Huh? I clicked the link. It shows everything you can do with Google Assistant (service)... including devices that support it like the Google Home, phones, speakers etc. I have never seen a picture of a Google Assistant device.
In any case, this isn't constructive. Time will tell what will and won't work.
You must not have paid attention then. They show devices they are calling "Google Assistant". They are devices much like an Echo that you give voice commands. They are literally pictured all over that page.
That's exactly what Google Assistant is and if you have an Android device, you already have it. It can be disabled, but it is part of the core Android OS and has been for a while now. The Hub, Home, and Home Minis all run a version of Assistant.
You don't have to buy any hardware to use Google Assistant as it is available nearly everywhere (much to everyone's chagrin); There's even a Raspberry Pi version that you can run to build your own Google Home device
Those are Google Home, Hub, and Home Mini devices. There is no specific device named the "Google Assistant". Assistant is the service while Home, Hub, and Home Mini are the devices. If it helps, Google Assistant is what Alexa is to the Echo. You don't buy Alexa (you can run that nearly everywhere as well), you buy the Echo device that provides a voice interface to the Alexa services.
No one seems to be reading what I'm typing...
I DO NOT care if it is "just an app" (I despise Android phones). I DO NOT WANT IT!
Not clear because you have Mike Soucie, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google saying different things to the press.
Not clear because there are a lot of questions due to the way it was worded and what exactly they mean.
I get you're mad and frustrated. This is maddening and frustrating. This type of thing is exactly why one shouldn't use cloud based devices.
I'm still going to wait until August to see what is actually done.
The Nest Thermostat is incredibly easy for my elderly parents to use. The turn the dial is something that works well for them. Cold? Turn right. Hot? Turn left. Even regular dumb thermostats with a digital display confused them.
Plus, Nest for FREE paid for professional installation when I wasn't able to get the thermostat working through their phone support. A $300 service bill paid for by Nest. I was impressed that was more than the price of the thermostat. I'm not some big youtuber or influencer, they paid it for little old me!
For their service, I'll give them time to sort this.
Same boat here. It's pretty bad when I lose contact with the thermostats during on-peak billing hours. I've read that Homekit can control the Ecobees locally so I'm wondering if there's a way we can duplicate that in HE.
I am an Ecobee thermostat fan. Been using it with Hubitat, Google Home, IFTTT, and it's native app. It is connected to the cloud. I only recall one outage (very recently).
I am not using their smartswitch.
There's been literally dozens of outages over the past 6 months (if not longer). Mine is still on my wall, but it only runs based off schedules and occasionally Alexa commands now.
May 2019: 12 outages (so far)
April 2019: 15 outages
March 2019: 11 outages
February 2019: 17 outages
January 2019: 14 outages
That's about 70 planned and unplanned outages since the beginning of this year ..... as their thermostat sales have increased, they haven't scaled particularly well.
Has Ecobee engaged with their community on the issues and explained any plans for improvement? Do they have a business model outside of selling hardware (monthly subscriptions)?
I ask because I came from Wink. We started seeing more frequent outages, but also their once highly engaged community support staff went silent for almost a year. Wink also had no business model other than hardware sales, and devices were out of stock in most stores for about a year. Then the outages started to increase and I came to Hubitat.
Ecobee looks like a great option for me to switch to, BUT Iām still feeling a bit cautious after leaving Wink.
Any time you can go local, go local.
What device? "Google Assistant" is a technology. Implementations exist on phones (both Android and iOS), laptops, and many other devices.
You seem to be getting excited thinking it refers to a specific piece of hardware you'd have to buy. It doesn't.
Then "YOUR" options are REALLLLY SIMPLE......just use the app that is directly linked to the Nest device ONLY....that IS YOUR OPTIONS, given the flexibility you allow.......problem solved!
Is it tacky to re-post this here?? 
As I have mentioned previously (perhaps I'm a conspiracy theorist), I believe that this is but the first step in an incremental effort at Google to make their device the centre of IoT control in the Home.
Google assistant works just fine without an actual Google voice assistant device. You can issue voice commands directly from your mobile device.
Check out my thread from a while ago - a lot of good advice there.
Personally, I've compromised on my desire to have everything centrally controlled in favor of "purpose built" products/systems, favoring local control where possible. Google dropping Nest API was the nail in the coffin for going with an Ecobee4, which I have been extremely happy with -- perhaps because I'm choosing to let the thermostat operate on its own and not through HE. Ecobee was already the better themostat, ignoring any cloud issues.
I do have eight nest protects, so this news is still a bummer because I had them integrated with HSM. I believe that was still dependent on the cloud, so not like it could be called dependable. I'll probably do the same automation (turning on lights) through Google Assistant.
For cameras, I ended up with a Ubiquiti Cloud Key Gen 2 Plus and a couple of cameras for the time being. 100% local but with (very fast) cloud access. I've been very happy with it, a big leap up in performance and likely privacy over the Arlo camera that it replaced. However, it does have shortfalls (currently no setting to receive notifications only during certain times), and I'm not sure it's worth the cost unless you buy other Unifi network gear to take advantage of the controller.
Entertaining as always; Paul Hibbert has a youtube vid about the Nest API shutdown.
Download the Hubitat app
