Google Ends Support for Older Nest Thermostats: A Wake-Up Call on Proprietary Tech

Just last month, on October 25, 2025, Google pulled the plug on cloud support for first- and second-generation Nest Learning Thermostats. If you own one of these devices, you can still manually adjust your home's temperature using the physical controls, but forget about remote access via the app, web dashboard, or even getting those handy notifications. No more checking in on your heating and cooling from afar—it's all offline now, courtesy of Google's decision to sunset these features.

This isn't just a minor inconvenience; it's a stark reminder of the pitfalls of investing in products locked into proprietary ecosystems. When you buy a "smart" device like the Nest thermostat, you're betting on the manufacturer's ongoing commitment. But what happens when that company decides it's no longer profitable or strategically viable to maintain support? Your gadget, once cutting-edge, becomes a pricey paperweight—obsolescent not because of wear and tear, but purely at the whim of the corporate overlords. It's a gamble that leaves consumers holding the bag, with no recourse beyond hoping for a trade-in program (which Google isn't offering here).

Thankfully, the open-source community isn't one to let good hardware go to waste. Enter the No Longer Evil (NLE) project, a clever hack that's breathing new life into these abandoned thermostats. By flashing a modified firmware that reroutes server requests from Google's defunct cloud to an NLE-hosted alternative, users can regain full remote control and monitoring through a simple web interface. It's fully open-source, so you can even self-host the server for ultimate privacy and control. Sure, the setup requires a bit of tech savvy (Linux or macOS recommended, and it's experimental with a risk of bricking your device), but for tinkerers, it's a godsend.

At ameriDroid, we're all about embracing open ecosystems that put power back in your hands—whether its a Home Assistant Green running the Open Source Home Assistant OS, or any of our SBC's running Ubuntu, DietPi, OpenSense, etc. Stories like this reinforce why we champion open-source solutions: they future-proof your investments against the whims of big tech.

For the full scoop on the NLE project and how to get started, check out this excellent write-up on Liliputing.