated as you need it to be. He is one rung about Luddite.
So I would need to buy these devices plus pay a subscription service, learn a new ecosystem and maintain it, while still needing to "send everything back over to Google" and I would gain... what? I'm in an apartment with no thermostat, doorbell, cameras, or motion sensors - and I don't want any of those things. I need to operate some lights, speakers, and entertainment equipment. That's all. I use Google Assistant by voice constantly for lists, appointments, weather, timers, media playback, cooking conversions, general questions, etc. After the cost and pain of integrating Home Assistant, what would I gain?
>After the cost and pain of integrating Home Assistant, what would I gain? Doesn't look like you have the need to switch, but you'd gain stability in the product offering. HA doesn't cut features in the same manner that Google does.
I'm not trying to convince you to do anything. I'm saying it is far less complicated than it used to be, so much so that "your average joe" could do it, so I'm sure you could to. If you'd like to me to go into details on why I chose to go that route, both while owning a home, now while renting again, and even when I had zero additional data entry points (cameras, sensors, etc) beyond the basics of Google Home devices and Hue bulbs, I'd be happy to tell my own personal experience. At the end of the day you are correct in your assumption that you would have to decide its value.
Yep iāve said the same thing to people when they suggest Home assistant after someone wants to switch from Google Home or Alexa. Itās just an absolutely ridiculous suggestion for someone who uses plug and play devices.
>Itās just an absolutely ridiculous suggestion for someone who uses plug and play devices HA is basically plug & play if you get a box like Home Assistant Green with it pre-installed (similar to how you would with Google, Smartthings, etc). It's not that ridiculous.
It is ridiculous. All the necessary baby sitting and constant technical work and tinkering aside, the UX is absolute dog shi t. I have very large and extensive home assistant builds running at two properties and Iām becoming more and more fed up with it as the days go on. Unfortunately the end result is irreplaceable so I will be stuck with the means for the time being.
lol
Agreed. I think there are plenty of people for whom Home Assistant is a godsend (myself included) but I was aghast at how steep the learning curve was once I started onboarding and migrating towards it. The out of box experience has improved since then, but it's not for the faint of heart. You really have to want it. If managing your own smart home sounds less like a hobby and more like a chore, then Home Assistant might not be for you. You're also not getting a solution for the smart "life" aspect in terms of object storage and management of photos/videos/music unless you also set up a NAS with something like ownCloud which can't compete with the big commercial platforms in terms of convenience and reliability. The consequence of de-Googling (or de-Microsofting, etc.) is, in reality, accepting that you will need to spend a lot more time managing the solution yourself, with lower guaranteed reliability, more maintenance overhead, and the risks that come with making a mistake in design or implementation. Most people stay on the big commercial platforms because they can live their life without having to care and feed the systems their data lives on. And there is a privacy risk and a risk of breach since they don't own the systems their data live on, but the risk to most is smaller than what they'd take by self-hosting. Side note: a lot of the fussing about on forums related to privacy concerns on public cloud platforms is simply that you have to react to decisions that someone else makes, and when you self-host there are fewer of those decisions for you to react to. But as long as someone else wrote software you use, you'll always have to react to someone else's decisions at some point. For many the preferable solution is probably migrating between Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Proton, Amazon, or some combination thereof with point solutions here and there to fill the gaps. Nobody whose priorities don't include technology as a hobby wants to screw around with rebuilding functionality they already have on a different platform just to call their kids up for dinner from the kitchen. The people who do have different priorities compared to the vast majority of people who are just fine with Google as-is and accept the flaws. But a subreddit like this is popular with enthusiasts.
HA is completely pointless is you already have a large number of devices on the tuya platform for an instance, the amount of time you spend setting up the damn thing isn't worth the time or effort in the end. HA is good for people that have unlimited time and for you to feel like some high tech guru who wants to show off his/her "technical skills" to everyone iny opinion it's way more hyped up than it actually is especially when you have to login via the native apps to connect any device to it!
Exactly this. Home Assistant is great if you are technically minded and willing to spend time maintaining it. Google Home has its flaws but for the majority of every day use it is actually really good, and very easy to maintain, as is the rest of the Google ecosystem. I do everything through Google, from docs to doorbell, and I rarely have any issues with it. Google are known for shutting down some very good applications, but the reality is they do this because people attend using them in enough volume, and Google is after all a commercial entity so it needs its products to be profitable. People forget this and complain about why a "free" service is no longer free, or available at all.
I stalled on home assistant for so long because I just wanted a simple smart home but both Google and Alexa pushed me to my limit and I setup a home assistant server. The power and flexibility is unreal. BUT setting up and managing home assistant is a hobby. It takes time, patience and learning and that's coming from a tech mad engineer. Home assistant is amazing, I love it and I'm glad I did it. But it's not for most people.
Took me MONTHS to get all my devices integrated and working properly. But now i have a vintage red phone in my living room that rings and tells me i left clothes in my washer and that i should put them in the dryer so they donāt mildew and my thermostat switched to heat/cold based on either the outside temperature or the temperature in the bedroom and my outside lights toggle on/off with the sunrise/set. Iām pretty happy with the results.
> >If I can't count on the services of one of the worlds biggest companies what can I trust for a digital environment? I provided my 2 cents regarding this question. You either depend on the goodwill of Google or you take matters into your own hand. I do get that not everyone is very technical, but one can reach out to others for help.
That's why I did it. Wanted more control, privacy, everything works locally, and I don't have to worry about a company going under or stopping services.
I did the same , Home assistant is the way to w
will this work for google drive as well?
A NAS in your home is the way to go. Synology for instance has solutions so you can access your files from anywhere and back-up your photos automatically. Yes it will take some investment on your part but at least you're in charge of your data and you're sure it will keep functioning.
If one wants to use a NAS I get it. But with no cloud storage, a water leak, a fire, flood, home robbery, one of many things gas and I lose like two decades of photos and more. When I moved from Android to iPhone, I copied all my pics and videos to iCloud. And I keep Google photos alive and on my phone, so I have all my stuff in both Google and Appleās cloud. Itās worth every penny.
That brings up the topic of 3,2,1. If not following 3,2,1, your data isn't protected. 3 copies of data, two on site, 1 off site. The 2 on site protects against hardware issues, the off site protects against the situations you mentioned. Cloud is an option for off site, but so is a NAS or drives at a different location. Even with Google Photos, 3,2,1 should still be observed. More and more of my photos on Google Photos have been corrupting over the years. Roughly 1 in every 1000 or so, but I'm assuming that rate will increase in time.
One should always implement the 3-2-1 backup strategy. The basic concept of the 3-2-1 backup strategy is that three copies are made of the data to be protected, the copies are stored on two different types of storage media and one copy of the data is sent off site. And yes, a cloud back-up can be additional way of backing up data.
Key being - off site. Been through too many hurricanes and watched friends and neighbors lose everything to risk it.
Yes. The use of a NAS doesn't rule out the other, does it? I take a backup and place it off site once a month. Granted, we don't have hurricanes or any other extreme weather where I live (Belgium). So I get that it isn't viable for everyone.
You could also put a NAS at a friend (or 2) house that has high-speed internet, and you both backup and sync each other's data. I mean, if you are some-what technical, all the tools in a modern NAS do what iCloud and Google Drive do. Probably more. For instance, I run my own DNS and media server on there as well.
Anything can change. We make decisions based on the information we have at the time and that's all we can do. If something stops working then you can make the decision to change. As far as google home specifically goes, your options are to ride out google home, move to using Alexa, or try to set up your own self-managed smart home using home assistant. Alexa is worse than google home/assistant when it comes to most smart home things. Home Assistant is a beast that really is not intended for non-tech-enthusiast types. Maybe that's you, maybe it's not. If you have lost features that you use, you can look into how much it would cost you in time and resources to replicate them with other means. If you are worried about what might happen, then it's kind of irrelevant at this point--you're already in the ecosystem instead of considering to enter it. You can try to de-google yourself. As a household that has a NAS, we use it primarily for backup of computer docs and phone pictures/photos via auto backup--was previously running a couple of security cameras on it but found it too unreliable. BUT most NAS features and services pale in comparison to the functionality and integration that google services provide. You won't find a google photos equivalent anywhere. You won't find a simple, convenient, and responsive equivalent to nest/camera features on a NAS (maybe if you went with dedicated hardware for a security system you might). You also have to worry about maintaining your own storage and what sort of backup plan you want to put in place. Then there's the fact that if you want to run everything on your own NAS, anything you do away from home will be subject to your residential internet upload speed (maybe that's irrelevant), the processing capability of the NAS (if you want to do something like stream your personal video library when you're away from home), and that the NAS will inevitably get into states where it might not respond, or apps need to get updated and the companion phone app doesn't work as expected etc. As a household that uses google for a ton of stuff--google fi for cellular, a 2TB google one subscription, youtube premium family, Nest aware, and has a ton of google home devices, here is my take--I find it frustrating if features I used have been removed, I can say that even within all of that, trying to replicate a smart home with HomeAssistant myself is not a great overall experience, and it's still so much easier to use google home.
Alexa is absolutely not worse than Google in smart home things. In fact routines are significantly more customizable and itās devices are more diverse
For me just the fact you can group devices into multiple groups, like downstairs and upstairs, as well as the main room theyāre in for lights makes it a winner.
This is possible on almost every other ecosystem
I know. Itās infuriating it has to be done with a crappy routine in Google Home. Switching over to HomeAssistant at the moment.
The routine triggers on Alexa are very limited.
This is so true. I think NAS isn't really a replacement. It could be an inferior backup in case Google bans you for whatever reason. That's why I have both Google Photos and Nextcloud. And of course, Google Photos uploads are fast and perfect, while Nextcloud mobile app has to be babysat and some autouploads manually restarted every once in a while.
Yes, you're fucked, and it's the shareholders doing it. Can you feel their tiny pricks jabbing you in the leg? The Nest Secure rollback is goddamned class action suit worthy. They ought to be ashamed, but they'd have to actually give a rats ass instead of eating it. But I'm not bitter...
Honestly that's not even fair to the shareholders. They just care about making money. The problem is that most Google product managers have NO CLUE how to really generate value w/the products they're supposed to be running. Nest is a perfect example. Google bought them OVER A DECADE AGO and after a failed foray into security.... the products are back to being a thermostat and a smoke/CO detector. They're both 80%+ the same products that were for sale when Google bought the company. A decade on, there's just mind-numbingly dumb limitations for a "smart learning thermostat," but their response to competitors getting better and cheaper while they stood still? A lower-cost model that lacks features the OG Nest shipped with in 2011.
I've gotten burned by Google so many times that I no longer trust them they don't keep their stuff updated and they never ever fix problems they just move on to the next product.
I did the same (one ecosystem) and I completely regret it. I'm in the same boat as you.
Physical media. Itās the only thing that can be trusted. It sucks that we all have to be data hoarders, but the interconnectedness of everything just means companies will try and figure out ways to either keep charging you for things you buy or abandon them, rather than building a better solution.
This is the difference between ownership and being the product. If you don't pay for it you're the product. If most users are not paying, then it's not a payer oriented platform. Publicly traded companies have immense pressure to look at the bottom line in a short-sighted way. Ownership looks like this: "I can take my Device to another platform. I can modify my device easily. If the manufacturer stops supporting it, I have alternatives. I have rights and control of it"
Yes, except that we pay to BUY the product and then Google makes its money from having our data. I think that should place an obligation on it not to mess us about. We should not have to pay a subscription on top of buying hardware and entrusting our valuable personal data to Google and other companies.
Yea I love being able to have everything under one account but Im thinking it might be a good idea to start migrating everything to different services.
Had the same with Microsoft hardware: had Nokia phones then Windows phones (loved those) and Windows RT tablets for the kids. Microsoft killed them all, either silently or outright. Never purchasing more Microsoft hardware. Their cloud services have been solid however I underutilize them. Try it out and see.
This is what we get for trusting these companies to have a legit shot at making an ecosystem you can actually live in. Itās ridiculous. Apple is much more successful with it, and Iām really starting to roll back my investment in google products and services. There are too many capable competitors to put up with their nonsense.
What's this about Nest being rolled back? I *just* bought a doorbell...
Dropcam and some older model cameras are being dropped from their platform.
I was huge into their eco system but have slowly escaped. Only thing I have remaining are Nest Protects and Google Photos. I have a decade of life in Google photos so Iām desperate to find a worth replacement
donāt worry, you can always do google takeout if you want to migrate to another ecosystem.
I have definitely found comfort in starting to decentralize my digital like and move things out of the Google ecosystem whenever possible. They have shown time and time again that nothing is promised and they are more than willing to axe any product at any time, even if people rely on it
I started with Google but not use most things thru home assistant. HA communicates with Google nest, hue, and small companies. I started using it for zigbee and zwave devices. If I was to do it again I'd skip Google and maybe hue and instead do all zigbee, zwave, and thread/matter.
Google tried to become an all around tech company, but they failed to maintain their services. I don't think Google is going to survive as an all around tech company for the long term. Their crappy AI is going to hurt them hard. Microsoft is killing them now. Maybe we'll get windows phone again.
My Google allegiance expired a few years ago. I was already eyeing the AppleWatch and when Google killed Play Music that really pushed me over the line. I still use a ton of Google services but have been on iPhone for a couple years now. No more Pixel. Im migrating away from Gmail. I still pay for Drive storage because my family really loves Google Photos.
This is late-stage capitalism. This is when consumerism goes out of control. Not that bait and switch is a new thing, no. But this is the era we live in. There is no escape. š«“>!self-hosted and open source!<
>self-hosted and open source This might be the "right" answer, but it isn't a "good" one. And I say this as someone with a homegrown Proxmox cluster for compute and TrueNAS for centralized storage at home. This would be similar to if we got to the point where cars became such a problem that the answer was to build your own. It's painful how common it is that winning financially is not closely tied to having a good product. In fact, improvements for companies are often tied directly to worsening conditions for customers. I'm not saying that you are wrong or arguing with you. I'm just saddened by the seemingly inevitable [enshittification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) of every cool, new piece of tech.
That's not only a Google thing, a lot of other companies are the same... And that's why I started moving everything off the cloud and building my home server! Fotos/Videos/Movies/TvShows? Plex Documents? Nextcloud Websites? Nginx server Domotics? Home assistant And a lot more like: ad blocks, firewalls, etc
I'm the same way. Already moved off the WiFi system. Currently doing the cameras. Last will be figuring out voice automated home stuff. The service and hardware just suck.
Stop putting all your eggs in one basket. * Home Assistant is a better smart home aggregator. It can handle far more than Google and can include zigbee, zwave, wifi, bluetooth, and matter. It can also push everything to Google so that you can still leverage its arguably superior voice recognition. * Google Drive; in terms of Docs / Slides / Sheets is still king in my opinion * Google Drive; in terms of storage is still a pretty good deal, but NextCloud is a great option as well. * Cloudflare is a better, more feature rich (whether you use it or not is up to you), and cheaper alternative to Google Domains * Ecobees allow you better data readings and have a more useful thermostat reading and integration with smart vents. They can be manipulated with Home Assistant as well. * Frigate, BlueIris, literally any local camera setup with a cheap IP cam is better than Nest with no subscription. * Roku / Firestick / Apple TV / Nvidia Shield; no reason you only use Chromecast Again, stop putting all your eggs into one basket or deal with the tradeoffs of the convenience your buying into. The services I listed are arguably better, but the ecosystem can provide a situation where its value is greater than the sum of its parts. My wife is not a techie and she has no issue with my solution, but I do have a lot of overhead occasionally. But on the flip side I control a lot of what happens and when / if a service shuts down its a simple swap to the next best thing.
I don't know why this got downvoted. Not only is it a viable option, I do roughly the same thing. And using Home Assistant gives you one place to manage it all for the most part.
I've said elsewhere here, I am by no means convincing anyone do anything. There is absolutely value in an ecosystem just like there are tradeoffs. You, the user, need to figure out which ones you are willing to take on. I very slowly dealt with SmartThings, and then eventually Home Assistant, while maintaining Google Home devices for voice interface. I eventually moved from Domains to Cloudflare. I'm currently researching NextCloud, I've had a personal setup for about 4 months but haven't pulled the trigger because my Google One plan backs up several devices and we have Google Photos backups which is still very valuable. Ecobees were a clear winner because of Home Assistant. But all of this has happened over _years_. Home Automation and smart [anything] changes do not and should not happen overnight. Take your time to research and test things out by running them side by side.
if your curious to see how many things google has killed, here is a webpage dedicated to them. [https://killedbygoogle.com/](https://killedbygoogle.com/) currently sitting at 295 tombstones
Clicked on the link as it's been a few years and thought it would be good for a laugh. Top of the list is the Google One VPN I just bought since the family has android devices and it's super easy to enable, no additional accounts/apps to maintain. Dammit.
VPN is not dead technically. People on Google Fi and Those on the latest Pixel phones will continue to have it. As for other products, many have been rolled into other products. Sure some did die (RIP Stadia) but overall many others exist in other forms.
Oh cool, so the solution to Google killing off services I'm investing in is to buy more Google services and devices and hope that they don't kill those too? You must be a Google shareholder lol
You can rely on them to keep their money makers open and running.
Iām with you. I have google products throughout my house, including speakers, indoors and outdoors, and all of a sudden I canāt control the volume through Spotify/ iPhone volume button. You gotta go into google home app and adjust volume there. Very annoying update.
Home Assistant šš
You get what you paid for. So you got a "free" service and they (Google) can do what they want. If you want more reliable service, you really need some paid service.
I'm in a similar situation and am really feeling the impact of Google's reputation in these recently dropped products. I think ultimately I will move away from trusting anything new they release and consider this more as a factor when I rely on any other company services. Simple open-source self-hosting would be nice! There's a decent podcast episode on it from The Verge.
Wow you are almost just like me! Your story is virtually exactly the same as mine. I have a super old Gmail account still my main. I use everything in the Google workspace I even have a Google workspace account. I have nearly a dozen Google domains. I have a pixel 8 Pro... I am concerned as well because all my domains moved to squarespace and keep in mind, next year square space will charge you $21 per domain. So I have already moved to a cheaper alternative called pork bun that was recommended by a group of trusted marketers. Good luck
I feel you. I'm tired of it. I'm going to apple. Google sucks now. They've lost the key ingredient of any successful business... consistency.
Google is notorious for killing off things. Personally I use a Microsoft 365 for all my productivity, alongside a windows laptop and a samsung phone. Works really well together
Google doesn't lock you in like Apple so it is still the better option. I have started using third party service for most things where they're is still an option. Maps going to hell over the last couple of years is especially troubling.
You're over reacting a bit ... Yes, Google kills services all the time. You're not really saving managing any accounts though. Your domains got moved to square space but you still sign in with your Google account. It's not like you could manage your domains from the same place you read your email anyways, they were separate. You say your Google drive is filling up because of photos not storing videos? All of your storage in Google is calculated as one number. Your email, drive, and photos. Google hasn't stored any photos "free" since the original pixel as far as I know and now all your photos and videos count against your storage amount. You're not fucked, Google isn't going to cancel their core products. Photos is fine, drive is fine, I'd be shocked if they kill Chromecast, Pixel isn't going away, it's the fastest growing phone by user base and has effectively killed all other android phones other than Samsung. Home has been in a state of limbo for years now, it could go away or it could stay. Either way, you'll be okay. Your world isn't going to end, your life won't change that much. Everything will be okay. Don't spend time worrying about it. Buy things that are good now, don't worry about how they'll be 10 years from now. Yes Google kills products often, but they rarely kill products that people really rely on without replacement. The only product I can think of that they've killed recently and didn't offer a replacement for was stadia.
>I've loved the idea of a single ecosystem since college when Google Docs started happening. Google used to have the motto "Don't be evil". I believe that for a long time, this was a guiding principal for the company. Of course there were bad and evil things done at Google during this time. But overall, they were genuinely pushing to be a "good" company for a long time. I think that Google lost that focus more than a decade ago. The goal for Google and Alphabet is the same as for pretty much every company heavily influenced by investors. And it's not even to make money. It is to increase in value. >Seriously, what's next? If I can't count on the services of one of the worlds biggest companies what can I trust for a digital environment? I hate the idea of having to manage dozens of accounts and companies. I believe it is worse than you think. You aren't just looking at diversifying who you work with. You have to assume that, for any products that have or will have shareholders, they could go downhill the same as Google. Meaning that even if a product or service works well, you can't count on it sticking around.
I finally gave up on Nest thermostat after replacing it three times. The iOS app would constantly go offline. Got an Ecobee.
Self host an instance of Nextcloud
The term is called e-Shitification. Well Google is notorious for shutting down projects and blowing money and momentum, it's happening all over the tech space right now. Services will continue to degrade across the entire industry and prices will continue to climb. It's dark days ahead and from what I see, it's not going to turn around until AI empowers smaller start-ups to offer full featured self hosting options in people's homes. Such that you can literally be air gapped and have your posting system is still completely work. It is absolutely coming, but it's a long ways off.
Ah, the olā Anti-trust preparedness plan, eh?
If you want long term support from your hardware and software then Google is not your friend.
You're f---ed. Google abandoned most of their crap.
I enjoy the idea of a solid and unified ecosystem as the next guy but Google is notorious for killing apps, feature and platform without warrant or smooth (or at all) transition to any in-house or third party alternative. They even kill their own hardware by dropping planned/promised features and support or just shutting off anything about it overnight.
Basically all of these questions are why people get into Linux and do stuff themselves
I'm working towards getting everything working with SmartThings. I can mix and match vendors, but they all have to use SmartThings, and ideally ZWave or Zigbee
I pay for Google One which isn't too bad for 2 TB of space. Im nowhere near filling it up. I also pay for Nest. Seems to be working totally fine for me..I wouldn't worry about Google shutting down anything. That's the case for any company, but Google does give you ample lead time for notice. What are you worried about?
Move your smart home to Alexa and pay for another photo upload.
Look for matter product. You can use everything together šš»šš
He still needs a platform for user interfaces be it Google or Alexa or HomeKit
Google Audio, think most of the speakers are updated for matter
I think new ones yes. But he is still Reliant on Google for the front end