Google's New "Help Me Script" Automation

A share of more on the Google Home Script Editor a few months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37312349

They've essentially committed to bricking everyone's home security systems, in exchange for which, they're offering a replacement system in the form of the markedly worse/more clunky/much larger ADT system that they "worked together on" after a misguided $400 MILLION dollar investment from Google.

The replacement ADT system:

1. Features an enormous home base. The Nest Secure is tiny and they do exactly the same things: wifi, cellular, alarm, keypad. Why the ADT base is 8 times the height of it, I do not know. 2. Replaces the brilliant Nest Detect combination door sensor/motion sensor/nightlight with separate units, each far more clunky and annoying to manage. 3. Only offers two replacement motion sensor/door sets. Some people had invested hundreds or even more than a thousand dollars on Nest Detects, and they're just out of luck/up a creek. The Google experience! 4. Induces the generation of a ton of e-waste. It's not as if Google was selling _millions_ of Nest Secure systems, but to clarify: the Nest Guard works perfectly fine. The device itself continues to operate. It works with wifi and cellular backup. Now, their cellular option has been through Brinks, and that's obviously in conflict with ADT, but rather than pushing firmware to support an ADT monitoring option, they're simply bricking the hardware. Brilliant.

You could make the argument that this is part of the interminable death march of the Google Nest mobile app as they try to force everyone onto the hodgepodge Google Home app, which still, YEARS later, lacks parity with all sorts of features that the Nest app has had for basically forever. But the Google Home app _does_ support the Nest Guard, and arming it, viewing its status, and seeing the door sensor status as well.

So maybe it's because the onboarding flow is exclusively through the Nest app, and Google wants to kill the Nest app? But even then, offering users the ability to continue using the system unmonitored/locally would be a nice compromise, with the understanding that it might not support a completely new onboard. Though again, I don't know why, except for ill-conceived contractual obligations.

None of this is new or surprising. Google kills products, oftentimes well-loved products. They do it so often, I'm seeing this "Help Me Script" option being offered as a "preview feature, available for a limited time." That should be the obvious tagline for every single Google product ever brought to market.

It's just so galling in this case that they're bricking perfectly functional hardware because no one wants to take ownership to preserve the basic functionality of the very well designed Nest Secure system. But the consolation prize sucks, and too often Google forces people on to things that are a marked downgrade. (See also: disabling Thread from Google Home Hub Maxes as part of the forced transition to Fuschia OS, which just made everything crash more.)

I know Google is full of shipping the org chart and other systemic issues, but I genuinely don't understand how an org pushes a miserable $400M investment, stops production of their own delightful product, force-migrates everyone away from the Nest app that works extremely well, and three or four years on, still can't deliver the same functionality at parity in the Home app. It's insane and the powers that be there should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves, but I suppose they're too busy resting and vesting and looking busy.