81–90 of 234 posts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY
[Warning: contains extremely annoying Nest smoke detectors beeping. So prepare to lower your volume]
Brad looks very annoyed and it was no fun for him, but on an artistic level it is really well done, it is an epic battle between human and machine.
If you watch the unhappy early adopter YouTube videos of Nest thermostats, this outcome is pretty predictable. There's a level of quality control you need to put up a web app, which won't physically affect anyone if it happens to crash for awhile. Then there's a much higher level required when you're controlling things in the real world. This outcome was predictable from the experience of those early adopters. EDIT:…
The Nest comes in two parts - the "smart" bit with the USB charger & battery & wifi, and the Heat Link - the actual radio control for your boiler. The Heat Link has a big button on which lets you turn the heating on and off, overriding what the Nest is telling it. That's not as economical as a regular thermostat, but it means you won't freeze: https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-do-I-turn-the-heat-o...
If you watch the unhappy early adopter YouTube videos of Nest thermostats, this outcome is pretty predictable. There's a level of quality control you need to put up a web app, which won't physically affect anyone if it happens to crash for awhile. Then there's a much higher level required when you're controlling things in the real world. This outcome was predictable from the experience of those early adopters. EDIT:…
The Nest comes in two parts - the "smart" bit with the USB charger & battery & wifi, and the Heat Link - the actual radio control for your boiler. The Heat Link has a big button on which lets you turn the heating on and off, overriding what the Nest is telling it. That's not as economical as a regular thermostat, but it means you won't freeze: https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-do-I-turn-the-heat-o...
We have two nest thermostats installed at work. I rotate the WiFi keys for our APs quarterly and these things are the biggest pain in the ass to reconnect to the WiFi. The furnace turns off almost immediately after changing the WiFi key once the Nest loses connectivity. At first I thought it was coincidence but now that I rotate on a strict schedule it's a joke in our office. However, what's not a joke is what happen…
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?
To be fair, the issue isn't that there was software involved; digital thermostats have that. I think more telling was the level of complexity, which allows for a lot more to go wrong. Combined with a poor process behind update validation, this is what happens.
Keep it Simple. If you're going to use new technology, keep the old stuff around, ideally working in parallel as a failsafe.
And generally, anything you can do to distribute the failure points and allow for overlap (such as backup spaceheaters that don't normally kick on) should be considered if someone's life is on the line, or property is at risk. Stuff can always go wrong, but the more you can do to reduce risk the better. This applies to any system dependency; mechanical thermostat or nest.
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?
Most units just use bang-bang control around some known limits. Something I've always wanted to try is to have a "periodic recirculation" mode for the times that I'm relying on passive solar heating, just to turn over the stratified air.
I've had a Nest for ~ 3 years now. It was a mistake. The "learning" on it is not intelligent enough to understand the idiosyncrasies of our 60 yr old house. I have to manually adjust it every day to make sure my kids are roasting/freezing in their bedrooms. I really should just switch it back to a manual thermostat.
Disable the autoaway settings and you have a conventional thermostat with the advantage of being able to remotely adjust the temperature.
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?
While I don't have a Nest, I put a similar timer on my water heater and saved a lot of money ($20/mo).