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We're hearing about troubles at Nest

businessinsider.com

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Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#171

Post by freyr »

asdfologist wrote: post #47
dboreham wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because behaving like this is moderately correlated with success. You don't have to be an asshole to succeed in business, but it can help.

Yes but I'm asking how. If you piss off your employees and they leave, how do you grow your business into a multibillion-dollar company?

> how do you grow your business into a multibillion-dollar company?

Many people will allow themselves to be abused at work without doing anything about it. They'll commiserate with their coworkers, or vent on Glassdoor, or fantasize about leaving, but without ever following through.

So some good ones leave, and the rest get ridden hard and work on weekends and stay late to make their managers happy and rich.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#172

Post by st3v3r »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #33
Eiriksmal wrote: post #23

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 expected very little from Honeywell, who I regard as a quaint, old-skool company. Honeywell has been in business for 110 years. If you are in business that long you gotta be doing something right! I would assume.

How long has Comcast been around for?

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#173

Post by st3v3r »

gherkin0 wrote: post #92
city41 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The apartment we are renting has a Nest. And it just reeks of solution looking for a problem to me. I've never felt like the Nest is an improvement over what it's replacing. It hit me when I was in bed and wanted to turn the heat up, so I grabbed my phone and launched the Nest app. Not sure what segment of the network was having issues, but it wouldn't connect to the thermostat. After about 3 minutes of fiddling, I g…

Yeah, I really don't get value of the Nest either. I'd rather just program my schedule myself and have some certainty about it, rather than let some algorithm try to guess. The only smart thermostat feature that's at all tempting to me is the Ecobee's remote sensors (which the Nest doesn't have). I've lived in places where uneven heating is a legitimate problem.

Not everyone has a set schedule like that, though.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#174

Post by cowsandmilk »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #27
nostromo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nest thermostat is a dream compared to the smoke detector. The smoke detector goes off all the time -- without rhyme or reason. With a normal detector, you can just pull the battery if it refuses to shut off. With Nest, you actually need a screw driver to open the battery compartment to turn it off. So, when it decides to wake up the entire house at 3am (yes, the entire house, since they all go off in unison) you…

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…

Here is what I think is a sane timeline:

(1) smoke detector in kitchen goes off, only sets off in kitchen

(2) after 1 minute, other rooms start saying "smoke in kitchen"

(3) after 2 minutes, alarm goes off in other rooms

Timeline could be shortened if necessary for safety, but this doesn't seem like it would be difficult to implement.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#175

Post by geomark »

pound wrote: post #166
bravura wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first time abuse happens, just walk out, have a laugh about it (it reflects on them not you), and find another gig. With all due respect, why not look them directly in the eye and reply: "Don't speak to me that way" and wait? That sort of response helps other employees see how inappropriate it is.

and wait for what? performance-improvement plan as paper trail for firing? "company culture" term is exactly that: company-wide culture. it's not that there is one fucked-up individual and it just happened that his(her) bosses/peers are just not aware of what's going on. it's accepted there, for whatever their rotten reasons are

Correct. You'll get a PIP and, given that management are such a-holes, you will soon be terminated for cause. Not a great thing to have following you if you are early in your career.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#176

Post by st3v3r »

eli wrote: post #126
murbard2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of workarounds would make sense if we were dealing with a product built by a few makers and released as a set of blueprints online... This is produced by a company that Google, the most valuable company in the world, bought for $3.2B. It's weird that one needs to script around these issues.

That's a workaround of IFTTT limits not Nest

But the use of IFTTT itself is a workaround of issues/limits with the Nest.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#177

Post by st3v3r »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #38

The problem with "smart" anything is that the more features you add the more places there is to break. The coffee maker in my office has a color touch screen. What advantage is a color touch screen over a "dumb" mechanical switch? None, but I am sure its more likely to break and much more expensive to fix/replace. Yes, the touch screen has one button - make coffee. Then it plays animations while your coffee is brewin…

Are you sure it's not the one that has options for the different sizes?

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#178

Post by WizKid »

maxxxxx wrote: post #136
njs12345 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would second that. Not in SV, in London, but I had a similar experience with an abusive work environment. Stayed way too long and some of my shares vested. Now they're worth some money on paper, but it wasn't worth it - my advice for anyone in a similar situation would be to get out as early as possible.

Although leaving early creates an incentive for the company to abuse their workers before their shares vest.

If enough people leave the shares will not be worth much anyway

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#180

Post by xauronx »

I was recently contacted by Nest due to a project I posted on Reddit. Evidently their head of engineering saw the project and told them to see if I'd be interested in working there. I said I would love to continue with the interview process... a week later they contacted me and said they were at capacity for developers and would not be proceeding. Really kind of crazy for a company of that size, in my opinion.

Seems like a bullet dodged at this point. A little concerned for my little app project though. They're taking weeks to approve my API access, to the point that I feel they're damaging my chances of succeeding.

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