Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Smart Thermostat Company Nest Developing 'Protect' Smoke Detector

I like the idea, but the key will be (1) price ($50 or less), (2) not requiring Nest thermostat (not likely though), (3) not requiring monthly subscription, (4) ease of changing batteries, (5) additional sensors other than smoke/carbon monoxide related (e.g., humidity, temperature, audio, proximity), (6) API for third parties and future expansion, and (7) design.
 
burne said:
There is that option. You can install multiple Nests. You can arrange them in various ways. Multiple masters, master/slave etc. Your bank account will hate you, however.

Also: with a single source of heating/cooling your results will be limited. Suppose it's 110F in the living room and 40F in your bedroom. Should the heater go apesh_t, or should your airco switch to arctic mode?
Click to expand...

If you have a +/- 70 degree temp difference in your house you have bigger fish to fry besides a remote temp sensor.

In my house, our single unit system pumps harder into our master bedroom as it is closest to the air handler. As a result we wind up with a cold bedroom in the summer and a sauna in the winter. I looked into some of the thermostats on the market that include a wireless remote (with temp sensor built into the remote) but they were more expensive than the Nest as best I recall. I haven't invested in a Nest yet (would that be inNesting?), but if they offered a less expensive alternative to buying multiple units for remote temp sensing I would be on it in a heartbeat.
 
jgdeschamps said:
You either don't understand how those things work (and of course you are exaggerating using lies in your comment), or someone ripped you off when installing those equipments and your insurance company is not as good as you might think it is after checking and approving the installation.

Anyways, I wouldn't trust a device like that if it's not UL listed and FM approved for fire protection applications. It's a critical, life-saving device that shouldn't be downplayed to a mere iAccessory, like a thermostat.
Click to expand...

I don't follow. It's smoke detector. It rings out once a threshold of smoke has been reached in a given area. It's not going to replace my items if there is a fire. My renter's insurance will. In fact my renter's insurance would cover if my iPad got stolen from my vehicle. Much like esurance Items in vehicle covered

I like Nest as much as anyone and will be getting a Thermo from them but a smoke detector is a lead balloon of a product pure and simple. With your home the best thing is and has always been insurance.
 
clayj said:
What they should develop FIRST is a remote temperature sensor for the Nest -- something you could plug in in, say, your bedroom and then tell the Nest, "I want the temperature THERE to be [x]." My Nest is in my front hallway and while the temperature THERE gets to what I've set it to be, my bedroom is never quite at the same temperature.
Click to expand...

That seems to be a limitation of your home then, not your air system. Maybe your room is above the garage?
 
I'd like Nest to construct an email back to me on my complaint with my thermostat. The thing just stops working sometimes... that sounds like just the type of company I want protecting my family's lives. :mad:
 
clayj said:
What they should develop FIRST is a remote temperature sensor for the Nest -- something you could plug in in, say, your bedroom and then tell the Nest, "I want the temperature THERE to be [x]." My Nest is in my front hallway and while the temperature THERE gets to what I've set it to be, my bedroom is never quite at the same temperature.
Click to expand...

Do you have AirWave activated in your settings? I think it's supposed to help with that. But I still kind of wish there was a $50 sensor I could stick in the bedroom. Our Nest is downstairs and our bedrooms are upstairs, so since it's downstairs it will always be colder, which means it will be hotter upstairs in the summer as it thinks it's cooled and hotter in the winter as it still thinks it needs to warm. So far it's only been a small problem. Going into my first winter with the Nest and I hope it works out ok. It saved me a bunch of money this summer, probably paid for at least half of its cost!

As for the smoke detector: DO NOT WANT. I don't think there is anything easier than a smoke detector—aside from turning it off, and the beeps when it loses battery. Not a big issue in everyday life, especially since I'm a decent cook and rarely burn anything. Things I do want:

- Easy home security system that I can install myself that would also include smoke, radon and carbon monoxide detectors along with simple door and window alarm switches with alerts if I leave my home with the window unlocked or an open door
- Something that can hook into my home's power grid and give me feedback on power useage of different appliances and how to save energy
- An easy to install home ceiling/wall speaker system that could stream music from my phone, audio from baby monitor, etc
- A "Nest" for hot water heaters that keeps it cool for times of the day in never home, warm for times I might be home, and hot for when I usually take showers
 
clayj said:
What they should develop FIRST is a remote temperature sensor for the Nest -- something you could plug in in, say, your bedroom and then tell the Nest, "I want the temperature THERE to be [x]." My Nest is in my front hallway and while the temperature THERE gets to what I've set it to be, my bedroom is never quite at the same temperature.
Click to expand...

Only problem with this is that most houses' central heating/cooling systems cannot heat/cool individual rooms separately without manual interaction (opening/closing vents.)

If you have baseboard (or other individual-room) heating, then a Nest Thermostat in each room would do it.

If you have central heating/cooling, then you need to tweak the 'open-ness' of your vents so that the heating/cooling is more even. It took me years to get a good set of settings, including finding some counterintuitive things (opening the vent in the master bedroom all the way somehow forces MORE air to bypass that vent and go to the next vent on that conduit, causing the master bedroom to be a couple degrees cooler, and the next room to be a couple degrees warmer.)
 
I don't follow. It's smoke detector. It rings out once a threshold of smoke has been reached in a given area. It's not going to replace my items if there is a fire. My renter's insurance will. In fact my renter's insurance would cover if my iPad got stolen from my vehicle.
Click to expand...

Try signing your insurance papers with a slight case of death by suffocation.
Don't get me wrong, most people don't know (or care about) what a proper fire detection and notification system is about. Yours is not. Ideally, you have a FACP (fire alarm control panel) that monitors smoke detection (which should be really fast, by the way) that triggers notification devices, like a really loud chime and also call the fire department automatically. Systems like this will cost you less than 550 USDs if you install them yourself and can save your life via prompt smoke/fire/heat detection. Life is way more valuable than material assets, and I rather have something that wakes me up quickly in the event of a fire so I can control it or get away from it, rather than a paper that might pay 50% of my stuff.
 
burne said:
There is that option. You can install multiple Nests. You can arrange them in various ways. Multiple masters, master/slave etc. Your bank account will hate you, however.

Also: with a single source of heating/cooling your results will be limited. Suppose it's 110F in the living room and 40F in your bedroom. Should the heater go apesh_t, or should your airco switch to arctic mode?
Click to expand...

It should alert the police/fire dept since your house is on fire in the winter.
 
clayj said:
What they should develop FIRST is a remote temperature sensor for the Nest -- something you could plug in in, say, your bedroom and then tell the Nest, "I want the temperature THERE to be [x]." My Nest is in my front hallway and while the temperature THERE gets to what I've set it to be, my bedroom is never quite at the same temperature.
Click to expand...

This would depend on your HVAC system. If it has zones and you have multiple Nests set up for it, then you can currently do this. A single Nest in a central HVAC system won't allow you to do this.
 
Anonymous Freak said:
Only problem with this is that most houses' central heating/cooling systems cannot heat/cool individual rooms separately without manual interaction (opening/closing vents.)

If you have baseboard (or other individual-room) heating, then a Nest Thermostat in each room would do it.

If you have central heating/cooling, then you need to tweak the 'open-ness' of your vents so that the heating/cooling is more even. It took me years to get a good set of settings, including finding some counterintuitive things (opening the vent in the master bedroom all the way somehow forces MORE air to bypass that vent and go to the next vent on that conduit, causing the master bedroom to be a couple degrees cooler, and the next room to be a couple degrees warmer.)
Click to expand...


That's not what he's talking about I don't think. I have the same annoyance with my Nest. My thermostat is in the hallway on my main level, but I have a finished basement where my office and home theater is and I spend a lot of time down there. The basement is a lot cooler than the main level (not uncommon for basements), so if the Nest cools the main level to 72 degrees, my basement feels like it's just north of the Arctic Circle. It's not the end of the world - I just set my Nest to cool to something higher, like 78 and the basement is a more comfortable room temperature. It would be nice to tell my Nest I want it to be 72 in the basement and ignore whatever it is upstairs. When I go upstairs, I can tell it to make it 72 upstairs and forget about the basement.

It's an annoyance that I'd have with any thermostat. However, the issue is the auto-away feature on the Nest. If I'm in the basement for a few hours, it doesn't sense me walking around upstairs and turns the auto away feature on. So if they created a remote temperature/motion sensor that you could put anywhere, I'll buy it as soon as it's released.
 
"Trojan horse into your home"? So it'll be welcomed with celebration but will actually burn your house down and force your Aeneas to leave? This is a good idea that probably shouldn't be presented in that way.
 
yg17 said:
That's not what he's talking about I don't think. I have the same annoyance with my Nest. My thermostat is in the hallway on my main level, but I have a finished basement where my office and home theater is and I spend a lot of time down there. The basement is a lot cooler than the main level (not uncommon for basements), so if the Nest cools the main level to 72 degrees, my basement feels like it's just north of the Arctic Circle. It's not the end of the world - I just set my Nest to cool to something higher, like 78 and the basement is a more comfortable room temperature. It would be nice to tell my Nest I want it to be 72 in the basement and ignore whatever it is upstairs. When I go upstairs, I can tell it to make it 72 upstairs and forget about the basement.

It's an annoyance that I'd have with any thermostat. However, the issue is the auto-away feature on the Nest. If I'm in the basement for a few hours, it doesn't sense me walking around upstairs and turns the auto away feature on. So if they created a remote temperature/motion sensor that you could put anywhere, I'll buy it as soon as it's released.
Click to expand...

Okay, that makes sense. A remote "override". My hot water heater has that. It's a tankless model that heats the water as it passes through - the main temperature control is on the heater itself, and there is a remote unit (wired,) in the bathroom. We keep the temperature "low" by default (110 °F,) to save energy, and for safety of our small child in the bath. But for us taking a shower, we use the remote unit to set it up to 120 °F. It even auto sets back down to the master unit's temperature a few minutes after the water stops.
 
The price point will be interesting as a modern home will have 5-10 detectors. It would seem to be senseless to just replace one of them with a Nest version.
 
Shrink said:
Just what the world needs...a $250 smoke detector.

Just because something can be done, doesn't necessarily mean it should be done...
Click to expand...
Price hasn't been set but $250 for something that both lasts for years and years and would likely also increase the value of your home to prospective buyers is kind of a no brainer.

----------
chairguru22 said:
This would depend on your HVAC system. If it has zones and you have multiple Nests set up for it, then you can currently do this. A single Nest in a central HVAC system won't allow you to do this.
Click to expand...

What he's asking for is simply a sensor for other rooms so that regardless of the main nest's temperature it will heat or cool until that specific sensor hits the target.
 
macduke said:
Do you have AirWave activated in your settings? I think it's supposed to help with that. But I still kind of wish there was a $50 sensor I could stick in the bedroom. Our Nest is downstairs and our bedrooms are upstairs, so since it's downstairs it will always be colder, which means it will be hotter upstairs in the summer as it thinks it's cooled and hotter in the winter as it still thinks it needs to warm. So far it's only been a small problem. Going into my first winter with the Nest and I hope it works out ok. It saved me a bunch of money this summer, probably paid for at least half of its cost!

As for the smoke detector: DO NOT WANT. I don't think there is anything easier than a smoke detector—aside from turning it off, and the beeps when it loses battery. Not a big issue in everyday life, especially since I'm a decent cook and rarely burn anything. Things I do want:

- Easy home security system that I can install myself that would also include smoke, radon and carbon monoxide detectors along with simple door and window alarm switches with alerts if I leave my home with the window unlocked or an open door
- Something that can hook into my home's power grid and give me feedback on power useage of different appliances and how to save energy
- An easy to install home ceiling/wall speaker system that could stream music from my phone, audio from baby monitor, etc
- A "Nest" for hot water heaters that keeps it cool for times of the day in never home, warm for times I might be home, and hot for when I usually take showers
Click to expand...

You might want to look at the Canary home security system.

----------
bozzykid said:
The price point will be interesting as a modern home will have 5-10 detectors. It would seem to be senseless to just replace one of them with a Nest version.
Click to expand...

5-10 detectors? That's seems like way, way, way too many.
 
I would love one of these, but it needs more features (Remote temperature sensor for one) and Support for installation and use in the UK

Maybe they should work on features for the main product, and globalization of that rather than additional products for a finite local market

also, id trust a $5 smoke alarm over a high tech one any day
 
clayj said:
What they should develop FIRST is a remote temperature sensor for the Nest -- something you could plug in in, say, your bedroom and then tell the Nest, "I want the temperature THERE to be [x]." My Nest is in my front hallway and while the temperature THERE gets to what I've set it to be, my bedroom is never quite at the same temperature.
Click to expand...

I agree, it would be nice to monitor the temperature in designated spaces but at $200+ EACH even for a smoke detector or remote thermostat, it is going to be a way too much. if you need a smoke detector for each bedroom, the hallways, and common areas in your home you could easily be at $1200+.
 
VanillaCracker said:
That seems to be a limitation of your home then, not your air system. Maybe your room is above the garage?
Click to expand...
I live in a 1500 sq ft condo, single level. The problem is that the thermostat is in the front hallway, sheltered from the outside, somewhere I rarely go unless I am entering or leaving the condo. So there are a couple of issues: The temp there can vary by a few degrees over the bedroom or the office, and because the Away sensor is there, I often find that the Nest has switched into Away mode because it doesn't see me. A small sensor that I could put into my office and/or bedroom would help the system know that I am there and would allow me to have better temp control.
 
Finally

Jeaz said:
I paid about $200 for my current one, while it can communicate with an iPhone app, it doesn't have the same feature set as this one.


As a side note, does anyone know if there's some international standard for thermostats? Or are the US ones different from the EU ones?
Click to expand...

I have 5 smoke detectors in the house and they have many issues. When the battery is low, it is hard to find which one is beeping. They can't be silenced without getting out a broom and I don't know what the two flashing lights mean.

While I am at it. Why is my stove, washing machine, oven and dishwasher without wifi?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back