Google Cloud IoT

I had to use Google Cloud IoT platform for building a smart home project to interact with entities, mostly Google's Nest thermometer. The third-party software was called Home Assistant, where you can connect IoT devices and automate making a smart home a lot smoother. There is a lot of integration that happens doing it this way but the functionality is very pleasing.

I consider myself very techy and found Google Cloud IoT platform very challenging to manage. The lack of tutorials and discussions to understand how each section works is very challenging. I specifically made a connection after several hours to Google Nest to third-party integration, Home Assistant. Shortly after Google Cloud upgraded to a new version breaking the connection. This was extremely frustrating. No service should take several hours to figure out, in my opinion, if it does, the platform is doing a poor job of making it easy. I'm personally very discouraged any time I ever have to use this platform. It's very hard to find answers.

The last years of work have been dedicated to the design of electronic equipment related to the IoT, I have analyzed and experimented with different platforms, Google Cloud IoT being one of the ones that have best impressed me. Although later I have chosen to design a personalized platform that uses parts from different providers including Google, to date I consider that I will use it again in new projects.

If your IoT project is in the prototype or experimental phase, there are options that are simpler to implement than Google Cloud IoT, perhaps using your own servers and not hosted on Google's cloud. However, if you are developing a solution that has the projection of becoming a product without a doubt, you should use a cloud platform like Google Cloud IoT for many reasons such as scalability, security and service availability among others.