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Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

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Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#21

Post by thenerdhead »

narush wrote: post #13

I'm reading his book Build right now - it came out last week, so assuming that's why he's appearing all over all the feed). About 2/3rds of the way through currently. My thoughts: 1. Lots of Steve Jobs talk. There's a whole chapter on the distinction between real assholes, and assholes that just really care about the product quality / customer. The distinction drawn was in motivation - but I wonder if it might just b…

I'm also reading it. About done.

There's many good gems here and his philosophy hits close to home.

I don't think you need to be of his fame to apply it. Many of these tips are applicable. I find lots of his product & marketing advice to be very useful for new PMs to tech too.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#22

Post by suresk »

samwillis wrote: post #7

We have a Nest thermostat, we have now turned off every single smart feature and just use it for a schedule and turning it on/off remotely when away (we gave up with the automatic away detection). I should also point out we are in the UK. I’m completely unconvinced that “smart” thermostats achieve anything for the majority of homes in the UK, despite most energy suppliers pushing customers to purchase them for years.…

The remote functionality is nice, as is the auto-away part. Those alone make it worthwhile, but I agree that the "smart" functionality leaves much to be desired.

Ours, somehow, has gotten into a state where it thinks we like to bounce between 68 - 70 degrees all day, and doesn't "learn" when I try to adjust it back to the same temperature it was. The weekly schedule has over 70 different temperatures on it and there is no (obvious) way to reset it, so I haven't bothered to go clean it up. I think it could do better there.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#23

Post by PragmaticPulp »

narush wrote: post #13

I'm reading his book Build right now - it came out last week, so assuming that's why he's appearing all over all the feed). About 2/3rds of the way through currently. My thoughts: 1. Lots of Steve Jobs talk. There's a whole chapter on the distinction between real assholes, and assholes that just really care about the product quality / customer. The distinction drawn was in motivation - but I wonder if it might just b…

> My thoughts: 1. Lots of Steve Jobs talk. There's a whole chapter on the distinction between real assholes, and assholes that just really care about the product quality / customer. The distinction drawn was in motivation - but I wonder if it might just be a winner-writes-the-history situation.

He's been doing a lot of history rewriting.

Don't get me wrong: Building and shipping Nest was a great accomplishment. However, he was a famously terrible leader in many regards and drove a number of great employees away.

When Nest acquired Dropcam, a large number of the Dropcam employees left. Tony Fadell then went on to publicly disparage the Dropcam employees as being "not as good as we hoped" saying "unfortunately it wasn't a very experienceded team" ( https://www.businessinsider.com/nest-ceo-tony-fadell-has-dro... ) Predictably, that's a great way to drive away the rest of your knowledgeable employees and make the company toxic for hiring.

Nest didn't go on to revolutionize the space after Tony Fadell arrived with his hard-hitting management styles. Nest cameras haven't really evolved much and the Nest security system was abandoned.

I don't doubt that there are some lessons to be learned in his book, but in practice Tony Fadell hasn't been a great leader in the past decade. I'd take his book with a grain of salt.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#24

Post by cout »

kevmo314 wrote: post #4

> Shipping the Nest thermostat with a screwdriver "turned a moment of frustration into a moment of delight" I must be in the minority then. I end up with a ton of these product-specific screwdrivers and get a little frustrated that I have to throw it away, contributing ever-so-slightly to the pile of consumer waste. It'd be cool if you could select a "need tools" option sort of like how take out now has a "need utens…

The zinus bedframe I bought came with a mini ratcheting wrench instead of a flat wrench. The wrench is just the right size to fit hex shank screwdriver bits, and so I've used it many times when I couldn't find my screwdriver or I needed just a little bit more torque. I have even used it to repair my John Deere tractor since it's small enough to fit where a regular size ratcheting wrench couldn't.

The wrench definitely made the product feel higher quality, and I have a tool I will keep for a long time, if I don't wear it out.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#25

Post by stblack »

We've had a nest thermostat for five years.

For the past four and a half years it's been on a shelf in the basement, in its box. Gonna throw it out someday.

What crappy tech. Its problem: its backing plate heats up. Causing the house to be perpetually cold.

Three Nest backing-plate replacements later, we gave up.

We presently have a much dumber thermostat that can be remotely controlled. We're happy now, but we'll never purchase another Nest product again.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#26

Post by nrjames »

aresant wrote: post #5

"Every time my wife and I drove up to our Lake Tahoe ski cabin on Friday nights after work, we’d have to keep our snow jackets on until the next day. The house took all night to heat up." That is first world problems hall of fame material right there! But a great origin story for the Nest regardless.

In the early 1990s, my roommate and I used to visit his family's tiny cabin in northern Wisconsin. The place was very rustic but did have electric heat. It was very cold and snowy during the winter. He could call the cabin's phone number and press * 2-3 times and it would tell the heat system to turn on or off. The system would respond somehow with a beep or two to tell him whether it was turning on or off. Seems like Mr. Fadell could have warmed his cabin up before arriving without building the Nest.

That said, I like the Nest, though I'm partial to the Ecobee because of the remote sensor it includes.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#27

Post by nullwarp »

allturtles wrote: post #20
aresant wrote: post #5

"Every time my wife and I drove up to our Lake Tahoe ski cabin on Friday nights after work, we’d have to keep our snow jackets on until the next day. The house took all night to heat up." That is first world problems hall of fame material right there! But a great origin story for the Nest regardless.

I never understood what problem smart thermostats were supposed to solve, now I do: ski home pre-heating. Cool, makes sense, but no use to me.

Ours is helpful for turning the air up or down when we leave/come home or turning it up in the morning (we cool the house off at night so it holds it longer in the day before needing to fire up).

Granted our thermostat isn't really "smart" it just has an API exposed that integrates into Home Assistant.

I wouldn't put in one of those cloud based ones like Nest or Ecobee

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#28

Post by twblalock »

aresant wrote: post #5

"Every time my wife and I drove up to our Lake Tahoe ski cabin on Friday nights after work, we’d have to keep our snow jackets on until the next day. The house took all night to heat up." That is first world problems hall of fame material right there! But a great origin story for the Nest regardless.

It's not just a problem for rich people. It's also nice to have if you are coming back home (to your normal home where you live) from a trip and the weather has been very cold or hot while you were gone.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#29

Post by ghaff »

aresant wrote: post #5

"Every time my wife and I drove up to our Lake Tahoe ski cabin on Friday nights after work, we’d have to keep our snow jackets on until the next day. The house took all night to heat up." That is first world problems hall of fame material right there! But a great origin story for the Nest regardless.

My brother does it with his Maine house. But TBH you can only turn the temperature down so far when you're not there in winter because of the pipes. (I admittedly keep my house pretty cool in the winter even when I'm there so there's not a huge difference between my away temperature and my in house during the day temperature.)

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#30

Post by cout »

jrockway wrote: post #16
kevmo314 wrote: post #4

> Shipping the Nest thermostat with a screwdriver "turned a moment of frustration into a moment of delight" I must be in the minority then. I end up with a ton of these product-specific screwdrivers and get a little frustrated that I have to throw it away, contributing ever-so-slightly to the pile of consumer waste. It'd be cool if you could select a "need tools" option sort of like how take out now has a "need utens…

For me it's kind of a wash. For years I avoided buying any imperial allen keys because I had a pile of free ones that were good when I infrequently needed them. I also got this combination 2.5mm hex / Phillips screwdriver which is actually quite convenient as those are the sizes of screwdriver I need most frequently. The rest go into the landfill unfortunately, and I agree the waste isn't really worth the 3 random si…

I'm a little wary of those cheap hex keys -- I've been burned a few times by them stripping out a hex head when the key was just a little loose. I know I should invest in some quality hex keys, but you are right -- it's hard to justify the purchase when I already have so many lying around.
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