
Nest Thermostat Glitch Leaves Users in the Cold - protomyth
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/fashion/nest-thermostat-glitch-battery-dies-software-freeze.html
======
atom_enger
We have two nest thermostats installed at work. I rotate the WiFi keys for our
APs quarterly and these things are the biggest pain in the ass to reconnect to
the WiFi.

The furnace turns off almost immediately after changing the WiFi key once the
Nest loses connectivity. At first I thought it was coincidence but now that I
rotate on a strict schedule it's a joke in our office. However, what's not a
joke is what happens when the internet goes down. So does our heat.

What the hell, Nest?

Relevant:
[https://twitter.com/internetofshit](https://twitter.com/internetofshit)

~~~
jedberg
> However, what's not a joke is what happens when the internet goes down. So
> does our heat.

As a couple of other folks have noted, that's not normal. You might want to
get on tech support with them.

My Nest just keeps running its last program when it looses internet.

~~~
nradov
Hilarious. A residential thermostat that needs tech support. Only in the
Silicon Valley echo chamber can that seem like a good idea. It reminds me of
the old engineering saying: "If it's not broken it doesn't have enough
features yet."

~~~
zippergz
[https://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/contact-
us](https://yourhome.honeywell.com/en/contact-us)

~~~
bpchaps
I'm at a complete loss of words at why you think that's even in the same class
of support...

~~~
freehunter
Why? He said tech support, the link given has a number for tech support. Seems
pretty similar. Honeywell also has a wifi smart thermostat that is controlled
by an iPhone app and competes with the Nest.

Seems pretty damn similar.

~~~
mikeash
Everything electronic needs tech support. You could have a 100% reliable
product that's nothing more than a single button that literally does one thing
when you press it, and you'd _still_ need tech support because people will
call in and ask you how to use it, or why it doesn't do anything when they
don't push the button.

Criticizing Nest for having tech support is just silly. Much better to
criticize it for the actual stupid failure being experienced by the original
commenter.

------
FireBeyond
"It also happened recently with Fitbit, the maker of wearable activity
trackers. The company was hit with a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco
asserting that the wristbands failed to “consistently and accurately record
wearers’ heart rates,” which is vital for those with certain medical
conditions."

Apropos of anything else - I don't think Fitbit has ever tried to market
itself as a medical device.

~~~
rubidium
It turns out even if a company markets its products with big bold "not for
diagnostic/medical use", and its customers use the products for diagnostic or
medical use, the company can still be on the hook. It depends on a number of
things, not least of which is the company's knowledge of the actual use of
their devices.

~~~
sparky_z
That doesn't seem fair. What's a company supposed to do in that situation?
Just close up shop?

Makes me wonder if it would be possible to intentionally drive a company out
of business by convincing a bunch of people to use their products incorrectly.

~~~
craigching
I don't know about Fitbit _per se_ , but there are cases where a company says
one thing in it's legal interface, but does another with it's sales interface.
IOW (pure speculation on my part), Fitbit could say "don't use this for such
and such" and the sales people say "yeah, we say that (wink, wink), but we
don't really mean it." To be clear, _I am not saying Fitbit does that_ , but I
am familiar with other companies that have done such and gotten in trouble for
it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Oh they totally do it, but even more sneakily. After the whole Internet hypes
itself up, the salesmen don't have to say a word. Random blogs, newspaper
articles and word-of-mouth have already done it for them.

------
stcredzero
If you watch the unhappy early adopter YouTube videos of Nest thermostats,
this outcome is pretty predictable. There's a level of quality control you
need to put up a web app, which won't physically affect anyone if it happens
to crash for awhile. Then there's a much higher level required when you're
controlling things in the real world.

This outcome was predictable from the experience of those early adopters.

EDIT: Why couldn't Nest fall back to being a dumb thermostat? Lots of smart
device makers should consider having such a fallback.

~~~
mattbee
The Nest comes in two parts - the "smart" bit with the USB charger & battery &
wifi, and the Heat Link - the actual radio control for your boiler.

The Heat Link has a big button on which lets you turn the heating on and off,
overriding what the Nest is telling it. That's not as economical as a regular
thermostat, but it means you won't freeze:
[https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-do-I-turn-the-
heat-o...](https://nest.com/uk/support/article/How-do-I-turn-the-heat-on-if-
the-Nest-Thermostat-isn-t-working)

~~~
mattbee
Oh, OK, you don't have that in the US apparently. Why's it necessary?

~~~
HillRat
Almost all US central heat and air systems are "forced air" \-- gas or
electric heaters (furnaces) that blow conditioned air through ducting. Boiler-
radiator systems wouldn't work with the standard US thermostat, not least
because US thermostats use low-voltage signaling.

~~~
quesera
You must be from a warm part of the U.S.

Forced hot water systems are very common in the colder parts, and they use the
same thermostat wiring as forced air. Some parts of the U.S. even use diesel
fuel for heat (it's called #2 heating oil, but it's really just diesel fuel
with pink dye added so they can fine you for using it as a vehicle fuel...it's
taxed advantageously).

Also, boiler-radiator systems can absolutely work with standard thermostats.
The classic design has no electrical control at all, just bimetal valves (like
car thermostats) to regulate the flow of heated water. But the modern revision
uses the same kind of electrically controlled valves (24VAC, IIRC) that forced
hot water does.

All low-voltage thermostats with standardized wiring layouts.

I didn't know the UK ran high voltage to ordinary thermostats though, that
seems crazy if it's just a control circuit. Presumably the full mains voltage?

Old U.S. "radiant" (electrical, non-hydronic) heat ran 220/240 VAC to big
rheostats in each room, but that was actually the supply to the heating
elements. It feels like something that wouldn't meet code today, but it used
to be popular in some parts of the country where electricity was inexpensive.

~~~
makomk
Yeah, UK central heating systems in homes use the full 240V for all their
control wiring. It's worth bearing in mind that this isn't just signalling -
the thermostat and timer directly switch the power to the pump and valves.

------
josinalvo
> Buried deep in Nest’s 8,000-word service agreement is a section called
> “Disputes and Arbitration,” which prohibits customers from suing the company
> or joining a class-action suit.

Though I have no need for a thermostat whatsoever, I kinda like nest. However,
I'd love if people went to court with a class action suit against them.

These 'no class action' and 'arbitration' clauses are becoming increasingly
common, but I think they probably don't hold up in court - and nor should
they, given how much power they put in the hands of the company.

~~~
jacobolus
Judges dismissing cases based on arbitration clauses seems pretty common.

NYT has been on the case recently:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitrat...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitration-
everywhere-stacking-the-deck-of-justice.html)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-
arbit...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/02/business/dealbook/in-arbitration-
a-privatization-of-the-justice-system.html)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/business/dealbook/in-
relig...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/business/dealbook/in-religious-
arbitration-scripture-is-the-rule-of-law.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/dealbook/sued-
ove...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/business/dealbook/sued-over-old-
debt-and-blocked-from-suing-back.html)

~~~
Animats
Despite arbitration clauses in the EULA, there are people who can sue. The
buyer of the device may be barred from suing, but other parties who suffered
damages can still use. Roommates, guests, family members, people who live
downstairs below pipes broken due to a Nest failure - they can all sue. They
didn't agree to the EULA. Regular negligence standards apply. If you can show
that a lot of the things failed all at once, that's a pretty good case for
negligence.

This can also come up in landlord/tenant situations. If the landlord put in a
Nest, and its failure caused the tenant problems, like having to spend the
night in a hotel, the tenant can probably sue Nest.

------
pfarnsworth
I've had the Nest for 2 years. To be honest I've had zero problems. The only
problem I have is that once Google bought them, there has been little to no
improvements in anything. They only give 10 days worth of data which is
functionally useless. Why should I care about last week for energy use? I want
to compare against last year. They haven't made any significant improvements
so it's just another case of an innovator getting bought and then getting the
innovation sucked out of it.

The same thing happened with Dropcam. Once they were bought by Nest/Google
they stopped making any real changes for the last 2 years. It's sad and
infuriating as a customer.

~~~
gduffy
Believe it or not, it wasn't really Google's fault. Agreed that it is sad and
infuriating, though.

------
legulere
> Although I had set the thermostat to 70 degrees overnight, my wife and I
> were woken by a crying baby at 4 a.m. The thermometer in his room read 64
> degrees, and the Nest was off.

This seems quite strange to me. Here in Germany it's extremely common to
(automatically) turn of heating all together in the night (called
Nachtabsenkung). One reason is to save energy, but lower temperatures also
help sleep:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/04real.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/health/04real.html)

The article says between 60°F (15.5°C) to 68°F (20°) is best.

~~~
pqs
Sleeping with heating on seems a waste of energy to me. At least in Spain.

I have a dumb thermostat. It doesn't even have a clock. It just has two
buttons, one two increase temperature, the other to decrease it. In winter,
during the day, I put it at 20C. At night, I put it at 15C or lower (which
stops heating, as the house temperature decreases to about 17 or 18 degrees
during the night, without heating). It works like a charm. We are not cold at
night as we use pyjamas and duvet. We also have a baby. In fact, if I forget
to turn off the heating at night, I can't sleep well and I often get up to
turn it off.

~~~
osi
You should get a simple programmable thermostat that just lets you put
temperature at given times. Will automate away what you forget to do.

~~~
pqs
Yest, it would be better. But this happens once or twice in a year. It's
really not worth it.

------
meesterdude
This offers an interesting insight into the Internet of Things. Take something
simple, and tack on a bunch of new technology that is subject to failure.
Don't be surprised if it fails.

To be fair, the issue isn't that there was software involved; digital
thermostats have that. I think more telling was the level of complexity, which
allows for a lot more to go wrong. Combined with a poor process behind update
validation, this is what happens.

Keep it Simple. If you're going to use new technology, keep the old stuff
around, ideally working in parallel as a failsafe.

And generally, anything you can do to distribute the failure points and allow
for overlap (such as backup spaceheaters that don't normally kick on) should
be considered if someone's life is on the line, or property is at risk. Stuff
can always go wrong, but the more you can do to reduce risk the better. This
applies to any system dependency; mechanical thermostat or nest.

~~~
kuschku
In general, the way IoT is treated is wrong.

Startups try to treat IoT devices as a standard arm or x86 processor with some
additional GPIO pins where they read info, deal with it, and write info.

No real-time guarantee, a level of QA similar to websites or consumer
software, etc.

And here is what previous companies building smart devices (say, SIEMENS)
treated them like: As extended microcontrollers.

Put all the critical software on one tiny microcontroller, do static
verification that that microcontroller is always acting correct. If you need
Internet access, add a second chip that does that, and provides the results of
that data to the first microcontroller — but don't depend on it.

There is a large divide between the Engineers designing these devices in the
past, and today's crowd.

~~~
Joeri
To be fair, you can still buy traditional building/home automation products.
If you go through the list of vendors on the KNX website you see that pretty
much every hip IoT device has a standards-based equivalent from those
traditional vendors. Learning thermostats, IP-based video doorbells, smart
lights, etc...

The difference is one of market strategy. The IoT devices are deliberately
low-threshold purchases (cheap, easy to install) because they want to build a
customer relationship that leads to extra sales. Nest cam, ring subscription,
etc... Traditional home automation products instead are targeted towards a
one-time sale of a larger system, so they focus more on ability to design the
system how you want, with more standards support and more ability to integrate
with other products, but also a much higher purchase threshold and a much more
involved installation process.

In the end, you have to choose what you want. Do you want a single gadget or
do you want a whole smart home system?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _In the end, you have to choose what you want. Do you want a single gadget
> or do you want a whole smart home system?_

I want a whole smart home system built piece by piece through buying various
smart devices of different vendors and having them talk to each other. This is
how it's supposed to work for the "personal use" market, and this is what we
need to push for.

------
insaneirish
It was never great, and it's been worse and worse since Google bought them.
Examples of some issues with mine:

1\. It doesn't honor DHCP lease expiration [1]. It will happily keep using its
IP without renewing its lease. I've had situations where it's gone long enough
without a lease renewal that another device has received its old IP and caused
a conflict.

2\. It constantly disassociates from the AP, and decides to come back on the
network when it feels like it, not when there is traffic for it. And note,
this is with a constantly powered device, so there should be no power saving
causing it to power down. Also, the AP is about 6 feet away and there are zero
other WiFi issues. Manually kicking the device off the AP causes it to come
back immediately.

3\. Their backend goes down all the time, usually for 1-2 hours.

4\. They had a perfectly working method for turning heating on in advance of
your setpoint with the goal of reaching your desired temperature at that time
rather than just turning on at that time. Then they broke it [2]. This led to
nice surprises like waking up to a completely cold house. Instead of rolling
back the broken code, they refused to respond on the aforementioned thread for
well over a month.

It's really inexplicable. They have nice industrial design, good brand
recognition, no shortage of money behind them, and they screw up at every
conceivable turn.

I'm going to try out the ecobee thermostat because I very much appreciate the
convenience of being able to remotely adjust the temperature.

[1]:
[https://community.nest.com/thread/10316](https://community.nest.com/thread/10316)
[2]:
[https://community.nest.com/thread/11438](https://community.nest.com/thread/11438)

~~~
rsync
"It's really inexplicable. They have nice industrial design, good brand
recognition, no shortage of money behind them, and they screw up at every
conceivable turn."

Ipso Facto. They can't _not_ screw it up.

A critical component of infrastructure should not be IP addressable. It should
not be "on your wifi". It should not have a login or a password. It should be
as dumb as possible and as simple as possible - and as anti-fragile to all of
these events as possible.

It's not possible to have this "feature set" and not have this pain. It's a
fools errand to pursue it.

~~~
kuschku
Yes, it is possible:

Have a microcontroller that stores the time table for when to set which
temperature, and applies it.

Have a second processor, with internet access, that updates this table.

Simple as that.

------
ams6110
I have a manual thermostat, no batteries required. It has worked flawlessly
for over 30 years. It has a simple intuitive interface: a switch for "heat" or
"cool" and a dial with a pointer to set the desired temperature.

Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

~~~
post_break
Because when you forget to change the setting to heat and wake up to a 60
degree house you rush around hoping the pipes didn't freeze. Or when you set
the AC to 70 because you were warm and leave to go to work and forget to set
it back.

~~~
jonathankoren
If your house is 60 degrees. It didn't freeze.

~~~
jacalata
If it's 60 degrees then it isn't freezing now, but it could have been lower
overnight.

~~~
stephencanon
Heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference across the boundary
(walls and windows and roof). Even when it's quite cold outside, heat loss
slows down as the house gets colder, and then you still have all the phase
change energy to dump before pipes freeze. This will not happen overnight
except in the most extreme cases, and it certainly will not then warm back up
to 60.

Anecdotally, I was once without central heat for three days in 0-20F, and
nothing froze. The basement got down to 38.

~~~
kale
A lot of that depends on where your house is built. I have a house in an area
that can go an entire winter without getting much below 40F. No one builds
with "freeze-proof" faucet design, which recesses the valve to the outside
water faucets within the wall.

I had two pipes freeze and burst after 3 days of freezing temperatures (first
time anyone can remember being more than 24 hours below freezing). One was an
outside faucet, properly protected and insulated. The other was frozen inside
the slab, near the wall.

~~~
stephencanon
When you live somewhere with actual weather, outdoor faucets are closed and
drained for the winter and most of spring. There's no such thing as "freeze-
proof" faucets at -30.

------
noneTheHacker
My house didn't play nicely with my Nest. I got a new Furnace and AC and had
them install a Nest. It started acting weird. We replaced it with a low-tech
Honeywell while trying to get it figured out. I then replaced the Nest
thinking maybe it was faulty. I took a photo of the wire layout for the
Honeywell and made sure I did the proper layout for the new Nest. It worked
fine for a few days and then one day I came home to a 110 degree house! The
Nest reported that things were 70-whatever. I then replaced it with a Wi-Fi
Honeywell (not their Nest competitor) and that one has worked fine since. It
was a very scary experience. I won't be trying a Nest again.

~~~
tacos
Identical experience here. Installed Honeywell RedLINK and finally my problems
went away. Ditto Honeywell wireless security, also works great. There's SO
MUCH crap out there, and the wave hasn't even started yet.

------
hijinks
Wow this happened to my family. We didn't have heat for I think 5 hours. Now
we are in the SF Bay so it didn't get crazy cold but I had a wife telling me
to fix it and the stupid thing wouldn't come online. I chalked it up to one of
the kids pulled the unit from the base plate and the battery drained.

It seems like a GIANT bug to me that the Nest won't come back online till the
battery is almost fully charged.

I "fixed" it by putting our old thermostat back in then I put the nest back a
few days later.

~~~
pm24601
Ahhh but you still haven't learned, have you :-)? The repair ended after you
replace the Nest.

------
phkahler
Failure for a product to perform its primary function is totally unacceptable.
Let me repeat: totally unacceptable. From the comments it seems they fail if
they lose network connectivity? That's got to be the stupidest thing I ever
heard. Apparently some "smart" TVs suffer from similar problems. Remember,
there are plenty of thermostats that have NO software - just a stupid little
mercury switch - and they are more reliable than this. When any product fails
at it's primary function I next it.

But hey it's the Internet of THINGS! woot!

------
feld
I had a Nest and sold it to my brother after Google bought them and it was
clear they were never going to release the rumored remote sensors. I got an
ecobee instead.

The ecobee is much smarter, mostly because of the remote sensors. My house is
far more comfortable. It's also nice that ecobee has an API and IFTTT support.
It has no issues running normally when the internet goes down. (My internet
was down completely the other night and there was -25F windchill. It followed
schedule just fine.)

I'm guessing ecobee coming from Canada they know the value of a functional
thermostat...

------
spdustin
Mine (Gen 2) died a month ago. I charged it up and reset it, and called Nest
support. They sent me a replacement even though mine was working again, and
included a prepaid return label.

First problem I had with mine, and it was a great support experience.

Anecdata and all. But combined with this story, makes me wonder if they
replaced it because they knew it was likely to happen again.

------
endgame
And to close the citation loop:
[https://twitter.com/internetofshit](https://twitter.com/internetofshit) is
fun for people who want to roll their eyes at misbehaving smart devices.

------
rdtsc
In line with this is the classic "It Can't Be Hushed Here" Nest bug video, by
Brad Fitzpatrick from last year:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpsMkLaEiOY)

[Warning: contains extremely annoying Nest smoke detectors beeping. So prepare
to lower your volume]

Brad looks very annoyed and it was no fun for him, but on an artistic level it
is really well done, it is an epic battle between human and machine.

------
UnoriginalGuy
This is why I purchased the Honeywell 9000 WiFi Color Touchscreen
Thermostat[0] instead. The nice thing about the Honeywell is that you can use
it completely offline if you so choose. It also has a REAL interface, so an
app is an optional extra not a required component.

Both the Nest and Honeywell require the infamous C wire, both are similar
installation, and both cost around $200.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH9580WF-Touchscreen-
Thermo...](http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-RTH9580WF-Touchscreen-Thermostat-
Premier/dp/B00FLZEQH2)

PS - And, yes, the Nest has a theoretical setup without the C wire, but you'll
lose key things like fan control, or if the boiler doesn't run enough the
entire thing can die. On both it is ultimately C wire or don't waste your
time.

~~~
manyxcxi
100% on the same page as you. I didn't get the Honeywell, I actually got a
relatively cheap z-wave thermostat that acts like a regular ol' dumb
programmable thermostat that can also be controlled by ANY z-wave compatible
home automation hub (I use the Wink hub, to my sometimes chagrin).

Pretty sure my thermostat was sub $75 on Amazon.

------
imh
At least among the engineers and data scientists here, are any of us really
surprised? Smart devices, especially ones that learn, can certainly do better
on average, but complexity adds edge cases and those worst cases can really
matter. Simple things fail simply (when they fail at all).

------
grayje
"At the point of desire, you want more, but at the point of daily use, you
want less." -John Maeda, on complexity in product design

------
brudgers
Two years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885947](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885947)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7019617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7019617)

------
ghaff
I've also been told by people I know About Nests crashing and turning off.
[edit: yes, anecdotal but it's not an unknown event] This is completely
unacceptable in a Northern climate. No, it's not the only failure mode for a
heating system but I have zero interest in adding another point of failure for
the sake of having a cool device. Frozen pipes is a serious business.

~~~
taternuts
That was my first thought; if I owned a Nest and it stopped working for 2-3
days right now where I live, I'd be in big trouble especially if I weren't
home to get a space-heater to temporarily offset the issue

------
zitterbewegung
Why have I only heard horror stories about the Nest? I see their reviews on
Amazon and I see huge problems with this product .

~~~
acdha
Because happy users don't feel motivated to tell people everything is okay.
It's a common bias which you have to constantly remind yourself to correct
for.

~~~
CamperBob2
That would make sense if there weren't plenty of other product reviews in
which people are gushing about how awesome they are.

~~~
cookiecaper
They're usually astroturfed. Some vendors will go as far as offering a small
rebate to customers who leave a positive review of the product.

I would guess that probably 85% of "user-generated content" on mainstream
outlets like Amazon is the result of astroturfing or other paid schemes. It's
practically impossible to compete in any online marketplace without turfing
the crap out of every slightly relevant outlet. Your competitors are doing it
constantly, and the disadvantage will be really big if you don't play ball
too.

One example: our objectively superior product with a great design and great
functional foundation was substantially less popular than the dirty rip off
that had their site built with cheap oDesk labor and designed with cheesy
stock photos, but spent ridiculous amounts of money on SEO and fake Facebook
comments. We were substantially cheaper too. There was literally no reason to
ever use the other person's offering, and there was no reason for them to show
up ahead of us on searches, but they did.

Don't believe Google's line of BS that to get to the top you just need to put
out good content. It's total nonsense. What you need are backlinks, which are
bought and laundered into a network of sites controlled by the same SEO group,
and social media clout, which is bought by paying third-world contractors
$1.50/hr to make fake Facebook and Twitter profiles and talk about your
company.

------
newday
Considering how cold it gets up here in Canada, this is scary.

~~~
tcdent
Scary enough to have redundancy?

edit: I'm talking about redundant systems. A wood fireplace, for example.

You should have a backup of any form of technology you rely on to maintain
your life. We regularly do it with far less critical applications.

~~~
mhurron
Think about what you just said. Redundancy for a thermostat. You know, that
thing that before the Nest you never even had to think about.

~~~
bcook
Perhaps not, but I have lost power for a week during a blizzard and it was
nice to have a fire-place (redundancy). Disregarding the power-loss scenerio,
if my any part of my HVAC system fails, I have space-heaters.

------
ricksplat
I looked into this, but I quickly realised I never use my Thermostat.

My heating is controlled by a time-switch that directly enables the boiler in
the morning and at night, and as far as I know this is how most people I know
operate.

We do have thermostats but they are largely ignored boxes that sit in the
hallway and/or landing.

Is this just something to do with living in a cold country? I would have
thought a nest equivalent that directly operates the boiler would have been a
better device ...

~~~
stevep98
Sounds like you have a water-pipe central heating system. You probably have
thermostatic valves on each radiator, which control the flow to each radiator.

That's why the main thermostat doesn't do much.

~~~
ricksplat
Yep exactly! It's pretty much standard here. So I guess the Nest is targeting
people with electric heating only? Sounds like taking a "quick win" while
ignoring a potentially larger market!

------
unclebucknasty
Nest is arrogant and obnoxious as a product. It is overrated and unnecessary.
So ridiculous when you stop and think about it. If you ever scroll through the
settings, it's completely laughable that this is all for a thermostat.

And all for some supposed improvement that is marginal at best. At worst, it
simply doesn't work; taking over and setting some uncomfortable temperature
that you never requested. My old thermostat worked just fine. Set it on
exactly what I liked, so there was no need for it to "learn". I literally gave
it a specific number. Don't really get the concept of wanting it to second
guess me.

When I Googled and found others with similar issues, they seemed to be largely
insulted on forums, as if the users were somehow unworthy of the wonderful
Nest. They just hadn't invested enough time in understanding what the Nest
wants.

The whole thing seems like a hoax--an elaborate parody of the times.

------
cameldrv
If the software fails this often, they really should have some sort of
reversion mode with multiple watchdogs that runs on a tiny microcontroller and
just keeps the temperature at 70 degrees. If they can't get that right, maybe
just a hard switch that wires in a calibrated bimetalic strip to keep the
wheels on until the software is fixed.

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nrjames
I've had a Nest for ~ 3 years now. It was a mistake. The "learning" on it is
not intelligent enough to understand the idiosyncrasies of our 60 yr old
house. I have to manually adjust it every day to make sure my kids are
roasting/freezing in their bedrooms. I really should just switch it back to a
manual thermostat.

~~~
knz
Disable the autoaway settings and you have a conventional thermostat with the
advantage of being able to remotely adjust the temperature.

~~~
ecopoesis
And use something like Skylark to set home or away based on geofencing your
phone.

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rlpb
Perhaps we need to start looking at arbitration clauses the same as we see
doing business with some company is some distant country. Fine when everything
goes smoothly, but expect to lose your money if it doesn't.

The way to look at it is that a company with an arbitration clause might as
well not be in the US.

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twothamendment
It isn't a smart/learning thermostat, but I've been very happy with my
[http://www.radiothermostat.com/](http://www.radiothermostat.com/) CT30 - and
it hasn't left me in the cold. There is a newer model now, but you can get
them with a Wifi or z-wave module. It has a json API and of course that means
there are free apps too.

I easily added a few controls to my own home automation system and now I can
control it from anywhere and I don't need a 3rd party (other than the
internet) involved. What do I like the most? Since I've set it up I haven't
had to physically touch it. Programming it through json or an app is easier
than the buttons on it. Now if you want a smart/learning t-stat, you'll want
something else.

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rrauenza
After seeing this article, I noticed my Nest hadn't been "online" since
December 26th.

It could not see any wifi ssid's: not mine, not my neighbors', nor my iPhone's
hotspot held right next to it. It was fully charged, not sluggish -- none of
the problems listed as 'typical problems'.

I went through the menu system and did a reset. I think that was a soft
reboot. Still no success.

Then I found you could reset it by pushing it in for 10 seconds until it turns
off. It seemed more like a hard reset, and voila -- network back up.

It's anecdotal, but this firmware update doesn't seem to be just about the
charging. They seem to have messed up the wireless capabilities until a hard
reset is performed.

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euske
I find these companies deeply deceptive and disingenuous which advertise IoT
things (or anything that contains more than 100k lines of code) so reliable as
not to warn possible consequences or offer solid fallback mechanisms.

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bsder
Again? This smells like class action for negligence is coming at them this
time.

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CurtHagenlocher
Interesting. This happened to me on the fifth and I assumed it had been an
isolated glitch. The steps I had to take to make the thermostat work again
were quite nonintuitive, and it was frustrating at how little help there was
to be found in the available documentation.

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wstrange
Why don't they build in a simple fail safe on the Nest?

That is, have a user settable manual switch that fails to "heat on" if there
is no response from the main unit.

The house would be quite hot - but probably much less damaging than frozen
pipes.

The liability costs for frozen pipes could be staggering.

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grandalf
I had been thinking of buying a Nest, now I think I'll attempt to build my own
using a Raspberry Pi. There are some very inexpensive bluetooth beacons that
support temperature measurement...

Does anyone have ideas for cool hardware or algorithms for something like
this?

~~~
brandmeyer
Digi-Key is your friend. Build yourself a daughter card with a bunch of relay
driver IC's and 24VAC relays. Bare minimum is three, but there are several
different arragements for home HVAC, and more doesn't hurt. Some high-SEER
rating HVAC units also have multiple speeds. Say, 6-8 relays for some
flexibility. Check behind your existing thermostat and see how many wires it
gets to be sure.

Most units just use bang-bang control around some known limits. Something I've
always wanted to try is to have a "periodic recirculation" mode for the times
that I'm relying on passive solar heating, just to turn over the stratified
air.

~~~
grandalf
Great ideas.

> Something I've always wanted to try is to have a "periodic recirculation"
> mode

Yes! That is one thing I want to try too.

I did an experiment in an office setting during summer where I found that if
set on "auto" someone would inevitably turn the thermostat down to 65 to cool
some spot that was in the sun or where the air had gotten too warm. When I
switched the fan to "always on" I would set the thermostat to 70 and nobody
would feel the need to adjust it.

I suppose depending on the cost of running the compressor vs the fan my
approach may not have saved money, but it was interesting to see the
difference in comfort offered by both.

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DataJunkie
I love Nest, but this is the exact reason why I have not installed one in my
mountain home. I have to keep the heater set at 55 so the pipes won't freeze
and burst.

A bug like this would be financially catastrophic.

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upofadown
I have a mercury thermostat in the basement set to 12C directly across the
thermostat leads. I live in a cold place, if the heat goes off things get
damaged. You can't beat simplicity.

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pdkl95
So how many people will use this lesson about _common mode failure_ to re-
evaluate their risk assessment of technology with a central point of failure?

------
ck2
Now think about all the people installing "smart" smoke detectors.

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ilurkedhere
Dude, did you try rebooting your thermostat?

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shallowpedantic
this is what happens when people want to keep advancing and be looked at as
"superior". "wow you still have that old LG ac box, why don't you go get a
nest man" if it isn't broke, don't fix it. now you get screwed. hahaha.

