Nest - the only smarts in my home
I'm probably a typical IT savvy Nest user. Bought what were high quality products that for me worked well and were reliable (one thermostat, one smoke alarm). Was apprehensive when they were swallowed by Google. Subsequently very disappointed to hear about their proposed killing of Works With Nest and subsuming of everything into the 'plex. Concerned about long term support for my perfectly serviceable hardware.
IoT manufacturers have to learn to walk the tightrope better. If you want me to buy your product I need to be convinced, ahead of purchase, that:
1. Your products are well built and fit for purpose
2. You have a robust system for people to report security issues
3. Your products will receive timely security patches
4. You commit to supporting your products for at least five years after you stop selling them (firmware updates and any dependencies on your own centralised services)
5. If your product requires a subscription to work, you will sell the hardware at cost
6. You will collect the minimum of data required from me, my environment and the product itself for the product to function, and no more
In an ideal world all these things companies are trying to flog would conform to open standards at the highest level of abstraction so that I'm not tied to any one vendor - and the firmware source, and tools for creating and uploading updates, would be open sourced when support ceased.
Now that's never going to happen, which is why I never see myself buying into any one ecosystem. Or indeed buying anything else from any of the existing ecosystems. Nest for me has been a handy learn-by-experience which I don't regret, even if Works With Nest does disappear. I'd even consider replacing the hardware I've already got if/when it fails. Everything else I put into my house will be home-rolled with minimal to no dependencies on anything beyond my own local network.
If geeks like me are cagy about IoT adoption you can guarantee that in the long term, so will everybody else. Change is needed.