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Revolv, acquired by Nest Labs in 2014, is shutting down all its services next month

Revolv, a home automation device company, has announced that it will be officially be shutting down next month. Alphabet’s Nest Labs purchased Revolv back in 2014 and the duo had worked toward bettering out the Works with Nest platform since then. After the acquisition, Revolv’s products continued to function as expected, but today’s shutdown announces that neither the hub or app will be functional any longer after May 15th.

After it’s acquisition in 2014, Revolv stated it was no longer going to be selling products, but would continue to support its existing customers in the meantime. Revolv has posted a short announcement and four question FAQ on its site announcing the full shutdown in May:

A letter from Revolv’s founders:

We’re shutting down Revolv.

Revolv was a great first step into the connected home. It wasn’t perfect, but we worked hard to make something we – and other smart people – could build on.

And it worked. In 2014, we were bought by Nest and the technology we made became an integral part of the Works with Nest platform. Now Works with Nest is turning into something more secure, more useful and just flat-out better than anything Revolv created.

So we’re pouring all our energy into Works with Nest and are incredibly excited about what we’re making. Unfortunately, that means we can’t allocate resources to Revolv anymore and we have to shut down the service. As of May 15, 2016, your Revolv hub and app will no longer work.

Thank you for your support and believing in us. We’re sad for the end of Revolv, but this isn’t the end of the connected home. This is the beginning.

– Tim & Mike

This shutdown seems to extend further than no longer just offering products or services, but the verbiage in the FAQ section makes it sound as if the hub itself will no longer function at all.

As of May 15, 2016, Revolv service will no longer be available. The Revolv app won’t open and the hub won’t work.

Arlo Gilbert, CEO of Televero, discusses on Medium how this unexpected shutdown will be affecting his entire home automation system for the weeks to come.

On May 15th, my house will stop working. My landscape lighting will stop turning on and off, my security lights will stop reacting to motion, and my home made vacation burglar deterrent will stop working. This is a conscious intentional decision by Google/Nest.

Arlo Gilbert

Most disturbing of all in this situation is that the users who purchased the products don’t seem to be getting emails about the shutdown. Unless a user were to actively monitor Revolv’s site or social media, they might quite literally find themselves in the dark come mid-May. Revolv hasn’t added any alternative options for customers either, likely leaving many with home automation configurations that will just not work when the final day has come.

Nest has appeared to be having a rocky few weeks as former Dropcam co-founder spoke out about how ex-Apple Tony Fadell ran the company and where Nest really stood within Alphabet’s bets revenue. Re/code has also reported that Nest has been underperforming and that its current future looks unknown. Amidst all the uncertainty, Nest is also losing important employees as its director of hardware design and engineering, and its senior engineering manager have been reported to have left the company.

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