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iPod Creator Tony Fadell's Next Quest Is to Revolutionize Thermostats

It's looks great and the interface is clean, but it has major technical flaws:

1. It has "activity sensors" that will decrease the temp after 2 hours of inactivity. What if I"m watching a movie in the other room? Be the end of the movie it'll be cold in the house thanks to Nest. And I think most people's thermostats are not in a location that faces their living room.

2. It has no ability to predict your leaving/returning home. With my programmable, I know that I leave at 7 and arrive home at 6. I can adjust the thermostat to anticipate this event. The Nest won't. It'll START adjusting when you arrive home.

What it needs to do, is sync wirelessly with a toggle you keep on your car keychain. When the toggle is gone, you are gone. That way, it learns when you leave, not when it "thinks" you are gone.
 
sjjordan said:
2. It has no ability to predict your leaving/returning home. With my programmable, I know that I leave at 7 and arrive home at 6. I can adjust the thermostat to anticipate this event. The Nest won't. It'll START adjusting when you arrive home.
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It seems you can program it through its web interface. That way you don't have have to getup half an hour before you normally do or arrive earlier than usual for a couple of days to get it going. I would not proclaim "major technical flaws" before getting more info about it.
 
sjjordan said:
It's looks great and the interface is clean, but it has major technical flaws:

1. It has "activity sensors" that will decrease the temp after 2 hours of inactivity. What if I"m watching a movie in the other room? Be the end of the movie it'll be cold in the house thanks to Nest. And I think most people's thermostats are not in a location that faces their living room.
Click to expand...

I think a couple of bathroom or popcorn breaks during the movie will take care of this "flaw". Besides if the temp drops you can grab your iPhone or iPad and turn up the heat without getting office the couch.
 
Maccleduff said:
Ok, this guy seems switched on, and I see where he's coming from on all the points he makes.

But there is a single reason why it looks bad imo. The logo 'nest' is front and centre on the device.

If I were to design any product I would keep the frontfree of ANY logos, cos I just really hate them. Especially words. (Apple logo looks nice because it is a graphical logo.)
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I absolutely agree. Seems superficial, but definitely cheapens the product.
 
According to the youtube link posted above to the Nest Setup Video, you can create, edit and delete set points. However, it will use these as a base and continue making changes over time.

The downside to this is wondering if it will become obsolete (by release of newer models) as quickly as iPods/iPhones do.
 
My thermostat is at 50 degrees. I'm not sure if I would want it any colder. I don't use AC in the summer, so I'm not sure I need a cool looking one with lots of features.
 
sjjordan said:
It's looks great and the interface is clean, but it has major technical flaws:

1. It has "activity sensors" that will decrease the temp after 2 hours of inactivity. What if I"m watching a movie in the other room? Be the end of the movie it'll be cold in the house thanks to Nest. And I think most people's thermostats are not in a location that faces their living room.

2. It has no ability to predict your leaving/returning home. With my programmable, I know that I leave at 7 and arrive home at 6. I can adjust the thermostat to anticipate this event. The Nest won't. It'll START adjusting when you arrive home.
Click to expand...

Check out the video. Watch the whole thing (and ignore the crazy lady saying "mmmmhmmmm") and then read the website.

1. The activity sensors work using both near-field (motion) detectors and far-field (sound and vibration) detectors. Watching a movie in the other room isn't a problem.

2. The thermostat will learn from the time you set it, but when it projects forward it starts your heater (or AC) a bit earlier. In your example (arrive home at 6), it would learn from you turning up the heat at 6:00, but it would start the heater on its own at 5:45 (or something).
 
Lets hope this is as good as it looks, most of them suck so bad when it comes to programing. And the manuals are so bad at temperature control. So having something that looks this good in my house would be a welcome if it does what they are talking about.
 
deannnnn said:
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I think it looks cool but I don't need my thermostat to learn.
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Or an iphone to help you.

Or an ipad to make it easier to read anywhere.

Or a computer that does not crash.

Or a car that tries to make adjustment to your need.

You don't need anything but two sticks and your hands right. :rolleyes:
 
One of my thermostats is actually mechanical, good old analogue. I love analogue. You move a lever...Analogue will take over some day, the high-end choice.

Might look into this when the old one goes, which is any time now, after nearly 30 years of faithful service using tilting vials of mercury (?) and a bi-metal spring, levers, gears, pegs and a trip mechanism. Way nicer than the digital ones for sale now and far easier to use.

The iTherm is cool though, the only digital one I might actually like.
 
Nice but a little overwrought.

I'd buy one with that same UI, WiFi control and basic programmability. Don't need the learning mode or the leaf to tell me I'm saving energy. Just give me a pure manual mode and one or two time/temp based programs.
 
macbook pro i5 said:
....oh yeah:D
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9273042.jpg
 
nutmac said:
Color me intrigued. Home automation still has a long way to go, and Nest appears to be both designed well and priced reasonably (average thermostats range between $150 and $250).

I am a bit perplexed by auto away feature though. It seems you need to purchase multiple Nest thermostats at $250 a piece to cover multiple "active" areas (instead of inexpensive remote sensor add-on units).
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Not sure what you're buying for $150 to $250, I bought programmable Honeywell's for two zones in my house two winters ago for $50 each.

I'm not saying these aren't cool though....I admit to not watching the videos yet, but did they talk about a "failsafe" mode? What happens when Wi-Fi goes out in the house for whatever reason?
 
fhall1 said:
Not sure what you're buying for $150 to $250, I bought programmable Honeywell's for two zones in my house two winters ago for $50 each.

I'm not saying these aren't cool though....I admit to not watching the videos yet, but did they talk about a "failsafe" mode? What happens when Wi-Fi goes out in the house for whatever reason?
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It surely blows up and burns your home to the ground, because no one thought about that.

If you didn't even watch the video, of course you can't "be sure" about what you're buying.

Gosh.
 
Sure... you install these learning thermostats in your home and the next thing you'll have is this guy doing your dishes and washing laundry

Trjs67656.jpg
 
Not so sure about that ....

I've had a programmable thermostat for years, and to this day, I *hate* the thing. It beats the non-programmable one my house came with, but that's about all I can say for it.

Not only was it a pain to program sensibly to start with (talk about a NON user-friendly key layout, display and overall setup), but the preset schedule never seems that practical as the family's situation changes.

For example, my wife and I were both working full-time and the kids were at school during the day, so we programmed the thermostat not to turn on the heat (or A/C) much at all until at least 3PM, so it would be comfortable by the time we got home. Then my wife lost her job and was home during the day, so immediately started bypassing that program.

Then, I realized the old schedule that didn't heat the house as much during the middle of the night started becoming a problem too, because sometimes she'd be up late working on things (not having to get up so early in the morning to leave for work).

And weekends have always been an issue with this thing, too. Even though it does let you set up a separate "weekend schedule" that runs every Saturday and Sunday, what's the optimal setting there? We're likely to be out a lot more on a weekend, but you don't want the thermostat to assume that's the case when just as often, we might be doing things around the house on our days off.

I agree that this $250 price gave me a bit of sticker shock, as even the nicest conventional programmable thermostats I could ever buy at a local home improvement place cost more like $99. But this thing is internet connected AND generates reports so you can actually see if you're getting a cost savings, and what is most affecting it.

I definitely want one, but will be curious to see if they're available at a discounted price after the pre-order period is over.


Nothlit said:
I can see how this would be worthwhile for anyone who still has an old mechanical (non-programmable) thermostat. It will easily pay for itself in energy savings.

But for everyone who already moved to programmable thermostats over the last 10-15 years, it's not such a great deal (especially at $250) as you've already reduced energy consumption and Nest is probably not going to reduce it much further, unless you've just done a poor job of programming your existing one.
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few ideas to make this better:

1. once you set your temps and proximity sensor 'senses' you're nearby, it should glow in colour not with temp nr, green for comfy, blue for cold, orange for warm with temp in small below it.

2. they should supply also simplified 'slave' units which kids can't touch/control, more of a 'listener/watcher'

3. could have several modes - single, master, slave
- single if only one unit is used
- master if this unit is used with another units or 'simplified' 'listener/watcher' units
- slave if more of the same units are used

4. once Siri APIs are open this would be really cool

5. next iteration to work with other 'home automation' controls (lights, gates, AV system, you name it) could be solved by installing a plug-in which would solve support of a device

6. once all steps above are completed rename it to HAL9000 ;)
 
Shrink said:
What if I want the heat to come on 1/2 hour BEFORE I get up so I get up to a warm bedroom.

Do I have to get up 1/2 hour before my usual time for a week to train it to come on before I get up. I have a programmable thermostat that I just set to 1/2 hour before I get up. As far as programming a thermostat - if I can do it - ANYONE can do it.:D

Granted, It looks cool. But I'm not sure that it is a major improvement over available programmable thermostats.
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It also learns how long it takes a room or zone to get up to a set temperature (or down if it's A/C) so it would automatically start raising thm temp before the time you normally set it. You can also manually go into it's learned program and make adjustments yourself if you don't want it changing the temp at certain times.

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sjjordan said:
It's looks great and the interface is clean, but it has major technical flaws:



2. It has no ability to predict your leaving/returning home. With my programmable, I know that I leave at 7 and arrive home at 6. I can adjust the thermostat to anticipate this event. The Nest won't. It'll START adjusting when you arrive home.

What it needs to do, is sync wirelessly with a toggle you keep on your car keychain. When the toggle is gone, you are gone. That way, it learns when you leave, not when it "thinks" you are gone.
Click to expand...

It does. It learns how long it takes your room or zone to heat up to whatever temp you normally set it and makes raises the temp accordingly to make sure it's up to whatever temp you want at whatever time you normally set it.
 
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