Agreed. But specifically for lawns, I actually wish someone makes much cheaper artificial turfs. Good for aesthetics, better for the environment.. saves hassle time money and water.
I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#12Nest folks, once you are happy with your thermostat product please pivot to water heaters. There is no reason why I heat the water in the tank up throughout the night. I think that my household demand for hot water is fairly predictable with spikes in the morning for showering and in the evening for dishes and laundry.
I've considered doing this manually, but when I ran the numbers, it barely saved anything, at least if your water heater is insulated to modern Energy Star standards. In the past decade or two, standby losses have been brought down so low that they're almost negligible compared to actual hot-water usage, e.g. one shower will take more energy than a whole month of standby heating.
When I looked into it in my own case, it worked out to slightly under 1 kWh/day in standby losses, or about $2/month. I turned off the water heater when I was gone for a month once, and the savings do seem to have been in the noise somewhere. Assuming a Nest-like device to do that for me would cost the same ~$250 that a Nest does, it would take 20 years to recoup the cost of the device, even assuming it was so perfect that it saved all standby losses.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#13Nest folks, once you are happy with your thermostat product please pivot to water heaters. There is no reason why I heat the water in the tank up throughout the night. I think that my household demand for hot water is fairly predictable with spikes in the morning for showering and in the evening for dishes and laundry.
In general, there's a good reason for heating the water overnight: electricity is often cheaper at night, and (on a national level) it means that electricity demand is spread more evenly over the whole 24 hours.
This is a good idea, but are you by chance located outside the US? Every water heater I've personally encountered in North America has been powered by natural gas. Even so, it only takes an hour or so to fully replenish the hot water, so it still makes sense to allow the water to cool down between, say, midnight and 5am.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#14Personally, I don't want Nest; I'd prefer coherent locally accessible APIs for monitoring and control.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#15Nest folks, once you are happy with your thermostat product please pivot to water heaters. There is no reason why I heat the water in the tank up throughout the night. I think that my household demand for hot water is fairly predictable with spikes in the morning for showering and in the evening for dishes and laundry.
Have you thought about switching to a tankless hot water system?
So I can spend $2800 on a water heater that has questionable reliability, requires a bigger gas line, and will save me 40% off my $18 a month water heating bill?
Yes. I've thought of it, but no, it is not a good idea.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#16This seems like kind of a silly. The Ubuntu panel he shows there is simple because programmers have hidden all the complexity. Whoever installed the sprinkler system hid the complexity too - they closed the door on the sprinkler control panel. If you wanted it to be simple, you should have left the door closed. You don't need to adjust it. It should have been programmed by the installer to account for seasonal rainfa…
But the point is it shouldn't feel like you are going "under the hood" to simply change sprinkler schedule. We still INTERACT with Nest without the need to go under the hood. If you simply "closed the door of sprinkler", you can't interact with it. Nest hides the complexity and provides simple interface for the user.
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Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#17This seems like kind of a silly. The Ubuntu panel he shows there is simple because programmers have hidden all the complexity. Whoever installed the sprinkler system hid the complexity too - they closed the door on the sprinkler control panel. If you wanted it to be simple, you should have left the door closed. You don't need to adjust it. It should have been programmed by the installer to account for seasonal rainfa…
The problem is that poking around under the hood shouldn't be necessary. If the sprinkler system worked well enough without ever needing to open the hood, then everything's fine. But it looks like that's not the case.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#18This seems like kind of a silly. The Ubuntu panel he shows there is simple because programmers have hidden all the complexity. Whoever installed the sprinkler system hid the complexity too - they closed the door on the sprinkler control panel. If you wanted it to be simple, you should have left the door closed. You don't need to adjust it. It should have been programmed by the installer to account for seasonal rainfa…
The problem is that poking around under the hood shouldn't be necessary. If the sprinkler system worked well enough without ever needing to open the hood, then everything's fine. But it looks like that's not the case.
Well, it's an interesting question. Is there a market for a $300 sprinkler controller? Rain Bird doesn't think so. I paid about $50 for my controller, and it's relatively easy to use, certainly better than the OPs: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003LY4I14/ref=wms_ohs_prod...
Also, the OP is eliding over the fact that that controller is probably 10 years old.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#19We're working on it.
Re: I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats
#20Myself and a friend looked in to doing this for sprinkler timers. The aim was to simplify the interface to a large degree and allow for configuration via a browser or mobile device.
As it turns out there is a patent on sprinkler timers with embedded web servers. The owner of the patent has posted hostile messages threatening legal action on any public facing website that posts about the handful of consumer products that might infringe on their patent.
Here is a link to the patent: http://www.google.com/patents/US7010396