back to article Google wants you to buy Nest CCTV, turn your home into a Brillo pad

Google is expanding its smart-home tech offerings with a networked security camera that could be the first hardware to run its cutdown Android OS, Brillo. The search giant's Nest arm – famous for its smart thermostat – will unveil a new version of the wireless camera Dropcam called the Nest Cam next week. The new camera will …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    Some things things I will never do

    Eat shit.

    Vote for an authoritarian political party.

    Drive the wrong way down a motorway.

    Jump out of a plane (with or without a parachute).

    Trust Google with anything.

  2. Mark 85

    A glorified webcam...

    Why? If I want a cam for home security it won't be a web-enabled one. Especially one that is tied to Google.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: A glorified webcam...

      In order for Google to monetize your morning crawl from the bedroom to the bathroom +/- bathrobe.

      The specific trajectory and the direction where your eyeballs are pointing provide countless opportunities to improve targeted advertising ya know...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A glorified webcam...

      Well unless you've got a strongbox in your basement or a second site then without it all your recordings are vulnerable to being taken or destroyed.

      At least if it is web enabled you can get an alert and then get a realtime view of the situation and make a decision to call the police without having to pay an expensive subscription to a monitoring company who then don't follow procedures and allow a multimillion pound raid to go unnoticed.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oblig: 'I'm sorry Dave'

    This is nowt more than the ultimate spying machine deployed by the ultimate information grabber.

    so you slink off home for a 'quick one' with the missus and the Spycam sees you having a bit of nooky.

    The Google AI Behmoth decides that you should be at work and sends footage of your 'fun' to your boss.

    Later on,

    'I'm sorry Dave, I'm going to have to let you go. Having sex on company time is explicitly banned and listed in your contract'.

    Just painting one possible scenario. Others are available I'm sure.

    Never gonna buy anthing from Google.

  4. ratfox

    There are big advantages for a security camera to be web-enabled. It makes it a lot easier to check your home while on a trip.

    1. frank ly

      Very useful for web-savvy burglars, yes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Say What???

      - There are big advantages for a security camera to be web-enabled. It makes it a lot easier to check your home while on a trip.

      You're a fucking idiot. If you need to watch your home while on a 'trip', stay the fuck home.

  5. Douchus McBagg

    especially wifi enabled cameras.

    adding google to the mix is enough to make your skin crawl

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      yep... google 'shodan'

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Wow...

    ..loads of negativity towards Google and no downvotes at this stage?

    Is the PR department running late this morning?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Wow...

      PR department? How quaint. Google probably has a news scraper which is set up for Google stories and an comment voter which upvotes or downvotes appropriately according to the comment's positivity or negativity towards Google. The server instance was being rebooted but as you can see it's working again.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Wow...

      Bang on cue.

      Two down votes after 9am (until this point), along with all the ones slagging off Google. Well at least we know how many accounts they have now.

      1. Mark 85

        Re: Wow...

        Seems a bunch of us notice this behavior of downvotes. Oh well... who gives a crap about downvotes? It just means someone disagrees and that's a form of discourse.

        Disclaimer: I'm not anti-Google. I'm anti-IoS. So far, security on the devices suck, they seem to be a solution in search of a problem, and generally, there's usually a better way to have something done other than IoS pumping crap to the wherever. Webcams, like private pictures, are a prime target for some folks. Knowledge that you're not home, is a prime target for others. Having "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" isn't the issue. It's about keeping one's self and loved ones secure from those who would do evil.

  7. WonkoTheSane

    I DO have an IP camera

    But it's trained on the spot where I park my car, not my living room!

  8. David 138

    Google news really brings out the tin hat people who live unregistered in their mums basement. Your paranoid everyone's watching me attitude makes me want to watch you to see what you have to hide.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Facepalm

      @David 138

      Do you have curtains on your windows? Why? What have you got to hide...?

  9. Warm Braw

    Points for originality

    It's certainly a novel use of the word "security".

  10. Andrew Jones 2

    I don't understand why people concoct all these bizarre scenarios - in the same way that Google will never actually sell your data to advertisers - because that's what makes them money, Google are also not going to be passing video footage of you on to anyone else because again - as soon as there is the slightest suspicion that something like that is going on - people will dump Google like a hot stone.

    Pretty much the same argument exists for Android - if people legitimately started reporting they were being served ads for something they were talking about to someone else over the phone - or even just with the phone (in standby) in the same room - an investigation would happen and people would start ditching Google - even before the results of the investigation was complete.

    I'm surely not the only one who has common sense when it comes to this?

    1. Charles 9

      You claim everyone would ditch Google in a heartbeat, but ask yourself, "For WHAT?" Who else is out there that is as feature-rich as Android and Google that would allow people to pick up where they left off? Apart from Apple, who's just as guilty, I doubt you'll find a serious answer. And since they've become too ubiquitous, I doubt they'll be convinced to abandon cell phones altogether for fear of that emergency call that can't wait and so on.

      1. jelabarre59

        You don't have to abandon cellphones, you only need to abandon "smartphones". My casio flip-phone has no Google, Apple or Microsoft connections, and performs a novel function; it makes and receives phone calls.

        1. Charles 9

          "it makes and receives phone calls"

          And it probably will STOP doing that soon as older-gen frequencies get shifted to smartphone-ONLY purposes. Then it really WILL be smartphone or bust. Plus what about all those people who communicate in non-phone ways like Skype or Twitter or Facebook?

    2. Lamont Cranston

      Google may indeed never look at any of the video that these things pick up.

      They may never even sell it on. Good for them.

      Now, how common are data breaches at large corporations? How confident are you that the feed from the camera to wherever the recordings are being stored is secure? Do you really want more of this?

  11. wikkity

    HomeKit

    , "Apple has its HomeKit scheme to produce an IoT standard that will make everything interoperate"

    Let me correct that for you

    Apple has its HomeKit scheme to produce an IoT standard that will make everything you have bought for a hefty price from Apple interoperate, everything else will fail or be glitchy.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google Homeview? No thanks.

    The Germans got there first, but as not everyone speaks German, here is an English version of what this camera idea makes me think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJOF3UeLvtA.

    Not in a million years. If I install anything that I can access/control remotely, it is not going to go through a 3rd party unless I can have them independently vetted and the organisation resides in a jurisdiction where it is bound by properly enforced privacy and laws that represent my rights instead of excuses for state agencies to do whatever the hell they like.

  13. This post has been deleted by its author

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