Can't say that I'm surprised but yet I think letting nest slip between their fingers was a mistake, especially with their homekit stuff that so far hasn't really taken the world by storm
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Apple Ceases Selling Nest Products Online and In Stores
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Isn't that a great point about the hardware! Apple has a habit of using a company like Ecobee until it get it's own product to market. Would they do a "Beats" style aquistiion here? Maybe.
Remember the Motorola ROKR that had iTunes built in? Yeah, that was probably just to hold people off until their own phone was finished.
Has anyone taken a look at the Nest with fresh eyes of 2015? It is very dated, lacking in features, and Google doesn't seem to care about it, IMO. I recently gave my Nest to my parents, and my mom has a hard time with the actual thermostat. She never had a non-touch iPod, so she doesn't quite get the interface. I completely understand that after looking at it with fresh eyes. She just uses the app to control it.
I'm keeping an eye open to see what comes out, but the Ecobee appears to be leading the pack currently.
I'm keeping an eye open to see what comes out, but the Ecobee appears to be leading the pack currently.
well after a year (1.5 years I think?) of the nest I have similar complaints. An obtuse app (that even replicates the damn dial), frustrating settings, etc. I guess Ill find out if the sensor will work soon enough
Was that the upgrade that enabled the hidden camera used for tracking occupant habits? (Yeah, that's a joke, but I wouldn't be too surprised if something like that is rolled out in future devices, to provide better and more targeted advertising, helping customers with their busy lives.)
I was going to get the Ecobee3 for the homekit integration, but went with Nest instead. Google offered a nice discount for the Nest thermostat when my Google Fiber internet was installed a few weeks ago. As I was also in the market for a new webcam, I went with NestCam. Just installed the new version of Nest Protect. Am quite happy with all of them so far, and don't feel HomeKit integration would benefit me.
That quote was targeted against Google for entering the mobile phone industry years ago.
Google is getting into the smart home industry, as Apple has been as well. Apple removing Nest products due to Google buying Nest, is akin to Apple removing Google Maps as the standard map provider due to Google getting into smartphone OS'
Other stores have never done what Apple did either. They allowed competitor "things" to be sold in their store. I cannot walk into a Nike store and buy Adidas shoes. I cannot walk into the Fossil store and buy a Michael Kor purse for my wife. Just the way life works.
If Google really wants to sell these things, they can pay for the storefront.
HomeKit is still so new, I don't think anyone knows how well it will or won't do yet? Only the very first wave of HomeKit compatible accessories are just now hitting the store shelves. And in many cases, those of us who ARE interested in it still have to go through a process of removing and reselling our used gear that's not compatible, before we can replace it.
(EG. I invested in EcoBee thermostats about a year ago. They're great, but I want to resell them before I spend more money on the HomeKit compatible versions they released this month.)
Also, not ever having used a Nest thermostat, I admit I could be wrong.... But when I did my research last year, I went with EcoBee instead due to so many issues Nest users were having. (There were a lot of reports of electronic board failures in them, causing them to get stuck in the "on" position, leaving someone's furnace or A/C constantly running, for example. That's a really bad mode of failure for one.)
(EG. I invested in EcoBee thermostats about a year ago. They're great, but I want to resell them before I spend more money on the HomeKit compatible versions they released this month.)
Also, not ever having used a Nest thermostat, I admit I could be wrong.... But when I did my research last year, I went with EcoBee instead due to so many issues Nest users were having. (There were a lot of reports of electronic board failures in them, causing them to get stuck in the "on" position, leaving someone's furnace or A/C constantly running, for example. That's a really bad mode of failure for one.)
Of course but its been in Apple's pipeline for a while, and that's where the Nest comes in. They could have had that roll out along with the homekit stuff. Its been out for a little while and didn't apple provide the API/SDK before that? I just don't see a lot of excitement and/or products.
Its people like you who makes the current state of technology a nightmare.
guess what Apple only need u for your money nothing else
Interesting comments.
I'm not so sure? Right now, I live in a 2 story house (4 bedrooms) that's a little over 100 years old. I put EcoBee Smart SI thermostats upstairs and downstairs, controlling 2 different heat pumps for both floors.
They have no way to communicate with each other, but not sure that makes any difference - as you don't necessarily care what's going on downstairs, if you're upstairs and trying to make sure that floor is the temperature you prefer, or the other way around.
What *does* happen is you get some fluctuation in the temperature between floors, based on what's happening on the opposite floor.... Warm or cool air will travel via the staircase, for example. I'm just not sure I see how one of these thermostats would handle things any better by having that ability to know what the other one was doing? Since they can't actually prevent the airflow between floors, all they can do is look at the temperature in their respective zone and work with the central heating/cooling unit to adjust it towards your target. (If they talked to each other, I guess one could order the other one to turn its central air handler on/off, but I imagine that would become more complicated than it's worth? People would get frustrated when they turn a thermostat up because they want the A/C to shut off, but it doesn't appear to respond, thanks to the other thermostat overriding your request.)
I do agree with you, however, that EcoBee appears to be a really small company that may be growing faster than it can keep up. When I first bought their products, I had to RMA one that was defective (couldn't trigger my A/C to come on, even though it was wired properly and was controlling everything else fine). That process was a little painful, as I already had the defective unit registered to my account, with no way to remove it again myself. Had to get their tech support involved to delete it for me, etc. after convincing them it really was malfunctioning, and not just "user error" with the wiring. At that time, I was told a lot of EcoBees had quality control problems - but were great units when you got a good one. I've found that to be true. Great when they work right, but signs of poor assembly quality consistent with small companies trying to launch products on a budget.
I'm not so sure? Right now, I live in a 2 story house (4 bedrooms) that's a little over 100 years old. I put EcoBee Smart SI thermostats upstairs and downstairs, controlling 2 different heat pumps for both floors.
They have no way to communicate with each other, but not sure that makes any difference - as you don't necessarily care what's going on downstairs, if you're upstairs and trying to make sure that floor is the temperature you prefer, or the other way around.
What *does* happen is you get some fluctuation in the temperature between floors, based on what's happening on the opposite floor.... Warm or cool air will travel via the staircase, for example. I'm just not sure I see how one of these thermostats would handle things any better by having that ability to know what the other one was doing? Since they can't actually prevent the airflow between floors, all they can do is look at the temperature in their respective zone and work with the central heating/cooling unit to adjust it towards your target. (If they talked to each other, I guess one could order the other one to turn its central air handler on/off, but I imagine that would become more complicated than it's worth? People would get frustrated when they turn a thermostat up because they want the A/C to shut off, but it doesn't appear to respond, thanks to the other thermostat overriding your request.)
I do agree with you, however, that EcoBee appears to be a really small company that may be growing faster than it can keep up. When I first bought their products, I had to RMA one that was defective (couldn't trigger my A/C to come on, even though it was wired properly and was controlling everything else fine). That process was a little painful, as I already had the defective unit registered to my account, with no way to remove it again myself. Had to get their tech support involved to delete it for me, etc. after convincing them it really was malfunctioning, and not just "user error" with the wiring. At that time, I was told a lot of EcoBees had quality control problems - but were great units when you got a good one. I've found that to be true. Great when they work right, but signs of poor assembly quality consistent with small companies trying to launch products on a budget.
Good riddance. Google pokes its nose enough into everyone's personal business.
That being said, living in a large country house remodeled for maximum energy efficiency, I'd love to have a smart home system. I have multi-zoned heating and cooling with two high efficiency furnaces and three high efficiency air conditioners, as well as electric radiant heat in the basement, so adjusting the temperature currently requires me making trips up and down two sets of stairs to reach different thermostats.
As for lighting, the previous owners of this house remodeled and put in more lights and switches on top of what the original builder did. Adjusting lighting is another trip through the house visiting countless light switches. The only reason it's bearable is that they duplicated all of the major switches so that you don't have to cross an entire hallway or room to turn the lights on or off. Still, controlling it all from one access point would be lovely at bedtime when I'm starting to fall asleep on my feet. Ah well, it's good exercise and can appease my Apple Watch when it bugs me to meet my stand goals.
And I have to admit, there's a tiny paranoid part of me that's afraid of the machines taking over and trapping me in a Skynet scenario. I have read and watched way too much sci-fi over the course of my life.
I am really reluctant to give up my 23 year old car that has hand crank windows and old fashioned locks. It requires extra effort but there's something reassuring knowing I control all of it and nobody can remotely control my doors and windows. Or really anything else on my old car. Except for those pesky abducting aliens of course.
(Sorry, I'm in the mood for smiley faces this morning)
That being said, living in a large country house remodeled for maximum energy efficiency, I'd love to have a smart home system. I have multi-zoned heating and cooling with two high efficiency furnaces and three high efficiency air conditioners, as well as electric radiant heat in the basement, so adjusting the temperature currently requires me making trips up and down two sets of stairs to reach different thermostats.
As for lighting, the previous owners of this house remodeled and put in more lights and switches on top of what the original builder did. Adjusting lighting is another trip through the house visiting countless light switches. The only reason it's bearable is that they duplicated all of the major switches so that you don't have to cross an entire hallway or room to turn the lights on or off. Still, controlling it all from one access point would be lovely at bedtime when I'm starting to fall asleep on my feet. Ah well, it's good exercise and can appease my Apple Watch when it bugs me to meet my stand goals.
And I have to admit, there's a tiny paranoid part of me that's afraid of the machines taking over and trapping me in a Skynet scenario. I have read and watched way too much sci-fi over the course of my life. I am really reluctant to give up my 23 year old car that has hand crank windows and old fashioned locks. It requires extra effort but there's something reassuring knowing I control all of it and nobody can remotely control my doors and windows. Or really anything else on my old car. Except for those pesky abducting aliens of course.
(Sorry, I'm in the mood for smiley faces this morning)
Ecobee went to market with the E3 while all this Homekit spec stuff was still in progress. I think they gambled that the early run stats would be upgradeable and then Apple dropped the chipset requirement on them. I'm stuck with the early run stats and a very expensive upgrade if I go Homekit. My bad. All Homekit does for the E3 right now is allow you to tell it to raise or lower the temp with Siri. That's a pretty lame reason to buy at this time. Like I said earlier, I'd hold off.
Oh wow, I was just making my post and then saw yours. Two Marylanders with the same use case scenario! In my case, if I had a system that could let me access via one control panel ALL of my existing thermostats, I'd set them all to the same temperature to avoid the fluctuations you're talking about. Currently I have to go up and down stairs to do that manually. Because there is a lot of air exchange between the ground and upper floor of my house thanks to having a two-story foyer, I can't leave them set at different temps or one of the hvac systems will be strained.
There's a furnace and a/c in my attic that serves the upper floor and then standard dual a/c units outdoors and a basement furnace serving the ground floor and basement. As well as electric baseboard heaters in the basement. The previous owners completely redid the hvac system, siding, and insulation in this house. The result is our heating and cooling bills are lower than even what we had in previous homes almost half this one's size!
I
In my 4-stat Nest installation, my utilities bills went down. In my 4-stat Ecobee installation, my utility bills have gone up. I think the connected awareness in a 3 level home has some efficiency magic lost in the Ecobee environment. That said, there's lots of good things about the E3
In my 4-stat Nest installation, my utilities bills went down. In my 4-stat Ecobee installation, my utility bills have gone up. I think the connected awareness in a 3 level home has some efficiency magic lost in the Ecobee environment. That said, there's lots of good things about the E3
Hmm, I could buy a Nest from the Apple Store and pay nearly 10% sales tax, or buy a Nest from Amazon and pay 0% sales tax.
No big loss.
No big loss.
I don't think that automatic windows are safer across the board, I think there are trade-offs each way. The actual act of hand rolling down a window isn't really disruptive, and definitely not something that requires pulling over the car. The handles are large and intuitive, whereas the electronic ones are smaller and slightly less obvious. What's disruptive to me is when I want to crack the window down and it insists on rolling all the way down, and then I have to bring it up and monitor it to now give the crack. This "feature" probably exists so that people who are already stopped, at a drive-through, can be spared the incredible physical activity of pressing a button for 5-10 seconds. The only value of automatic windows is being able to control the rear windows. For that we incur the risk of drowning if the car goes into water and the wires or motors short out. Or the eventuality of it all breaking down after 10-15 years of use.
With home automation, I like the idea of secure monitoring, but don't like the possibility of remote control. If some light stays on a little while longer, that's a small price to pay to avoid greater problems. As for automatically starting a washing machine, I would never run one without someone present. Again, saving pennies on electricity will never break even after some misplaced utensil thrashes some spinning part for an hour, or the clothes washer bangs against the wall for half an hour. Or anything floods.
As for using WiFi... Sure, if it also supports cellular.