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We're hearing about troubles at Nest

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Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#191

Post by analog31 »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #23
atonse wrote: post #8

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…

People came home to apartments that were 90 because their heaters were stuck on full blast during the summer.

When I was in grad school, I wired a temperature controller to an experiment, set it, satisfied myself that it was working OK, and went away. Guess what. The relay failed, and the heater was stuck on, until it melted the experiment.

As a grad student in physics (not even EE or embedded systems), I could chalk it up to a beginner mistake.

But if you design a commercial product that controls the release of large amounts of energy, you can't make beginner mistakes. There many not be many remaining reasons why age and experience are valuable traits in a engineer, but this is one of them. Germane to one of the other comments, this may also be why a 110 year old company still has a reason to exist.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#192

Post by IgorPartola »

vonmoltke wrote: post #160
IgorPartola wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> On the other hand, my simple Honeywell thermostats do wonderfully because I can program them to my actual schedule and only need to adjust things twice a year. Sure, it's probably not as efficient as a dynamic algorithm, but I'd rather to do this than worry about waking up freezing in the middle of the night, or worse, having my condenser unit fried by an over-eager thermostat by starting/stopping it constantly. Th…

Agreed. I am actually more excited about the air vents with built-in thermostats. I have a few rooms that get very hot/cold, so that would be a better solution than a single point of measurement. Also, I think Insteon has a thermostat that can take temperature measurements from several rooms via wireless sensors. No idea how well it works, but I like the sound of that.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#193

Post by sokoloff »

geomark wrote: post #190
sokoloff wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience (on the employer side), you will terminated for performance, terminated at will, or at worst terminated for insubordination, but not terminated "for cause". Terminated for cause is very serious and generally means a serious breach of some sort: embezzlement, harassment, breach of contract, etc. Termination of any of the other sorts is much less serious, usually results in severance and unemployment e…

Terminated for insubordination is actually what I meant. I seem to recall that that was one of the "for cause" criterion, but not absolutely sure. Regardless, at the companies where I worked it meant involuntary termination without eligibility for rehire, no severance, and no unemployment benefits.

UI eligibility varies state by state. Here in MA, the FAQ says: "if your employer is able to show that you were fired for deliberate misconduct or violation of a company rule, you may be disqualified."

My strong wager is that standing up for abusive management practice would not trigger the "violation of company rule" clause and an employer with a penchant for acting like a jerk is unlikely to fight such a UI claim.

http://www.mass.gov/lwd/unemployment-insur/resources/questio...

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#194

Post by ghaff »

keehun wrote: post #132
adevine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be trivial for the thermostat to figure out if your phone is connected to your home network Which is exactly what the Honeywell Lyric thermostat does (albeit with geofencing) and it works great. My dad has a Nest, and I knew it would never work for me - my schedule is too erratic. I got the Lyric and I love it. The model of how it sets up triggers is also very simple to understand: (some event occurs) -> (…

I've always wondered if sometimes it's worth it to keep the furnace/AC on. And if so, at what point is it worth keeping it on? I figure it's a bit like the car ignition where if you're stopped for more than x seconds, it's worth it to turn the car off. Is it like that with heating/cooling? I wonder if so, if we'll have a Thermostat that'll tell us "no it's better for you to keep it on rather than stop for the amount…

Furnaces shouldn't excessively "short-cycle" but what that means depends on a lot of factors. You can read a bit, e.g. here:

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/appliances-gadgets/2713-minimu...

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#195

Post by aswanson »

outside1234 wrote: post #11

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 get the mental image of a wannabe Steve Jobs loudmouth running rampant without the slightest hint that he's building a fucking thermostat and he's really not that consequential in the grand scheme of things.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#196

Post by Rapidwire »

sliverstorm wrote: post #148
asdfologist wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You could ask the same questions about abusive intimate relationships. Cribbing from that "book"- Destroy their sense of self-confidence & self-worth. Pick 'em young- they are easier to fool. Give them brief moments of sunshine to make them hope it'll get better. Promises. Threats. General megalomania.

What book?

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#197

Post by culturestate »

st3v3r wrote: post #177
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?

Even if it is, does that justify a touchscreen? My Nespresso supports three sizes by having three physical buttons; that doesn't strike me as particularly onerous.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#198

Post by quietplatypus »

No one here has yet really considered the real elephant in the room:

Why does anyone need an "intelligent" thermostat, especially something as overhyped and over-engineered as Nest is?

I never even remotely bought into the Nest hype from the very beginning. Ditto on their smoke detectors.

At least, you stop being such a baby and turn the heat up or down by yourself. Controversial, I know.

At most, you put your thermostat on an automatic schedule, which can be done about a thousand different ways (timer circuit, dippy bird, microcontrollers that have already been manufactured and tested in a million different ways by more established companies).

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#199

Post by quietplatypus »

nostromo wrote: post #25
atonse wrote: post #8

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"…

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…

I guess I never will understand the reason for buying any tech gadget when the current solution is operating within parameters.

Re: We're hearing about troubles at Nest

#200

Post by vatotemking »

nostromo wrote: post #25
atonse wrote: post #8

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"…

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…

> The worst feeling is when you get an alert on your iPhone while nobody (but your pet) is home. "Alert: your house is on fire." Then you rush home and realize it's a false alarm.

This is both hilarious and horrible from my point of view reading this

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