Skip to main content

Nest is making Revolv more useless than a plastic brick

nest kills revolv revolvhub
If you’re an early adopter of Revolv, the smart home company acquired by Nest a few years ago, you may want to take a seat before reading this: Nest is shutting down support for Revolv starting on May 15.

“That’s kind of lame,” you may be thinking. “But you mean it won’t be updated … it’ll still work, right?” Unfortunately, no. Not only will Revolv no longer get updates, but as of May 15, the device will essentially turn into an over-priced hockey puck. Thankfully Revolv was never widely adopted, and the decision likely won’t affect too many people — but you can bet there was outrage when the news spread.

The Revolv smart home hub was taken off the market back in October 2014 when it was bought out by Nest. Since then, however, the team behind Revolv has kept the app and support for the product online.

“We’re pouring all our energy into Works with Nest and are incredibly excited about what we’re making,” said Revolv founders Tim Enwall and Mike Saucie in a blog post. “Unfortunately, that means we can’t allocate resources to Revolv anymore and we have to shut down the service.”

The move may be frustrating for some, but it hasn’t totally come out of left field. Revolv originally joined Nest to be a part of the “Works with Nest” program, which lets third-party devices interact with Nest’s own devices.

The decision certainly comes at an interesting time for Nest. The company was at the center of a scathing report from The Information last week, which discussed CEO Tony Fadell’s struggles to build the company, as well as that the Dropcam division of the company had failed to live up to expectations, according to Fadell. Ex Dropcam CEO Greg Duffy then fired back at Fadell in an article on Medium, questioning Fadell’s ability to lead the company and saying that selling Dropcam to Nest was a mistake.

Christian de Looper
Christian’s interest in technology began as a child in Australia, when he stumbled upon a computer at a garage sale that he…
This one upgrade would make all our homes even smarter
Amazon Echo Show 10 on a nightstand.

When we were kids, we imagined the smart home of the future would have silent but friendly robot butlers, magic ovens that opened to roll out a fully cooked meal, and flying cars. We’re still waiting for most of that to become truly tangible, but smart homes have come a long way from the limited utility of The Clapper.

Smart homes today are automated and can execute any number of tasks without input or button pressing from us humans: we have our lights set on schedules that align to sunrise and sunset, our smart home hubs talk to us and deliver news, weather, and traffic information. Our smart thermostats can detect when we’re home or not and lower the temperature to save energy. Even so, most smart homes still do require maintenance, upkeep, and adjustments to those schedules in order to keep things running smoothly. But one aspect of the smart home is being under-utilized and could help our smart homes operate even more cleverly and efficiently: the motion detector.

Read more
What you need to know about all Google Nest products
Nest speaker on table light on.

Google’s Nest line of products (an evolution from the previous Google Home brand after Google purchased Nest) incorporates a variety of smart devices, all designed to work under the Home app and integrate easily with each other. If you’re a fan of Google or frequently use Google Assistant, this is a great smart home ecosystem to invest in, and thanks to tech like Matter, Nest is due to become even more compatible with other platforms in the future.

So, where should you begin in the Nest world? With our guide to all the Nest products, of course! Here are all available Nest models, what they do, and what you should know about them.
Speakers

Read more
Google Home (Nest Audio) vs. Amazon Echo
Echo 4th Gen

If you're thinking about buying a smart speaker, you might be undecided on what to get. We hear you. With all the news and info you hear about the two most popular voice assistants, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, it's hard to know which one to choose. Given their usefulness from playing music to some other stuff you probably didn't know they could do, it's no wonder they're so invaluable.

While the original Google Home speaker has long been discontinued (the name lives in the all-purpose Google Home app), Google's line of smart Nest speakers, like the Nest Mini and Nest Audio, carry on the tradition with updated features.

Read more