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Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

nytimes.com

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Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#61

Post by cookiecaper »

josinalvo wrote: post #33

> Buried deep in Nest’s 8,000-word service agreement is a section called “Disputes and Arbitration,” which prohibits customers from suing the company or joining a class-action suit. Though I have no need for a thermostat whatsoever, I kinda like nest. However, I'd love if people went to court with a class action suit against them. These 'no class action' and 'arbitration' clauses are becoming increasingly common, but…

They do usually hold up in court. Some judges have been ruling that the customer must be given more notice on the "contracts" they're supposedly "entering" before they can be entered, however (Nguyen v. Barnes and Noble).

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#62

Post by scoates »

msandford wrote: post #43
schwap wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would be as simple as a high heating bill. A residential furnace is certainly not made to run 24/7. No big deal if you're at work but if you're out of town for a while...

The thermostat doesn't actually control the plant directly. It requests heat or AC by closing a connection. The HVAC controller responds to those requests as it is able to as per its programmed parameters. You're absolutely right that furnaces aren't designed to run 24/7. But your thermostat can request heat 24/7 and unless the furnace control board is broken, it'll the cycle the system as necessary to keep up with t…

> But your thermostat can request heat 24/7 and unless the furnace control board is broken, it'll the cycle the system as necessary to keep up with the requests.

I have a hot water boiler. Even when constantly calling for heat, I can hear the element relays click on and off to avoid over-pressuring. The recirculation pump stays on the whole time.

(I'm agreeing with you; just pointing out that my system does cut out under normal operation, while calling for heat.)

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#63

Post by grandalf »

I had been thinking of buying a Nest, now I think I'll attempt to build my own using a Raspberry Pi. There are some very inexpensive bluetooth beacons that support temperature measurement...

Does anyone have ideas for cool hardware or algorithms for something like this?

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#64

Post by acdha »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #57
acdha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because happy users don't feel motivated to tell people everything is okay. It's a common bias which you have to constantly remind yourself to correct for.

That would make sense if there weren't plenty of other product reviews in which people are gushing about how awesome they are.

What's the ratio of happy to unhappy users? If 80% of Nest users are happy you could see twice as many positive reviews as negative and still overstate the percentage of unhappy customers.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#65

Post by knz »

ams6110 wrote: post #37

I have a manual thermostat, no batteries required. It has worked flawlessly for over 30 years. It has a simple intuitive interface: a switch for "heat" or "cool" and a dial with a pointer to set the desired temperature. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

They aren't necessary but they are convenient. Being able to adjust the temperature in the middle of the night is great but being able to to adjust the temperature when on vacation is awesome. It's also flexible (will automatically adjust down if people are unexpectedly away for the day) and allows you to track energy usage more easily. Does everyone need one? No. But for some people the convenience is worth the money.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#66

Post by thrownaway2424 »

djcapelis wrote: post #46
ams6110 wrote: post #37

I have a manual thermostat, no batteries required. It has worked flawlessly for over 30 years. It has a simple intuitive interface: a switch for "heat" or "cool" and a dial with a pointer to set the desired temperature. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

Because people derive value from it. It's that simple. You don't have to, and that's fine, but having the temperature settings for the house happen on a schedule that makes sense and depends on the time and day of the week can be quite useful. And having the ability to change the temperature from my bed is nice too.

Sure, but we've had that level of automation for decades. My Honeywell programmable thermostat has time/day scheduling with several phases per day, and different phases for the weekend. It runs off a 9V battery and I can't tell you how long the battery lasts but I _can_ tell you that it's at least 15 years.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#67

Post by manojlds »

imh wrote: post #39
rubidium wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out even if a company markets its products with big bold "not for diagnostic/medical use", and its customers use the products for diagnostic or medical use, the company can still be on the hook. It depends on a number of things, not least of which is the company's knowledge of the actual use of their devices.

It shouldn't matter. It says it can read your heart rate. That's what it advertises as. It should be able to do so. I'm curious if there are legal precedents on how accurate a thing must be to advertise as a being a measurement device.

All mobile phones advertise calling. All of them warn that they are not meant for emergency calling.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#68

Post by cowsandmilk »

craigching wrote: post #50
sparky_z wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem fair. What's a company supposed to do in that situation? Just close up shop? Makes me wonder if it would be possible to intentionally drive a company out of business by convincing a bunch of people to use their products incorrectly.

I don't know about Fitbit per se , but there are cases where a company says one thing in it's legal interface, but does another with it's sales interface. IOW (pure speculation on my part), Fitbit could say "don't use this for such and such" and the sales people say "yeah, we say that (wink, wink), but we don't really mean it." To be clear, I am not saying Fitbit does that , but I am familiar with other companies tha…

GNC Pill Pushers

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#69

Post by cookiecaper »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #57
acdha wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because happy users don't feel motivated to tell people everything is okay. It's a common bias which you have to constantly remind yourself to correct for.

That would make sense if there weren't plenty of other product reviews in which people are gushing about how awesome they are.

They're usually astroturfed. Some vendors will go as far as offering a small rebate to customers who leave a positive review of the product.

I would guess that probably 85% of "user-generated content" on mainstream outlets like Amazon is the result of astroturfing or other paid schemes. It's practically impossible to compete in any online marketplace without turfing the crap out of every slightly relevant outlet. Your competitors are doing it constantly, and the disadvantage will be really big if you don't play ball too.

One example: our objectively superior product with a great design and great functional foundation was substantially less popular than the dirty rip off that had their site built with cheap oDesk labor and designed with cheesy stock photos, but spent ridiculous amounts of money on SEO and fake Facebook comments. We were substantially cheaper too. There was literally no reason to ever use the other person's offering, and there was no reason for them to show up ahead of us on searches, but they did.

Don't believe Google's line of BS that to get to the top you just need to put out good content. It's total nonsense. What you need are backlinks, which are bought and laundered into a network of sites controlled by the same SEO group, and social media clout, which is bought by paying third-world contractors $1.50/hr to make fake Facebook and Twitter profiles and talk about your company.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#70

Post by thrownaway2424 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #58
ams6110 wrote: post #37

I have a manual thermostat, no batteries required. It has worked flawlessly for over 30 years. It has a simple intuitive interface: a switch for "heat" or "cool" and a dial with a pointer to set the desired temperature. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

Why heat or cool an an empty house?

In a cold climate you want to heat the place to some minimal level such that everything in the building doesn't freeze. In hot humid climates if you don't run the AC everything will mold.
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