151–160 of 267 posts
The 1st law of robotics: a robot must not do any harm to a human through its action or allow harm through its inaction. The 2nd law of robotics: a robot must obey an order given to it by a human, except when in conflict with the first law. Seems like the Nest thermostat isn't built to obey the above laws!
I have had 3 Ecobee thermostats in my house for over 3 years. They have been extremely reliable and have an API, so I can do all sorts of fun stuff with them. Right now I'm working on hooking them up so my themostats change settings when the house is empty based on the presence of family member phones on our LAN.
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> I still wake up with something like PTSD from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell. This is so depressing. My gut tells me that absolutely no one should have to put up with this in an employment situation, but what are your options, other than to either "deal with it" or face the income and career insecurity that comes with quitting?
The really great thing about being in software in Silicon Valley is that you can more or less write your own meal ticket somewhere else. My advice to anyone else in this situation is to do just that. The first time abuse happens, just walk out, have a laugh about it (it reflects on them not you), and find another gig. There are a lot of great jobs out there. I have a lot of empathy now for all the crummy jobs where p…
While there may be a lot of tech companies in SV hiring (debatable--there are certainly lots of them _interviewing_, but hiring?) there are only so many Alphabets and Facebooks in the area. Outside of opportunities at companies like these, you'll have to sacrifice some "career and income stability" which the parent poster pointed out.
Definitely leave if you're being abused, but it would be foolish not to prepare for a salary hit and/or 3-6 months of joblessness.
I have a nest and it is a real piece of shit. I usually don't curse on HN but I can barely contain my hate for this product. My absolutely ugly, crappy old thermostat with a needle on it works WAY better than the nest (thankfully we have it upstairs where we sleep). When it's cold, we turn that needle up, and we get warm. With the nest, which is downstairs, when we're cold, we turn the nest up, we get weird "+2 hour"…
Your comments are worrying, but match a disappointing number of other users. When I was ready to switch to a programmable thermostat to save money, I really, really wanted to like the Nest. It was cool, whizzbang, etc., etc. But then I started reading the 1-star reviews on Amazon, and the support forums. And it worried me. People came home to apartments that were 90* because their heaters were stuck on full blast dur…
I worked there. It was literally the worst experience of my career - and I have worked at all of the hardest charging blue chips and two successful startups - so it is not about high expectations - but abuse. I still wake up with something like PTSD occasionally from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell almost literally every day while I was there. I have a distance from it now -- and a way better job. It mad…
Feel terrible reading this. Is rest of the Alphabet upper management completely oblivious to what is happening inside Nest? Don't they care? Isn't leadership about doing the right thing. If people are getting abused, Alphabet/Google better do something about it. I thought Alphabet took pride in the kind of leadership traits they support and want their leaders to embody. I am pretty sure a ton of current/ex-Googlers w…
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Never understood why in US the smoke detectors are such a nightmare. I never had a problem in Europe.
I also never had one in Europe outside of the UK.
I worked there. It was literally the worst experience of my career - and I have worked at all of the hardest charging blue chips and two successful startups - so it is not about high expectations - but abuse. I still wake up with something like PTSD occasionally from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell almost literally every day while I was there. I have a distance from it now -- and a way better job. It mad…
> I still wake up with something like PTSD from getting yelled at and bullied by Tony Fadell. This is so depressing. My gut tells me that absolutely no one should have to put up with this in an employment situation, but what are your options, other than to either "deal with it" or face the income and career insecurity that comes with quitting?
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That's a horrible experience. But, to be fair, many newer structures have all their smoke detectors wired together so when one goes off, they all go off. I experienced that in my house, built in '97, which was extremely disorienting and stressful when it first happened. Growing up in a house built in the 80s, only the kitchen's smoke detector would go off if you burned something. I understand the perceived safety enh…
Yet industrial/commercial grade hard wired smoke detectors work just fine. I've worked in industrial facilities where there were thousands of smoke and fire detectors, and a zero false alarm rate. Yet, one day, when a HVAC unit overheated and smoked, all the right stuff happened. The local alarms went off, and the duct dampers slammed shut to contain the smoke. But because there wasn't confirmation from a second dete…
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Your comments are worrying, but match a disappointing number of other users. When I was ready to switch to a programmable thermostat to save money, I really, really wanted to like the Nest. It was cool, whizzbang, etc., etc. But then I started reading the 1-star reviews on Amazon, and the support forums. And it worried me. People came home to apartments that were 90* because their heaters were stuck on full blast dur…
I currently have non-Wi-Fi programmable thermostats. I have no experience with Nest directly, but from the description of how it determines when to turn the temp up or down I don't see how it would be that "smart" for me. I work from home, but my office is nowhere near the downstairs thermostat. So any motion detection it might do would assume that nobody is home, when I in fact am. On the other hand, my simple Honey…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comments are worrying, but match a disappointing number of other users. When I was ready to switch to a programmable thermostat to save money, I really, really wanted to like the Nest. It was cool, whizzbang, etc., etc. But then I started reading the 1-star reviews on Amazon, and the support forums. And it worried me. People came home to apartments that were 90* because their heaters were stuck on full blast dur…
I currently have non-Wi-Fi programmable thermostats. I have no experience with Nest directly, but from the description of how it determines when to turn the temp up or down I don't see how it would be that "smart" for me. I work from home, but my office is nowhere near the downstairs thermostat. So any motion detection it might do would assume that nobody is home, when I in fact am. On the other hand, my simple Honey…
That's my big problem with Nest. A basic programmable thermostat with manual override and a delayed blower feature is probably an 85% solution. Machine learning on top of that, for a single-family residence, is ridiculous overkill for very little gain.