I don't know how good or bad the Nest app was before what was clearly a botched acquisition, but the user experience is terrible today. The worst offender is the doorbell camera, which usually takes about 25 seconds to establish a video feed. 4/5 times, the person has already left. If someone actually sticks around, activating the speaker to talk to them is so buggy that it's much more likely to beachball or crash entirely than actually let me tell them to wait.

The whole thing is so broken that it's worse than having no automation at all. The only reason I suffer with it is sunk cost + I believe it would be unethical to sell it.

It is for all of these reasons and more that today's price increase notification makes me see red. They haven't addressed the terrible app, they haven't added any new features. Storage, bandwidth haven't gotten more expensive. There is no new value, no upside. We are simply a captive market and they feel like making 25% more money.

The closest thing to an explanation offered is "Subscription prices can change to keep up with market shifts, which can include inflation and local tax updates." This horseshit is IMO far more insulting than just saying they need to recoup their investment faster.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/13856600

Google's acquisition of Nest should stand as one of the sadest bad-outcome acquisition case studies. I really enjoyed reading [the founder] Tony Fadell's biography/advice book "Build" last year. He was professional about it, but the animus was unsubtle. Google ruined an amazing product company.