Nest's Abandonment of Early Devices Forces Community Back to Open Standards: RTSP, ONVIF, and Frigate Rule
Google ended remote control, notifications, and third-party integrations for early Nest Thermostats (circa 2011/2012), effectively bricking years of installed hardware. This massive hardware deprecation underscores the inherent risk of reliance on proprietary cloud backends.
The core fight is over control. Some users, like 'Munkisquisher', mandate robust, local setups running RTSP cameras with Frigate/Coral for object detection, demanding local reliability. Others, pointing to 'spaghettiwestern''s' evidence, cite API shutdowns as proof of corporate abandonment. There is a sharp ideological divide: some demand manufacturers be forced to 'Provide a path to install open source or third party firmware,' while others, represented by 'dormedas', are pragmatically pivoting to entirely different local ecosystems like Ecobee/Home Assistant.
The consensus screams one message: proprietary lock-in is fundamentally broken. The community consensus demands open standards—ONVIF/RTSP—as the only reliable path. The biggest red flag raised, though, by 'reddig33', is that data extraction, not feature improvement, drives these corporate moves.
Key Points
Reliance on proprietary cloud services from Google/Nest is unreliable and risky.
This is the core agreement; constant API changes and support cuts prove it (e.g., 'spaghettiwestern' noting 2011/2012 Nest cuts).
Local standards (RTSP/ONVIF) are the required antidote to cloud lock-in.
Multiple users champion 'Local ONVIF/RTSP || GTFO' as the non-negotiable baseline for camera infrastructure ('CompactFlax').
Corporations exploit data capture, not functionality improvement.
The outlier take from 'reddig33' suggests data extraction is the primary revenue model, overriding usability.
Alternative local ecosystems are proving viable workarounds.
Users report success by migrating to alternatives like Ecobee/Home Assistant to maintain local control paths ('dormedas').
Developers can bypass corporate control via reverse engineering.
The technical possibility exists, as demonstrated by 'ThePantser' outlining custom firmware that spoofs APIs.
Source Discussions (3)
This report was synthesized from the following Lemmy discussions, ranked by community score.