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Works With Nest

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Re: Works With Nest

#71

Post by justincormack »

npinguy wrote: post #11
yitchelle wrote: post #8

I am a little bit unenthusiastic about Nest integration into the Mercedes Benz where it tells Nest to warm up the house prior to arrival. What a waste of energy! Is it so difficult for physical human body to endure some discomfort while the house warms up? Imagine thousands of household doing something similar. OK, there could be a use-case where the elderly is due to arrive home and needs the house to be at the righ…

Firstly, the premise of that scenario, is the house is cold while the person is gone. That means SAVING on energy costs by not heating the house unnecessarily while no one is inside, which is the current de facto standard. (Do you turn off the heat when you go to work? I certainly don't) Secondly, it's silly to object to innovation that allows humanity to be frivolous or wasteful according to their desires. Where do…

Yes I have the heating on a timer and its off when I am at work. I turn it on if its cold and I working from home or its the weekend. I believe this is normal...

Re: Works With Nest

#72

Post by robmcm »

dirktheman wrote: post #63

I'm really curious how this will pan out. In Europe (or at least here in The Netherlands, not 100% sure about the other countries) we can't use the Nest thermostat because our central heating boilers and thermostats use the OpenTherm protocol. ( http://www.opentherm.eu/ ) Also, most boilers in Europe are of the modulating kind (not a simple on/off switch, but a more graduate gas consumption. Side note: I really don't…

I have a Nest in the UK, they launched a few months back.

Re: Works With Nest

#73

Post by ars »

mhandley wrote: post #69
ars wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into the nest but I don't think it would save me any energy. And I'm wondering if that's actually true for lots of people. I have a modulating (i.e. change flame level) condensing boiler (the highest efficiency available). I programmed it to run as close to 24/7 as I could, because that way it uses the lowest flame, which is the most efficient flame. When I tried a setback thermostat when the boiler attempte…

It's also true with an A/C - the faster you are trying to cool the larger temperature gradient you need, and therefor you lose efficiency. I'm not sure that's always correct. The Coefficient of Performance (heat moved/work done, higher COP is better) of an A/C is: COP = T_hot / (T_hot - T_cold). T_cold is the inside temp, T_hot is outside of the heat exchanger. The narrow the temperature range, the better the COP. Th…

I was assuming a home that never warmed up to ambient, but just partly, and a multi-stage A/C. (But forgot to say that in my message.)

Without those assumptions your analysis is correct, and a setback thermostat seems to always be a win for A/C.

Re: Works With Nest

#74

Post by crdoconnor »

cbeach wrote: post #41
jpalomaki wrote: post #34

It gets pretty interesting when you connect all the pieces Google now has. You car has build in Android device. Your home is monitored and controlled with Nest devices. On your wrist you carry Android wearable. Google Glass tracks what you see. For online activities you use Google products (Chrome, Gmail, Calendar). You consume your media via Android table or Chromecast. Google knows about your your car. It knows how…

Given Google's fondness for shutting down APIs and services, I'd be very disappointed if they monopolised all of these markets. They'll be the Microsoft of home automation. Using it to trap people in their monolith (and Android is just a vehicle for them to deliver ads, folks), and then letting it stagnate or shutting it down if the ad delivery doesn't prove lucrative. I've been burnt so many times by Google I've los…

>and Android is just a vehicle for them to deliver ads, folks

They are dealing with that 'problem' by steadily de-opensourcing all of the components. You don't use the email app, you use gmail. You don't use the camera any more, you use "google camera". You don't even use the keyboard any more, you use "google keyboard". A lot of the new android functionality is piled into 'google play services'.

I don't think the day is that far off where the 'next' version of android will be all closed source, and if you want all of those closed source apps that you depend on to continue working, you'll need to install it.

At that point they can start charging fees for android's use.

Re: Works With Nest

#75

Post by asmithmd1 »

dirktheman wrote: post #65
tomkarlo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of thousands of homes today simply leave their thermostat at the same temperature all the time, failing to optimize for the large portions of the day when nobody is home because it's simpler (and they probably don't have a timed thermostat, or they can't figure out how to set it up.) Imagine thousands of households doing something smarter.

When your house is not insulated properly and you live in a cold climate, it's actually better to not turn the heat off completely. It takes more energy to warm a stone cold house than to keep it at approx. 62 degrees. A simple, programmable thermostat will make up for the purchase within the first year of service.

This is not true. It might seem that way because of how long it takes your house to warm up. There is no momentum or stiction with heat transfer. When the inside of your house is warmer than the outside you are losing some amount of heat to the outside proportional to the difference. Any heat you add to maintain that difference when you are not home is wasted. As long as you can tolerate a stone cold house when you return, your best efficiency is to just turn the heat off. This is assuming you have an on-off heating system, someone mentioned a throttling system is more efficient at a low flame rate so that made it better to leave the heat on low all the time. I am skeptical of that claim but don't have enough information

Re: Works With Nest

#76

Post by ZeroGravitas »

robmcm wrote: post #72
dirktheman wrote: post #63

I'm really curious how this will pan out. In Europe (or at least here in The Netherlands, not 100% sure about the other countries) we can't use the Nest thermostat because our central heating boilers and thermostats use the OpenTherm protocol. ( http://www.opentherm.eu/ ) Also, most boilers in Europe are of the modulating kind (not a simple on/off switch, but a more graduate gas consumption. Side note: I really don't…

I have a Nest in the UK, they launched a few months back.

I think they had to change the design for the UK (compared with the US model), but it was more to do with the electricity supply than the boiler design.

Re: Works With Nest

#77

Post by dirktheman »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #75
dirktheman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your house is not insulated properly and you live in a cold climate, it's actually better to not turn the heat off completely. It takes more energy to warm a stone cold house than to keep it at approx. 62 degrees. A simple, programmable thermostat will make up for the purchase within the first year of service.

This is not true. It might seem that way because of how long it takes your house to warm up. There is no momentum or stiction with heat transfer. When the inside of your house is warmer than the outside you are losing some amount of heat to the outside proportional to the difference. Any heat you add to maintain that difference when you are not home is wasted. As long as you can tolerate a stone cold house when you r…

That was me, with the throttling system. It's called modulation, and is very common in Europe.

While there is no momentum in heat transfer, the walls of your house store heat. If you're away long enough to allow your house to cool down it will take more fuel than it would to keep it at a reasonable temperature. Also, this is much, much more comfortable than to arrive in a stone cold house, only to open a window 30 minutes later because of the blazing heat.

I'm not saying it's always better to keep a certain temperature, though. It depends on the time that you're away, the insulation of your house, the outside temperature, the efficiency of your boiler, etcetera. But, having lived in houses with ordinary thermostats and non-modulating boilers and houses with programmable thermostats and modulating boilers I can tell you this: I'm not going back to the old stuff. The indoor climate is so much better now!

Re: Works With Nest

#78

Post by dirktheman »

robmcm wrote: post #72
dirktheman wrote: post #63

I'm really curious how this will pan out. In Europe (or at least here in The Netherlands, not 100% sure about the other countries) we can't use the Nest thermostat because our central heating boilers and thermostats use the OpenTherm protocol. ( http://www.opentherm.eu/ ) Also, most boilers in Europe are of the modulating kind (not a simple on/off switch, but a more graduate gas consumption. Side note: I really don't…

I have a Nest in the UK, they launched a few months back.

Do you have an OpenTherm, modulating boiler (or kettle, as we call them here)? That would be awesome!

Re: Works With Nest

#79

Post by mhurron »

warcode wrote: post #31

If its "Your data. Your privacy. You’re in control.". Why won't they let me self-host? The two things don't add up.

> Why won't they let me self-host?

Self host and maybe I'd care about it. I could put it on it's own segregated wifi connection with no access to the rest of the world and the data would be mine.

I am not interested in feeding Google.

Re: Works With Nest

#80

Post by antimagic »

andybak wrote: post #54
aisenik wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting HomeKit behind MFi is a barrier, but hardly one that should put Nest off the platform. The majority of their installed user base uses iOS. I kind of expected my Nests to last me 10+ years, but now I'm left wondering if I'll be replacing them sooner. (It's not clear to me how Nest's API is any more standard than HomeKit.) Of course, from a business perspective this all makes sense. But as a customer, it's disa…

Choosing to install a Google app on an Apple device is a much lower barrier than there not even being an Apple app for a Google device. I'm no lover of walled gardens but one that allows you entry without buying a $700 smartphone is the lesser of two evils. I was discussing the cost of laser barcode scanners with someone the other day and the few models that are iOS certified are significantly more expensive due to M…

One requires you "buy entry" with a $700 smartphone. The other requires that you "buy entry" by giving access to your personal data to a company that has demonstrated that it doesn't care about your privacy. Neither option is objectively "less evil", it depends on the priorities of the user. I for one will only willingly hand Google the keys to my data when hell freezes over or Apple and Microsoft go bust.
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