Google kills Works with Nest as it prepares for a Google Assistant future

Works with Nest, the platform built to get smart home devices talking to Nest products, is shutting down, Google has announced. The service will close on 31 August and will be replaced by Works with Google Assistant, Google’s services-based developer platform that the search giant is evolving into a smart home ecosystem. As of the end of August, all Works with Nest integrations will stop operating and developers must either transition their products to the new platform or end their compatibility with Nest’s suite of smart home products.

Read the full post here.

Here's what happens to your smart home now that Works with Nest is ending - The Ambient

The Nest Thermostat was the golden child of the early DIY smart home. Finally, a polished, good-looking device that could be the centrepiece of a smart home. Sure, it wasn’t the perfect smart home hub we dreamed of, but the functionality it enabled was pretty magical.

Now, with the imminent demise of Works with Nest, our smart home dreams are crumbling, being replaced by a device we have to talk to, or use an app to control, the antithesis of Nest’s original ecosystem. According to Google, moving forward all smart home interactions will have to go through Works with Google Assistantand the Google Home app, which currently only has three triggers for Routines: voice, touch or schedule (it does promise more will come later though).

Read the full post here.

How to Survive the End of Works With Nest - Wirecutter.com

We recommend several Nest products at Wirecutter, along with many devices that work with them, and that integration is often crucial to how people use their devices. But the recent news that Google is folding Nest into its smart-home ecosystem and creating Google Nest means that major changes—some good, some painful—are coming. Here is what you need to know about these changes and what steps you can take.

Read the full post here.