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Comment by folkrav | Hacker News Reader

On one hand, I obviously can’t legitimately expect the manufacturers of these things to support their older hardware offerings ad vitam aeternam.

On the other, it’s a freaking thermostat controller. An appliance. I don’t want to have to replace appliances before they break, and software breaking it is unacceptable.

I’ve been largely holding off on domotics because so much of it reeks of premature obsolescence... Maybe someone over here has good experience with Home Assistant et al?

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You could expect them to support the product for the lifespan of the product, though.

I've recently set up Home Assistant again after a 5 year hiatus. All my old devices still work fine.

I primarily use zigbee, which is fully local and very reliable. Home Assistant supports a lot, including older hardware. I have a 2010 Philips LivingColors lamp (predecessor of the Hue) that talks early zigbee and still connects to a 2026 zigbee dongle + Home Assistant install.

I avoid any cloud dependency for the reason you give. Anything local, especially with open protocols and an active community, will probably work for a very long time. Likely the lifetime of the appliance.

I was looking at wireless cameras on eBay and had to stop because I realized I can't just check specs and price. I have to make sure they don't require a cloud connection and or a service plan.

I just bought a couple of Reolink RLC-810A cameras, and realized too late (after receiving them) that they require an app just to enable communications and configure the baseline RTSP functionality. Claude found https://github.com/TinKurbatoff/reolink-init# and took care of the issue nicely.

I will probably buy a couple more of the RLC-810As, since I can only assume that newer models will be harder for the owner to actually own.

I've been using NodeRED + zigbee2mqtt/zwavejs for my locally controlled home automation to great effect. I expose all my devices to Google Home as a convenient frontend, but all the actual devices are mine and locally controlled so I can replace Google at any point. I tried home assistant years ago, but aside from the wealth of plugins I didn't find its approach particularly convincing. I have on occasion used it simply as a bridge between node red and HA plugins before though which is nice for niche devices or integrations

plenty of things should have a mandatory sort of twenty year supportability warranty. not necessarily free repairs but an enforceable promise that a thing / "ecosystem" can be used for a reasonably expected lifetime

for a thermostat that's measured in decades

They could easily license the server component to allow you to run it, or unlock the bootloader so you could run third party firmware.

They've had 10+ years to plan ahead for this eventuality, and it's not rocket science.

It still works as a thermostat.

Also I assume it still can be controlled from your phone? Only the "learning" features are gone.

device screen only. i tossed mine and got an ecobee.

why not? a couple of raspberry pis could probably serve all of them

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