Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

spectrum.ieee.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 91 posts

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#81

Post by Mandatum »

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.…

TRVs have barely been developed. They’ve existed for about 4 years so far and most Chinese sellers have already gone through 4 - 5 design iterations. Any TRV relying to auto adjust based on temperature of the thermals from the TRV head are wrong. It’s a stupid design and was never going to work.

The only way to reliably set temperature is by reading it elsewhere in the room. With radiators that’s really inconsistent because they’re slow to heat up and slow to cool down if you “over heat”.

Also the window detection feature on any TRV should be disabled. It’ll only cause you issues.

I simply have a “fully open” or “off” control from a Zigbee gateway per room. I’d consider adding sustained motion sensors to each room but to be honest just having a timer to turn them on in the morning, off at bed time and the ability to adjust and view what rooms are on manually from my desk or phone is more than enough.

There’s value in electric TRVs but not in the automating part beyond scheduling.

Thermostatic Radiator Valves for anyone wondering.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#82

Post by Mandatum »

TIPSIO wrote: post #15
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.…

I have an Ecobee. Agree with you that the killer feature definitely isn't the self learning stuff. It's simply: - Has WiFi (update from phone) Then also: - Being able to link with Alexa or similar to do things like turning off when you leave automatically - Custom programming modes. So instead of setting a temperature at a single time during the day (home/away), you could do (morning/home/home2/afternoon/night/away)…

My problem with all these recommendations is literally all of the ones mentioned in this thread as I post this are discontinued or out of production.

Chinese branded and produced ones like Tuya and MoesHouse are really the only option.

Even Honeywell aren’t producing them.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#83

Post by withinboredom »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #76
withinboredom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it know who’s phone belongs to the people who live there?

I think you have to pair the app. Otherwise anyone could control your thermostat, even from outside your front door.

But what if you leave your kids at home? How would it know their phones? I wouldn’t give my kid the power of the thermostat, the pranks would be endless…

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#84

Post by prepend »

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…

I love the screwdriver. It’s better than any I can find at Ace or HomeDepot.

I bought three Nests and while the thermostats are pretty annoying, I really love the screwdrivers.

They are really pleasant to hold.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#85

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

withinboredom wrote: post #83
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have to pair the app. Otherwise anyone could control your thermostat, even from outside your front door.

But what if you leave your kids at home? How would it know their phones? I wouldn’t give my kid the power of the thermostat, the pranks would be endless…

It also has a motion sensor, as OP mentions.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#86

Post by fgonzag »

thomaslord wrote: post #9

When I read the headline, I assumed that this was going to be a negative review from a user. We got a Nest thermostat for free as part of a SolarCity solar panel installation, and I spent months fighting with it to try and make it do what I told it. The Nest has a motion sensor on it, which is how it determines whether to turn on the energy saving mode - if it senses that you're home it will run at the set temperatur…

The ecobee3 solves this particular problem by having remote sensors. I'm absolutely in love with it since it takes an average of all the sensors as the temperature.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#87

Post by calvano915 »

function_seven wrote: post #63
_jal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who sees "learning" features for things like this as nothing more than overcomplicated ways to engineer in unexpected, unwanted behavior? My heating/cooling desires are straightforward: unless I'm gone, stay in this range. I am not gone on a predictable schedule, any pattern it picks up will be incorrect. The only thing the "ugly beige box" doesn't do that I want is remote access, and that would onl…

My homegrown solution is Home Assistant talking to the Lennox API for my system. If my phone moves more than a mile away from the house for more than 30 minutes, then it switches to Away Mode (62℉–82℉), and when I get back within a mile of the house it switches to Home Mode (70℉–78℉). It works flawlessly. It's been months since I manually tweaked the thermostat. When I do need to override it, it keeps that override i…

I have the same setup but with Ecobee 3 lite instead of Lennox

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#88

Post by jjav »

_jal wrote: post #32
beembeem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the "smart" features. When I moved into my current house we had painters working on one floor. They cranked the newly programmed Nest that was in learning mode to 90 degrees for one night to keep the paint warm while it dried. I, of course, had no idea they had done something that silly, but for weeks afterwards this smart thermostat will crank the heat to 90 and I have to manually turn it down. I'm convinc…

Am I the only one who sees "learning" features for things like this as nothing more than overcomplicated ways to engineer in unexpected, unwanted behavior? My heating/cooling desires are straightforward: unless I'm gone, stay in this range. I am not gone on a predictable schedule, any pattern it picks up will be incorrect. The only thing the "ugly beige box" doesn't do that I want is remote access, and that would onl…

> I am not gone on a predictable schedule, any pattern it picks up will be incorrect.

Very much this. Either the pattern is predictable which makes it easy to program into a simple thermostat or it is not in which it'll always be wrong in any "smart" thermostat.

Nest and similar are great case studies on the ills of overcomplicating something that should be super simple and reliable.

My mid-90s thermostat is much more reliable. I programmed my schedule into it decades ago and it does its thing with zero confusion ever since then. When I need to override it's just a button press and it automatically resets back to the schedule next cycle. Nothing to go wrong.

Re: Tony Fadell: The Nest Thermostat Disrupted My Life

#89

Post by jnsaff2 »

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.…

I lived in a Georgian (so built somewhere in 19th century) flat in London with Nest, gas boiler and thermostats on radiators. My experience was similar.

In a while I realized that to make the experience smart would not be to add a different thermostat but to change the windows and have some proper insulation. To get that I had to ditch the whole country tho. It's just abysmal how much gas is fired to heat the streets.

Insulating an old house in the city is expensive but it had been there for 150ish years .. the breakeven from adding insulation would be what? 10 years? 20?

Post reply on HN