The news that Google Nest will soon be disabling their Revolv smart home hub has made us wonder – how long can you expect smart home hardware to stay working for?

Gone are the days when goods were built to last. Whether by design or just overzealous cost cutting, we no longer expect anything to last a lifetime. Even computers have become a disposable item, to be casually discarded when your Macbook’s non-replaceable battery gives up the ghost.

That hasn’t been such a problem for light switches or heating thermostats; you wouldn’t be surprised to find them going strong after 50 years of trusty service. Should we accept that the shift to smart home technologies means that we’ll need to be replacing our home’s control systems far more often?

We don’t think so, which is why Heat Genius is committed to focussing on software innovation, allowing all of our existing customers to benefit from new features without replacing any hardware. We’re even developing an “offline mode” so that if anything were to happen to our cloud servers or your internet connection, you’ll still have full control of your heating. We also believe that Heat Genius devices should be interoperable with other smart home technologies. That’s why we use the standard Z-Wave protocol, so you can always use Heat Genius devices with other manufacturer’s Z-wave controllers. We hope Heat Genius will be controlling your heating for decades to come!