Own a Revolv smart home device?

The bad news is that you are completely and utterly screwed with news Monday that the Alphabet, Inc. (the company formerly known as Google) owned Nest isn’t just discontinuing Revolv device support, but actually disabling every single Revolv at the same time.

According to Business Insider, the decision was made due to the fact that when Nest (then owned by Google) acquired Revolv it was what was commonly known as a “aqui-hire,” buying a company for its talent rather than its products or users.

An email to Revolv users justified the move on the basis that Nest is apparently better:

We’re shutting down Revolv.

Revolv was a great first step into the connected home. It wasn’t perfect, but we worked hard to make something we – and other smart people – could build on.

And it worked. In 2014, we were bought by Nest and the technology we made became an integral part of the Works with Nest platform. Now Works with Nest is turning into something more secure, more useful and just flat-out better than anything Revolv created.

So we’re pouring all our energy into Works with Nest and are incredibly excited about what we’re making. Unfortunately, that means we can’t allocate resources to Revolv anymore and we have to shut down the service. As of May 15, 2016, your Revolv hub and app will no longer work.

Thank you for your support and believing in us. We’re sad for the end of Revolv, but this isn’t the end of the connected home. This is the beginning.

Pathetic

News broke last month as to how Nest itself is a dysfunction mess run by Chief Executive Officer who micromanages everything and treats his employees like crap, so it’s not a great surprise here that Tony Fadell also wouldn’t give a proverbial “two hoots” about customers as well.

The decision to disable Revolv devices is pathetic; it’s one thing to cease further development or direct support for the devices, it’s a completely different level though when you actually make a decision, as a functioning, still in business company, to cripple those same devices.

How much would it cost Nest, a company owned by Alphabet, the second largest publicly traded company on the planet, to keep a server running to support devices owned by Revolv users?

Sergey Brin would probably spend more eating per night than it would cost to provide some minimal Google Cloud backed server support for Revolv device users for a month.

Google was founded on an ethos of “don’t be evil” but in 2016 you have to ask if that is still clearly the case.

Image credit: Revolv/Nest