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Google remotely stripped the smart features off the thermostat still on your wall.
Google switched off the smart features on its first two generations of Nest Thermostats in October 2025, leaving owners with no local control and only a coupon, until a FULU bounty winner built open-source software to bring those features back.
Published Aug 31, 2026
What happened
The first 2 generations of Nest Thermostats, sold for $249 starting in 2011, were marketed as premium smart devices that learned your preferences, automated your settings, and allowed you to control your thermostat through a phone app.
On October 25, 2025, Google permanently switched those features off, turning device owners' smart thermostats into dumb ones.
This update also affected the Emergency Shutoff feature, which automatically shuts off heating systems when Nest Protect smoke detectors sense carbon monoxide.
Users who built smart home systems around these thermostats lost the functionality they paid for, with no option for local control or open-source alternatives.
Google did not provide a local API or other ways for owners to continue using smart features. The only real remedy was a coupon to buy a newer model.
Even after shutting off owners' smart features, Google continued collecting data from downgraded Nests on manual temperature changes, whether a person was in the room, if sunlight was hitting the device, and more.
In his winning submission to FULU's bounty, software developer Cody Kociemba created No Longer Evil, an open source software that gave Nest owners back the smart features they paid for in the first place.
FULU's takeaway
Google cut off the features people paid $249 for, disabled a carbon monoxide safety function, offered only a coupon toward a new model, and still kept collecting data on what happened in owners' homes.
Why this is a law problem
Most of these entries involve a digital lock guarding copyrighted software, and a lock like that sits under Section 1201 of the DMCA, 17 U.S.C. 1201. Subsection 1201(a)(1) makes it unlawful to bypass a lock that controls access to a copyrighted work, even when no copyright is infringed. Subsections 1201(a)(2) and 1201(b)(1) separately ban making or distributing the tools that do the bypassing.
Every three years the Librarian of Congress can exempt narrow classes of uses from the first ban. An exemption expires after three years and has to be re-argued, and the rulemaking has no authority over the tool bans, so a granted exemption still leaves no lawful supplier for the means to use it. FULU exists to reform or revoke this statute.
If you want this law changed, donations fund the work. FULU is a 501(c)(4). Donations to FULU are not tax-deductible, which is the tradeoff for being able to lobby without a limit.
Nothing on these pages says any company named here violated Section 1201. FULU is not a law firm, and this is not legal advice.
The original post
The slides below are the originals as posted. Where a slide and the text on this page disagree, go by the text; the text is the corrected, sourced record. Some slides also print an old wiki address that no longer works. The links on this page are current.
Originally published as an Instagram carousel on Aug 31, 2026: See Instagram post.
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