Last week, Google made a surprise announcement regarding its smart home offerings. Later in October this year, the original Nest Learning Thermostats — Gen 1, Gen 2, and the European version of Gen 2 — will go “dumb.” They aren’t getting bricked, but Google is removing all the features that make the smart thermostats, well…smart. When this happens, they will be no better than a $20 unit you could buy at any hardware store.
It’s not all bad, though, as Google is already reaching out to people affected by this change with coupon codes to apply towards new thermostats. They are hefty discounts, too, at nearly 50% off. I wrote an explainer piece about all these enormous changes for Nest thermostats, which you should read if you own any affected products.