41–50 of 171 posts
Furthermore, they said that they attempted a patch. Would this be feasible in more adept hands, with someone experienced at reverse engineering?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering parent, myself and most people I talk to consider the point of Nest being the ability to control their thermostat when they are out of the house, I don't understand how any system in the 70s or 80s could even work at all like a Nest, let alone better. No mobile phones, no widespread use of the internet and a hobbyist can make a thermostat you can control when out of the house? Would love to know how?
I’m curious, what is the big draw of controlling your thermostat in real time that is significantly better than just (for example) a timer? As an argument against connecting one’s thermostat to the internet, I’ll point to this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remot...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering parent, myself and most people I talk to consider the point of Nest being the ability to control their thermostat when they are out of the house, I don't understand how any system in the 70s or 80s could even work at all like a Nest, let alone better. No mobile phones, no widespread use of the internet and a hobbyist can make a thermostat you can control when out of the house? Would love to know how?
I’m curious, what is the big draw of controlling your thermostat in real time that is significantly better than just (for example) a timer? As an argument against connecting one’s thermostat to the internet, I’ll point to this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remot...
The best argument would be the hypothetical remote control by a bad actor without any consent.
[1] what's curious about this particular story is how "intentional" this was; the report is vague and hints that some people were unaware exactly what they were opting into.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went with standards based stuff, zigbee specifically. Matter/thread are the new standard that seems to stick. Basically, anything that doesn't require a specialized app to work, but rather a standardized protocol through a hub - and if the hub fails or sucks, you can replace it. Fortunately, it seems like the vendors are finally standardizing.
Standardising on Matter? What was wrong with Zigbee/Zwave? How long until another standard comes along :D
Zigbee's fine, but it's dated.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering parent, myself and most people I talk to consider the point of Nest being the ability to control their thermostat when they are out of the house, I don't understand how any system in the 70s or 80s could even work at all like a Nest, let alone better. No mobile phones, no widespread use of the internet and a hobbyist can make a thermostat you can control when out of the house? Would love to know how?
I’m curious, what is the big draw of controlling your thermostat in real time that is significantly better than just (for example) a timer? As an argument against connecting one’s thermostat to the internet, I’ll point to this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remot...
I don't use a smart thermostat, but what's told to me is this.
With a "timer" thermostat, you tell the system when to start heating; but what you really want to tell the system is when you want it warm. For example, we regularly give my son a bath between 7 and 7:30, so I want to make sure the bathroom "zone" of my house is reasonably warm at that time; and that his room is a comfortable "sleeping with a blanket on" temperature, ready for him to go to bed at 7:30. (Just about every room in our house has a separate thermostat.)
But if I set my thermostat to 19C at 7pm, then it won't be 19C at 7pm -- it will start heating at 7pm, and reach 19C at some indeterminate point in the future. So I manually add my own "static fudge-factor" in, and set the thermostat to 19C at 6:30pm.
However, this "static fudge factor" is almost certainly to be ineffective or inefficient: It may hit 19C at 6:40, in which case I'm paying for 20 minutes of unnecessary heating (inefficient); or it may hit 19C at 7:10, in which case the room will be cooler than I want it to be at 7:00 (ineffective).
The claim of the "smart thermostats" I've heard is that you can tell it, "I want it to be 19C at 7pm", and it will figure out how long your particular room will take to heat (possibly factoring in the current temperature), and start the heating at exactly the right time so that it hits 19C right at 7pm.
Is that something worth having? I think so. Is that worth the extra cost and risk? I don't really think so, which is why I haven't installed one; but I can see why someone else would like it.
This is fundamentally why I'm so sceptical of putting "smart" control equipment into my home. It's very expesive to fit in the first place, and then there is the incredibly high chance it will become redundant or unmaintainable in the next 5 to 10 years. You just won't see the payoff in that time. Much better to just turn the lights off when you leave a room, or turn the heating down and wear another layer. We have N…
Just looking at the absolute nightmare that Linus from Linus Tech Tips (a popular YouTube tech channel) is going through with his smart house is enough to make it obvious that those solutions just suck.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering parent, myself and most people I talk to consider the point of Nest being the ability to control their thermostat when they are out of the house, I don't understand how any system in the 70s or 80s could even work at all like a Nest, let alone better. No mobile phones, no widespread use of the internet and a hobbyist can make a thermostat you can control when out of the house? Would love to know how?
I’m curious, what is the big draw of controlling your thermostat in real time that is significantly better than just (for example) a timer? As an argument against connecting one’s thermostat to the internet, I’ll point to this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-energy-companies-remot...
In my case though I'm using Home Assistant on a local server and Tailscale for remote access, so nothing is connected to some company's online service and the actual devices are all offline only.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you could hire a janitor's assistant to keep an eye out that the lights are off in the evening and turned on in the morning This is ultimately the biggest failing, and what makes this so sad. For a fraction of the cost of this system you could employee someone and have this as part of their responsibility. For automation to make sense, it can't just replace at the same cost (and certainly not cost more), it needs t…
Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. While you can't get the exact part any more - you can still get compatible replacements that drop in. There are still staff that are competent working with the platform. They should be upgrading over the years, unless you think working with a MS-DOS computer would be advisable today.…
The only thing a more modern computer buys you is added complexity and more to go wrong. More RAM than your process needs? More to corrupt. What percentage of crud/resident processes on a “modern” is even related to the task we are assigning this machine? Less than 1%? It’s absurd. It’s like buying a Swiss Army knife with a million attachments to build a house. You can, but you shouldn’t.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you could hire a janitor's assistant to keep an eye out that the lights are off in the evening and turned on in the morning This is ultimately the biggest failing, and what makes this so sad. For a fraction of the cost of this system you could employee someone and have this as part of their responsibility. For automation to make sense, it can't just replace at the same cost (and certainly not cost more), it needs t…
Control systems often last decades, longer than most employees. I've recently worked on a control system that is at least 30 years old. While you can't get the exact part any more - you can still get compatible replacements that drop in. There are still staff that are competent working with the platform. They should be upgrading over the years, unless you think working with a MS-DOS computer would be advisable today.…
I've met many people who are much more than 30 years old :) And I've worked in places where people retired only after ~40+ years. And replacements are relatively easy to find, depending on the nature of the work.
I think there is a reasonable debate to be had about what should be automated and what should be kept in human hands. I think we as a civilization need to sort out what the costs and opportunities are in light of the failure modes of both alternatives.