Problems at Nest?
Discussion
People are really missing the point.
Nest knows when you're at home and when you're out and turns the heating on and off accordingly. It also knows how long the house takes to warm up and the external temperature and accommodates for that.
The key aspect for me though is that I work until varying times and so can set the heating via the app so the house is a certain temperature when I get home. Helpful especially in the winter as it's an 19th century house which gets cold while I'm away.
Nest knows when you're at home and when you're out and turns the heating on and off accordingly. It also knows how long the house takes to warm up and the external temperature and accommodates for that.
The key aspect for me though is that I work until varying times and so can set the heating via the app so the house is a certain temperature when I get home. Helpful especially in the winter as it's an 19th century house which gets cold while I'm away.
Marvtec said:
People are really missing the point.
Nest knows when you're at home and when you're out and turns the heating on and off accordingly. It also knows how long the house takes to warm up and the external temperature and accommodates for that.
The key aspect for me though is that I work until varying times and so can set the heating via the app so the house is a certain temperature when I get home. Helpful especially in the winter as it's an 19th century house which gets cold while I'm away.
Right, but if Nest went bust, how much of that functionality will remain? The geofencing for example, can you set that manually (as I can with some apps and my Hue bulbs) or does it require their servers?Nest knows when you're at home and when you're out and turns the heating on and off accordingly. It also knows how long the house takes to warm up and the external temperature and accommodates for that.
The key aspect for me though is that I work until varying times and so can set the heating via the app so the house is a certain temperature when I get home. Helpful especially in the winter as it's an 19th century house which gets cold while I'm away.
jammy_basturd said:
Smart devices solves a problem that really wasn't there for the majority of people. I'm not sure why the manufacturers were expecting us all to go out and upgrade our fridges and toasters!
Exactly.They'll start being built into many consumer devices I suspect, so eventually (a fair time away) everyone will have this stuff built in even if they don't use it. But the majority were solutions looking for problems. And expensive ones at that.
I've recently moved and fitted my second Nest thermostat. We don't yet have a reliable internet connection (just a borrowed FON connection that's often 'down' if I've forgotten to sign in recently). I've been impressed with how well the Nest continues to function whilst offline, I remember a colleague buying an early Tado and being unable to turn his heating off because their servers were down!
At £130 if purchased through the npower offer or a similar scheme it's a nice piece of hardware for the price, the interface is good. I seem to remember spending close to that on a 'dumb' Heatmiser stat a few years ago which was a horrible thing to use.
Whatever happens at Nest I'll be surprised if the plug is completely pulled. It's quite a mainstream product now with a much bigger user base than Revolv and buy in from big energy companies. Not sure I'd be willing to put money on that though...
At £130 if purchased through the npower offer or a similar scheme it's a nice piece of hardware for the price, the interface is good. I seem to remember spending close to that on a 'dumb' Heatmiser stat a few years ago which was a horrible thing to use.
Whatever happens at Nest I'll be surprised if the plug is completely pulled. It's quite a mainstream product now with a much bigger user base than Revolv and buy in from big energy companies. Not sure I'd be willing to put money on that though...
The stupid thing is that I can't really think of anything these things do that would actually *need* external server support. There's enough functionality possible inside the units to make them completely standalone even with the clever learning stuff.
At most you'd need an external discovery setup/dyndns thing to give your phone app something simple to use to talk to it from outside when you first set up. And support services (time, updates and so on) are either widely available or not an actual dependency.
The current situation really has the feel of a combination of data gathering and obsolescence control rather than engineering necessity.
At most you'd need an external discovery setup/dyndns thing to give your phone app something simple to use to talk to it from outside when you first set up. And support services (time, updates and so on) are either widely available or not an actual dependency.
The current situation really has the feel of a combination of data gathering and obsolescence control rather than engineering necessity.
Setting aside the harvesting of data I can see why products like the Nest are built the way they are. It's a lot easier to support a device that communicates with a remote server and just needs a wifi password, rather than running through the complexities of port forwarding, firewall rules, double NAT etc. etc. with each customer who wants remote access.
I guess the best of both worlds is to provide a remote service by default, but also allow the software to be downloaded and run elsewhere if required. The 'cloud' access points we have at work function like this.
I guess the best of both worlds is to provide a remote service by default, but also allow the software to be downloaded and run elsewhere if required. The 'cloud' access points we have at work function like this.
So since starting this thread the CEO has resigned and now Google will absorb the Nest developers into Google itself
http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/google-nest-develope...
http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/google-nest-develope...
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