

I Wish Nest Did More Than Thermostats - krondor
http://www.jorgecastro.org/2013/05/03/i-wish-nest-did-more-than-thermostats/

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atdepth
Myself and a friend looked in to doing this for sprinkler timers. The aim was
to simplify the interface to a large degree and allow for configuration via a
browser or mobile device.

As it turns out there is a patent on sprinkler timers with embedded web
servers. The owner of the patent has posted hostile messages threatening legal
action on any public facing website that posts about the handful of consumer
products that might infringe on their patent.

Here is a link to the patent: <http://www.google.com/patents/US7010396>

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gregable
This makes me sad.

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notatoad
This seems like kind of a silly. The Ubuntu panel he shows there is simple
because programmers have hidden all the complexity. Whoever installed the
sprinkler system hid the complexity too - they closed the door on the
sprinkler control panel. If you wanted it to be simple, you should have left
the door closed. You don't need to adjust it. It should have been programmed
by the installer to account for _seasonal_ rainfall. Day-to-day rain does not
matter _at all_ to your sprinkler programming.

If you want to poke around (literally) under the hood, you don't get to
complain about complexity.

~~~
igul222
The problem is that poking around under the hood shouldn't be necessary. If
the sprinkler system worked well enough without ever needing to open the hood,
then everything's fine. But it looks like that's not the case.

~~~
notatoad
Not only is it unnecessary to poke around under the hood, it's bad. If you're
changing your sprinkler configuration, you're doing it wrong. You're supposed
to set the schedule and never touch it again. Changing the schedule (because
of rain or weather) is not as good for your lawn as just leaving everything
alone. The only control you should ever be touching is the master shutoff
valve. Your sprinkler isn't supposed to care about daily rainfall, because
that doesn't matter in lawn care.

The _only_ problem with the sprinkler in the article is that the internal
clock is set wrong, and you can be pretty sure that the reason the internal
clock is wrong is because the author tried to tweak things. Don't do that, and
the problems go away.

~~~
cfinke
_If you're changing your sprinkler configuration, you're doing it wrong._

Or your lawn is dying because there hasn't been enough rain. Or your lawn is
dying because there's been too much rain. Or you're resodding a part of your
lawn. Or you're removing part of your lawn to put in a garden. Or you've
started using rainbarrels to naturally irrigate your backyard. Or your city
has changed which days you can water your lawn on.

 _you can be pretty sure that the reason the internal clock is wrong is
because the author tried to tweak things._

It could also be because the power went out or because of Daylight Saving
Time.

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dfc
Nest folks, once you are happy with your thermostat product please pivot to
water heaters. There is no reason why I heat the water in the tank up
throughout the night. I think that my household demand for hot water is fairly
predictable with spikes in the morning for showering and in the evening for
dishes and laundry.

~~~
chad_oliver
In general, there's a good reason for heating the water overnight: electricity
is often cheaper at night, and (on a national level) it means that electricity
demand is spread more evenly over the whole 24 hours.

~~~
fancyketchup
This is a good idea, but are you by chance located outside the US? Every water
heater I've personally encountered in North America has been powered by
natural gas. Even so, it only takes an hour or so to fully replenish the hot
water, so it still makes sense to allow the water to cool down between, say,
midnight and 5am.

~~~
maxerickson
Huge swaths of the U.S. simply don't have natural gas. The township that I
used to live in explicitly stated in their planning that they did not intend
to run gas lines.

My current place doesn't have gas either...

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dapak
"For bonus points it would also check Google Maps and compare how green my
lawn is to my neighbors"

How's that going to work when the imagery isn't real time?

~~~
cbhl
Alternatively, it could check what neighbours' sprinkler systems are set to,
and recommend the median or mean (or maybe just the max of immediately
adjacent neighbours).

He's just making a wishlist of features; the particular method of
implementation doesn't have to match.

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jmomo
I have an Ecobee thermostat in my condo, which I am currently in the process
of selling. Young people are usually pretty excited about seeing it in action,
but older people are actually turned off. My guess is they see it as another
complicated VCR that they can't program, and so, it's actually a negative.

Even the Nest, with it's simple dial would probably scare them, because smart
things scare stupid people.

When I tell them that it's an Internet enabled thermostat, they must
immediately think, "OMG CHINA HAXORS GUNNA STEAL MY THERMOSTAT MHZ" because
that's what the scare-monger media has been telling them over the last six
months.

~~~
msutherl
That thing looks like a nightmare. I don't blame them.

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rentzsch
This is where Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) with web tech (ideally) and/or Apps
(practically) could shine: the sprinkler system could vend a much better
software UI to our smartphones than the hardware UI it's currently offering.

~~~
msutherl
I can't stand UI controllers for physical stuff:

1\. When you want to change some parameter of the physical thing, you have to
know where your phone is. You can't just _go there_.

2\. You need to take your phone out of your pocket, navigate to the icon,
press it, wait, probably tap a button or two, then slide your fingers along a
smooth surface in some sort of complex pattern. Meanwhile, you could have
walked downstairs and turned a dial, which you can actually feel with your
fingers and you don't need to look at.

Nest makes big awesome dials. I too wish more startups with good designers
would find some way to displace common hardware controls that are unfamiliar
and complex.

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iramiller
An irrigation system is far more complicated than a thermostat however there
are already strong contenders in this space. I use a Cyber-Rain[1] controller
which adjusts based on humidity, temperature and forecast along with details
provided during setup such as sprinkler types, soil types, grade and more.
When your system has a flow sensor the controller will even shut down the
system in the event of a broken head and send an email instead of letting
hundreds of gallons of water run down the street.

[1]<http://cyber-rain.com>

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mgraczyk
We're working on it.

<https://github.com/makilian/Mist>

~~~
smcguinness
Any more info you can share? I'm very interested in something like this.

~~~
mgraczyk
Yes. I few friends and I have been working on this for a few months as a
school project. We're done with school now, but we may still continue the
project. So far we have been more focused on the mathematics and the software
and less focused on the product because the project was for school.

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snuze
I have used those exact sprinkler system controls and can attest that they are
absolutely terrible.

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gms
They will, once they feel that their thermostat is satisfactory enough.

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CamperBob2
Glad to hear Nest is still around. Last I heard, they were getting the
thermonuclear treatment from Honeywell's patent attorneys. Was that resolved
recently?

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supercanuck
I've had this exact same thought. The other area is pools. Turning on the pool
heater and pump via wifi, or turning the hot tub on as I leave from work.

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bdwalter
I find these guys very interesting <http://irrigationcaddy.com>

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tzs
This appears to be the manual for that sprinkler controller:
<http://www.rainbird.com/documents/turf/man_ESPModular.pdf>

Setting the time doesn't appear to be too painful.

~~~
mrb
His point stands: if you need a manual to set the time, then the UI is poorly
designed. Period.

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spingu
Agreed. But specifically for lawns, I actually wish someone makes much cheaper
artificial turfs. Good for aesthetics, better for the environment.. saves
hassle time money and water.

~~~
briancurtin
This can't be all that far away. At the size of a baseball field, I'm told
it's a no-brainer to go turf at this point.

I don't actually know the prices, I'm trusting the college coaches who have
mentioned this to me over the last several years (I umpire on the side). One
has been on artificial turf for three years, another put turf in this year,
and the rest want them.

~~~
plorkyeran
The usage patterns of a baseball field and a lawn at one's house are generally
not going to be very similar, so it doesn't necessarily follow that what's
cheaper for one is cheaper for the other. (I have no idea how the prices
actually compare.)

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rscale
Personally, I don't want Nest; I'd prefer coherent locally accessible APIs for
monitoring and control.

