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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

#91

Post by kyrra »

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…

The class-action part already went to The Supreme Court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Mobility_LLC_v._Concepc...

The reason you see it everywhere is because it was deemed legal.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#92

Post by noneTheHacker »

My house didn't play nicely with my Nest. I got a new Furnace and AC and had them install a Nest. It started acting weird. We replaced it with a low-tech Honeywell while trying to get it figured out. I then replaced the Nest thinking maybe it was faulty. I took a photo of the wire layout for the Honeywell and made sure I did the proper layout for the new Nest. It worked fine for a few days and then one day I came home to a 110 degree house! The Nest reported that things were 70-whatever. I then replaced it with a Wi-Fi Honeywell (not their Nest competitor) and that one has worked fine since. It was a very scary experience. I won't be trying a Nest again.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#93

Post by HillRat »

mattbee wrote: post #82
mattbee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Oh, OK, you don't have that in the US apparently. Why's it necessary?

Almost all US central heat and air systems are "forced air" -- gas or electric heaters (furnaces) that blow conditioned air through ducting. Boiler-radiator systems wouldn't work with the standard US thermostat, not least because US thermostats use low-voltage signaling.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#94

Post by tacticus »

atom_enger wrote: post #31

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…

Why not (and i realise that this is a dirty horrible hack) isolate those devices to their own dedicated virtual ap and isolated network. that way you get to restrict what they can talk to, what can talk to them and the keys that everyone else uses.

this also allows you to finally get around to rolling out eap so the scourge of shared wifi keys can die out :)

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#95

Post by grandalf »

brandmeyer wrote: post #88
grandalf wrote: post #63

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?

Digi-Key is your friend. Build yourself a daughter card with a bunch of relay driver IC's and 24VAC relays. Bare minimum is three, but there are several different arragements for home HVAC, and more doesn't hurt. Some high-SEER rating HVAC units also have multiple speeds. Say, 6-8 relays for some flexibility. Check behind your existing thermostat and see how many wires it gets to be sure. Most units just use bang-ban…

Great ideas.

> Something I've always wanted to try is to have a "periodic recirculation" mode

Yes! That is one thing I want to try too.

I did an experiment in an office setting during summer where I found that if set on "auto" someone would inevitably turn the thermostat down to 65 to cool some spot that was in the sun or where the air had gotten too warm. When I switched the fan to "always on" I would set the thermostat to 70 and nobody would feel the need to adjust it.

I suppose depending on the cost of running the compressor vs the fan my approach may not have saved money, but it was interesting to see the difference in comfort offered by both.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#96

Post by tacos »

noneTheHacker wrote: post #92

My house didn't play nicely with my Nest. I got a new Furnace and AC and had them install a Nest. It started acting weird. We replaced it with a low-tech Honeywell while trying to get it figured out. I then replaced the Nest thinking maybe it was faulty. I took a photo of the wire layout for the Honeywell and made sure I did the proper layout for the new Nest. It worked fine for a few days and then one day I came hom…

Identical experience here. Installed Honeywell RedLINK and finally my problems went away. Ditto Honeywell wireless security, also works great. There's SO MUCH crap out there, and the wave hasn't even started yet.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#97

Post by x0x0 »

x1798DE wrote: post #72
buro9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that you may just be an incredibly gifted athlete?

The parent comment said "off", which I took to mean that he measured his heartrate manually and compared to the device readout.

This is what I meant.

The ecg monitors built into the precor bikes and counting my wrist pulse for 30 seconds and doubling are generally within 2-4 bpm of each other. My fitbit consistently measures 130-ish when the truth is 175-ish per the above two methods (my cardio hr target).

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#98

Post by _ea1k »

mattbee wrote: post #82
mattbee wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Oh, OK, you don't have that in the US apparently. Why's it necessary?

It looks like the UK version is a lot different:

http://www.cnet.com/news/nest-thermostat-finally-arrives-in-...

https://nest.com/blog/2014/04/02/the-uk-just-got-a-little-mo...

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#99

Post by Naritai »

sparky_z wrote: post #34
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.

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.

This is where legal concepts (in the US) such as 'reasonable person' come into play. Courts usually hold that any use of a product that a 'reasonable person' would do is an acceptable use (regardless of what the instructions say - a reasonable person, it would seem, doesn't read the instructions :P). However, a company doesn't need to be held responsible for an un-reasonable use.

In this case, would courts find that a reasonable person would assume that a heart rate monitor can accurately monitor their heart rate? My guess is, yes.

Re: Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold

#100

Post by BookmarkSaver »

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.

This is a bullshit argument. They do read your heart rate. But they explicitly say that it isn't up to a medical or diagnostic level of reliability.

Everything has some level of quality or tolerance expected. Car parts break all the time, it is just a normal part of owning a car. You don't get to sue a car company when your battery dies and you need a jump. You only get to do it when there is a significant or dangerous breach in the guarantees that they actually made, even if only made implicitly. Fitbit explicitly does not rate themselves for that purpose.

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