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The part that failed is not on your wall. A 2nd gen Nest Learning Thermostat still clicks the furnace on at the hour you set years ago. What broke sits in Google's data centre: since the Nest end of support date, 25 October 2025, the thermostat has been unpaired from the app and cut off from updates, and its Nest Protect shut-off no longer runs. Owners have three exits. Only one is really about money.

Will a thermostat still work after Nest end of support?

Yes: a 1st or 2nd gen Nest Learning Thermostat keeps running its pre-set schedule and every setting on the device, but anything that reached it through Google's servers stopped on 25 October 2025.

Google's end-of-support page lists what went: app status and remote control, notifications, third-party assistants, Home/Away Assist and multi-device Eco. That last pair hits the bill: an empty house now stays heated until somebody sets Away by hand.

Two lines there matter more. Protects disconnect and, in Google's words, "emergency shut off will no longer run", so a carbon monoxide alarm sounds but the furnace keeps going. And the units "continue to report logs for issue diagnostics" while getting no "software or security updates".

Four numbers frame the decision: Google's cut-off and model list, and offer amounts from 9to5Google's 25 April 2025 report, since Google says only that owners were emailed an offer.

The unpatched stretch keeps growing. That is exposure, not a known attack: any flaw found from now on stays open for as long as the unit sits on your network.

On TechSpot's forum thread about the April 2025 announcement, one commenter called replacing a thermostat every ten years "ABSOLUTELY unacceptable". We agree with the instinct, if not the capitals: this thermostat's life was set by a server, not by wear. It echoes Microsoft's extended security updates for Windows 10, minus any option to pay, and the EU right-to-repair duties that began on 31 July 2026 help little, because nothing here is broken.

Three exits, matched to the house you have

The right exit depends on facts you can check in minutes: which Nest generation is on the wall, whether a Nest Protect is paired to it, and whether you own a Mac or a Linux computer.

Find the first row that describes your home. Google lists only 1st and 2nd gen models; check yours with the guide its support page links.

No row says buy for the energy bill, and the sum below shows why.

Worked example: take a US home at the more than $900 a year in heating and cooling that ENERGY STAR's smart thermostat page cites (retrieved 30 October 2026). Assume the old Nest now wastes the full 8% an ENERGY STAR technical bulletin credits a smart thermostat with, an estimate dating from the label's 2017 launch. Pay the US offer price as of April 2025: $279.99 less $130, so $149.99. The saving is $900 x 0.08 = $72 a year; payback is $149.99 / $72 = 2.1 years, or 3.9 at full price. That 8% is a ceiling, since your schedule still runs. Halve it and the offer price takes 4.2 years. Your own bill is on your utility's annual statement; set the first slider to it.

What can go wrong with each exit?

Every exit trades one risk for another, and the trade is sharpest with NoLongerEvil: remote control without Google, set against a real chance of bricking the thermostat you meant to save.

The NoLongerEvil GitHub repository, at v1.0.1 as of 30 October 2026, needs macOS or Linux with Node.js 18 or later; Windows cannot flash it. It warns that improper firmware can brick the device, and its firmware and server code "will be open sourced soon", so you cannot yet audit what you install. AndroidHeadlines reported on 4 November 2025 that the developer advises trying it only with a backup thermostat.

The hosting choice matters too. NoLongerEvil's cloud swaps one company's server for another's; the Home Assistant add-on keeps control at home, which a second TechSpot commenter suggested via a Raspberry Pi of about £40. Only that version fixes the problem rather than moving it. Well, most of it.

Replacing has small print too. The discount came by email; Google's page tells anyone who missed it to contact Google Support. Canadians were offered $160 off and Europeans half off a tado X kit, as 9to5Google reports no new Nest thermostats for Europe. Any new connected thermostat faces its own cut-off, so, as with a Google Photos Takeout export, keep locally what you can.

• After blocking Wi-Fi, check the displayed time stays right for a few days.
• Google does not say whether a newer thermostat restores the Protect shut-off; ask Google Support before buying for that.
• No end date is published for the offer, so do not assume it will wait.

Our call: the decision is control, not energy. Keep the thermostat and block it at your router this week, unless a Nest Protect relied on that shut-off; then price a replacement and have Google Support confirm the shut-off works with it before you pay. Flash NoLongerEvil only with the computer and the spare in hand. Replace for comfort only if you miss the app.

Unzip your first Google Photos Takeout and the pictures are not the strange part. The strange part is the second file that turns up beside them. Google's help page says anything that is not part of the original photo, such as comments, is saved to a separate JSON file. Delete your library before you know that and you are trusting a copy you never opened.

Why does every Google Photos Takeout come with JSON files?

Because Takeout stores anything that is not part of the picture file itself, such as comments, in a separate JSON file, so a photo can arrive with a companion that should stay beside it. Move the pictures without it and that extra context is lost. A file readable in only one app is how formats outlive their makers, and what happens to your Microsoft Publisher .pub files shows the cost.

The original dates survive, just not in the file date. Google's Photos help page says your operating system can stamp the file with a new timestamp, while the original date stays in the embedded metadata. A tool that reads only the file date can pile years of pictures onto the afternoon you unzipped them. Sort by date taken instead.

The Apple route has the same shape. Apple's transfer page, published 29 September 2026, says shared albums, smart albums, Live Photos and some metadata are not sent, and only the latest edit of a photo goes across, not the original. Most transfers take three to seven days, and iCloud is left as it was. Advanced Data Protection, Apple's end-to-end encryption option, blocks the export while it is on, so you choose between encryption and the copy. For the wider fight over leaving a provider, see EU Data Act cloud switching costs. Cancelling storage the moment a progress bar finishes is outdated advice.

Four numbers decide whether a photo export finishes. Two are published limits, read in October 2026, and two are our arithmetic on a hypothetical 200 GB library.

The slowest-line figure is the one to question. It is not a published limit: it divides the library's megabits by the seconds in a week and assumes the line never pauses. A household that streams in the evening needs headroom, and we would plan on double.

What should you check before you delete anything?

Four situations change what you should do, namely big libraries, accented file names, Apple's Advanced Data Protection and slow connections, and the table below gives each one action plus a default for everyone else. Find the row that sounds like you and read across.

Read down the middle column and one pattern shows: every action is cheap now and impossible later, once the source is gone.

Can your line finish a 200 GB download before the link lapses? At 5 Mbps it uses about half the week, and at 2 Mbps it cannot finish. The bars are our arithmetic, 200 GB × 8 ÷ speed against 168 hours, and assume a flat-out connection, so read them as best cases.

Worked example: take a hypothetical 200 GB library and 50 GB archives, so 200 ÷ 50 = 4 archives. The download is 200 × 8 = 1,600 gigabits, or 1,600,000 megabits. A week is 7 × 24 × 3,600 = 604,800 seconds, so on these assumptions the line must average 1,600,000 ÷ 604,800 = 2.6 Mbps. Multiply your own gigabytes by 0.0132 for your number, then compare it with a speed test taken on a busy evening.

How long does a Google Photos export link last?

Google's account help page says each export archive expires in about seven days and allows five downloads, after which you must request another, so a stalled download can force a fresh export. These are the limits as of October 2026.

The same page offers zip or tgz. Zip opens on almost any computer, while tgz may need extra software on Windows and cannot carry Unicode characters in file names. We would take zip every time.

A phone that might be reset in a repair is the same problem on a deadline: what the EU right to repair owes you covers the rights, and the export covers your photos. Four traps remain.

• Names: Apple says transferred albums and videos arrive with names starting 'Copy of', so they sort under C.
• Late changes: Google says photos added or deleted after you request an export may not appear, so request again if you kept shooting.
• Rolling backups: Google can schedule an export every two months for a year, but only with Google Photos selected alone, and not under its Advanced Protection Program.
• Motion and edits: neither company explains how every Live Photo or edited copy is handled, so test one of each.

The decision is whether to delete the originals, and the answer is not yet. This week, request one export, download every archive the day it is ready, then open three photos from different years and read the date taken. Delete only when those dates match, the archive count adds up and, on the Apple route, the transfer has finished.

You double-click the flyer you reuse every spring and Publisher refuses to open it. Nothing is corrupt and nothing needs repairing: since 1 October 2026, Microsoft 365 no longer opens or edits pub files at all, and a reinstall will not bring the app back. Your files are intact. What vanished is the only program that could edit them, which is the oldest problem in owning your own data, a file format that belongs to its maker.

Can you still use Microsoft Publisher after October 2026?

Only with a perpetual copy: Microsoft 365 subscribers lost Publisher on 1 October 2026, while Office 2021 and Office LTSC 2021 owners can keep installing and using it, though without security fixes after 13 October 2026.

The wording matters here. Microsoft's retirement notice, last updated on 6 October 2026, says subscribers "will no longer be able to open or edit Publisher files in Publisher". So the subscription you still pay for no longer reads documents you made with it. The same page says perpetual owners "will still be able to access and edit" their files, which turns a forgotten Office 2021 install into the most useful thing you own this month. An unpatched app is fine for one evening of Save As; it is a poor place to open strangers' attachments for years. That is the same bargain behind paying for Windows 10 extended security updates: old software keeps running, and the risk quietly moves to you.

Microsoft offers conversion, not continuity. Its guidance maps each Publisher project to Word or PowerPoint, and most of yours will land in Word. The EU is only now writing exit rights into law for switching cloud providers under the Data Act; desktop file formats have no such rule.

The search figure is the one to act on today. A forgotten file in an old OneDrive folder tends to surface after the last Office 2021 laptop has gone to a recycler. Run the .pub search and write down the count: that number, not the format, decides how you convert. Under a dozen, do them by hand this week. Into the hundreds, you need Microsoft's PowerShell script, which needs "a working and licensed version of Publisher installed", exactly what subscribers just lost.

How do you open PUB files without Publisher?

Open them in LibreOffice Draw, which imports Publisher documents and saves an editable OpenDocument copy, but first save a PDF from any surviving Publisher install, because that PDF is the most exact record you will get.

The Document Foundation, writing on 14 October 2026, calls Draw "the quickest way to open, view, edit and manage Publisher documents", through the same libmspub import library Scribus uses. Office Watch is blunter about the PDF: it is "the most faithful copy you'll ever get but it has very limited use for editing." Find your situation below and read across.

Read the table as an order of work, not a menu. The PDF comes first while a Publisher install still exists, and the editable copy comes second, from Draw or a rebuild. Draw is one-way, so the original stays as your master copy.

No single route keeps both the exact layout and the freedom to edit, so the PDF can never be your only copy. The tally is this article's own, derived from the sources quoted in this section.

Where conversions break, and how to catch it

Conversions usually break on fonts, linked text boxes and tables, so install the original fonts before opening anything, then compare every page that uses linked frames or tables against the PDF you saved first.

Office Watch puts it plainly: "Fonts are the most common problem." When a heading changes shape, the font is probably missing from your computer, not lost from the file. Install it and reopen. Its second warning matters more: "linked text boxes, tables and fancy effects are where conversions usually break", and a newsletter is mostly linked boxes. Word fares worse on those pages, since it "isn't a page layout tool".

Here is my grey area, and it is opinion rather than anyone's guidance. Microsoft says third-party conversion services "vary in quality and capabilities" and that it does not support them. It says nothing about privacy. I would not upload a membership list or a client invoice to any of them. Desktop software converts offline, the same logic as the EU right to repair rules: what you own should stay fixable by you.

• Test one harmless file before trusting a folder to any converter.
• Check page count and images against the PDF, not memory.
• Keep a PDF of Scribus work too: The Document Foundation notes Scribus "does not use a standard document format".

So the decision is not which app replaces Publisher; it is whether each file gets its PDF before the last install that can make one disappears. Do this weekend: run the .pub search, write down the count, save a PDF of each file from any Office 2021 copy you can borrow, then open the originals in LibreOffice Draw and keep all three versions in one folder.