362
After 16 years, Ecobee is shutting down support for the original smart thermostat
(www.theverge.com)
this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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That's ok if you ask me, considering that they will still continue to function as regular thermostats
I disagree - definitely not OK by me, though likely legal. People bought this because they wanted and paid extra for an internet connected device, and a regular thermostat is not that. I mean, would you be OK if your TV manufacturer disabled the screen and streamed radio stations instead?
If my TV was 16 years old, and the manufacturer cut off the internet function to it, id be ok with that.
These thermostats still work as thermostats, just without the smart features. Comparing that to turning a TV to a radio is disingenuous. 16 years is a long time, and there are security protocols amongst other things that go obsolete over time and can't be updated at a certain point on legacy devices.
I honestly can’t understand why anyone would be OK with it. I think our society has been getting trained to just accept whatever they throw at us. “Buying” something no longer means fully owning it, and I’m not OK with that, I just have to live with it.
i say something like this often in real life, but despite it being plainly observable in daily life other people still don't agree.
it's on all scales too, or at least it feels like it. moving everything to streaming, always online, etc. want to play a competitive video game with your friends? give a corporation root-level access to your home computer. ads everywhere some greedy ass in a suit can think to stick them whether you pay or not, yet everyone complies like this is normal and i get singled out for caring about our rights as consumers.
i love capitalism i love money
The problem is that it's impossible to support all products forever. There has to be a time that something turns EoL, and IMO 16 years is a reasonable amount of time for almost anything, but especially a small electronic device. As others have mentioned, it would be awesome if they opened the API for personal use, but there's a million reasons why that may not have been possible. Ideally everything would work and be supported forever, but it's impossible.